We’ve had friends get married in some pretty cool places and whenever we get invited to a destination wedding, we do our best to go. As far as destination weddings go, at only 2 hours and 15 minutes away Mount Princeton Hot Springs is on the closer side. In early June we loaded up the VW and headed down there to celebrate the wedding of our friends, Lauren and Kyle.
Wedding reception at Mount Princeton Hot Springs.
We booked one of the resort’s cabins, plenty big enough for our family of 4: a bedroom, bathroom, small kitchen, and living room downstairs, and an open loft with two more beds upstairs. The cabin was close to the quiet pool (no kids allowed), but just a short walk to the lower pools where kids are welcome. The waterslide was a solid 1/2 mile walk, and we never actually made it to that pool. Partly due to the walk, partly due to the cooler temps on our dedicated pool day, partly due to my major snafu. Next time I’d consider staying in the cliffside rooms just to be closer to the slide (our love of waterslides runs deep in our family).
Jurgen loving life – his first time in a pool!
Now for that major snafu. I left Alistair’s suitcase at home. It had all of his clothes for the weekend, including his bathing suit inside. It was, dare I say, an elusive perfect pack: well thought out and perfectly organized, the loaded up Trunkie was a work of art. So perfect that I placed it in the corner of my bedroom so no grubby little mitts would find it, open it, and disrupt the perfect pack. And so there it sat, in the corner of my bedroom while the rest of our luggage got loaded into the car.
I didn’t realize my blunder until we parked outside our cabin at the hotsprings. That night, Ali wore his play clothes to the rehearsal dinner, and the following morning the boys and I traipsed to Salida for a big cup of coffee at Brown Dog and a visit to the local Walmart (killing a part of me inside). On the bright side, we snagged an $8 suit that, while cheaply made, looked great on Ali for the wedding. On the funny side, Alistair was/is convinced Walmart is a destination for “people who forgot stuff” and the whole time we were in the store he pointed out various wares saying things like, “Oh look, and in case someone forgot their microwave, they can get that here too.”
Hugging it out at Brown Dog Cafe while I steeled myself for a trip to Walmart.
(While the boys and I were in Salida Jordan was out getting lost on a run. Hopefully he’ll post about that on his blog eventually!)
We all reconvened in our cabin, in good spirits despite the mornings ordeals (visiting a Walmart 40 minutes away with 2 young kids in tow is not dissimilar from Jordan’s ordeal of a 10 mile run turning into 18, and facing debilitating dehydration and the like). Per our typical fashion, we tested the limits of time, playing in the pool all day, then made a mad dash to get ready and presentable for the wedding. No surprise: the wedding was amazing with great food, beautiful scenery, and fun people. Jordan and I each tried (and failed) to learn the Floss, and the boys enjoyed cutting a rug in their own wild ways: Ali on foot, Jurgen in the Ergo on me.
That sun is bright, boy I tell ya. But how great is Ali’s suit?!
Mt. Princeton Hot Springs is, excuse the triteness, a hidden gem, and one that we’ll hopefully go back to again some day. It was fun for the kids now and will only be more so as they get older. The food at the restaurant was good, the cabin set-up meant we could prepare some of our own meals, running routes abounded, and the pools were an easy crowd-pleaser. Next time, we’d like to go later in the summer when the runoff from the mountains slows and they open up the creek to bathing and splashing – that sounds like perfection.
Insert heart-eyes emoji here.
