My wife and I have been together since 1991. Wow, it's almost been 30 years. I feel old just typing that. Anyway, a few years ago, we had an amazing day we didn't expect.
I had been working 14 days straight on the trail for our ATV rental company, Backbone Adventures. In fact, I was living on the trail. The day started at 6am and didn't end until 9pm, so what was the point in going home? I had a creek to bathe in, a little cook stove, and a comfortable truck.
We hadn't seen each other in a bit, so we decided to rent a cabin in Estes Park for a night. I'm not going to go into details obviously, but I will tell you this: Sometimes it's not a bad idea to spend a little time apart. It makes reuniting that much more fun and meaningful. After spending the night, we took the next day to just hang around together and do whatever came up.
First on the list was breakfast at the Big Horn in Estes Park. Great local people, great food, great price. Next, we went to the grocery store so we could pack a picnic for a day in the woods.
Driving around with no set destination, we ended up at Rock Creek. This is a National Forest Jeep trail near Allenspark. My wife had never seen it, so we decided to have the picnic there. We ended up finding this secluded spot 200 yards off the trail, next to the river. We had the whole mountain to ourselves. We spent almost 2 hours there and never even heard another person or vehicle. Lunch was nice, we hiked around for a while, jumped in the river, and even got a little jiggy.
Being on a trail like that, my wife decided she wanted to see more of the area I work in, which was just down the road about 3 miles. I wasn't too excited about it to be honest. I do ATV rentals and rides all day every day. The last thing I wanted to see was that trail system. But hey, anytime I can get my wife outdoors, I'm in to it.
My employee on the trail had an extra Razor available, so we decided to take it out. She wanted to see the plane crash site at the top of trail 203. I even let her drive (how nice of me, LOL). My wife is not an adventure seeker by any means. However, for some reason, when you put her on a dirt bike, ATV, or a Razor, she gets down right STUPID. How stupid you ask? Well, I bent the oh shit handle in front of the passenger seat. That's how stupid she gets.
Anyway, we made it to the top and did the short hike out to the plane crash site. On the way back from the hike, we stopped by this big rock out cropping to check out the view or everything below. We hung out there for a while taking pictures of each other, messing around, and again, we got a little jiggy. Not sure what this 48 year old man ate or what aphrodisiac she may have slipped into my system, but it was working good. Maybe it was just a combination of fresh air and being active?
After that, I decided to do the driving. She scared me, now it was my turn to show her what was up. Needless to say, this was the one part of the day she didn't like, LOL.
Dinner was spent at the Rock Inn in Estes Park. They had a great steak with an awesome gorgonzola sauce, and some live music.
I apologize if this story was a little too personal. However, I'm a firm believer in keeping spice in your marriage. When you've been with the same person for as long as I have, you need it. The best times we've had were not planned vacations. It seems like every time we do that, it never goes as expected. As we get older, it gets harder and harder to just jump on the bike or in the truck and go without plans.
Not that my advice is worth anything to you, but why not give it a try? Just clear 2 days, go somewhere, (anywhere) and see what finds you. I'm in the tourism business. I see couples and families every day who have their entire vacation or weekend getaway booked solid. When you do that, you never end up leaving time for each other and the cool things you don't have planned.