Most seniors want to make the most of their last year of high school creating memories that will last forever. That’s what a group of six seniors did during Christmas break with a trip to Colorado.
They chose Colorado because of the wide variety of activities and all of the views the state has to offer.
“Colorado is way more scenic than other states, and there’s just a lot more things to do in Colorado other than snowboarding and skiing,” senior Mckenna Jones said.
This kind of trip is not typical for high school students, so a lot of planning came with it.
“I was on a trip out of the country, and Loganne (Barta) was texting me about it, and I was kind of just going along with it, thinking it’d be like, another one of those things where I agree with it but it will never actually happen,” senior Bennett Ell said. “And then I got back, and they were all on board with it. It took us a while, and they wanted to go to these fancy places, but in the end, Tannen (Honke) and I sat down and we figured it all out.”
The group left on December 27th, and on their trip out, they took turns driving, making stops at different gas stations, rest stops and scenic overlooks to make the long car ride more enjoyable.
“I took the first leg of driving, and we all just took turns on the way up there. The car ride went pretty fast. There was a lot of conversation being had. It was pretty entertaining,” senior Tannen Honke said. “And then we figured we’d take the northern route that passes through Cheyenne, and it goes down through Fort Collins. And I had just been to Fort Collins, so I kind of knew of some cool spots. So we went to Horse Tooth Reservoir, pulled over there and went on a little hike up to this cliff area that’s a really nice mountain area with a huge reservoir.”
While passing through Fort Collins, the group ate lunch and visited a few shops before heading to their final destination.
“We took off to our Airbnb, which we drove through Denver to get to, which was in Idaho Springs. Once we got there, we went into Idaho Springs, just a small mountain town, walked around a whole bunch of shops. Then I also had to get one of the snowboards fixed at their snowboard shop,” Honke said.
While the drive up was smooth, they ran into problems the next morning.
“The next day we got up really early to go skiing, and then there’s a snowstorm, and the highway to get to where we wanted to go was closed, so we had to drive two and a half hours around a freaking mountain,” Ell said.
Despite the detour, the group was able to reach the ski resort, which they chose because of its cost efficiency, difficulty and variety of slopes.
“The snow was almost perfect, so it made it really fun to ski down, and it was an overall fun time,” Ell said.
After several hours on the slopes, the group headed back to their rental.
“We got to the resort at around 9:30-10:00 and snowboarded until like 3:00 [and] drove home again. The weather conditions were really rough, so the roads were rough and it took us about two hours to get back to the airbnb,” Jones said.
Although there were some rough patches on this trip, the seniors still found a way to have a great time on their vacation and bond with each other.
“So we had pizza and walked around Idaho Springs a little bit more. And then we went back to our cabin and did the same thing as the night before, just messed around, had a good time and then we went to sleep. The next morning, Loganne and Mckenna made breakfast, we ate, me and Wesley went in town to drop off our rentals and then packed our things and we all headed home,” Honke said.
Overall, even though the trip only lasted three days, everyone who went felt the memories will last much longer.
“My favorite part was being able to hang out with the kids outside of school and outside of school activities, being able to get closer to them,” Jones said.
