One {very busy} Day in Denver

The Alpaca Farm Tour-
While at the wool festival, we met a woman who invited us to visit her farm, Edelweiss Alpacas, so we took her up on it and had a wonderful visit with her and her animals. Carol explained many things about her alpacas and llamas that we were not aware of. For instance, they have 11.5 month gestation periods and can get pregnant again just 21 days after giving birth to their cria (baby alpaca). When they breed them, they do a “spit test” to see if it was successful just one week later. Basically if the female is not interested in the male and spits (and kicks) at him, she’s likely pregnant, ha! They generally repeat this weekly for reassurance, until they can perform an ultrasound at around 6 weeks, but those are expensive, so often owners rely purely on the spit test. Their fur is called “fleece” and the fleece around their torso is the most valued, the hair on their head and neck is considered seconds and the legs are thirds.

Carol keeps her males and females separated and Piper, a llama keeps watch over the female alpacas. 

She is VERY friendly and gave us snuggles and kisses as soon as we arrived. 

This cria was born only a week ago. She is so soft and sweet. 

Oh and did you know alpacas hum? They do and it’s pretty cool to hear.

The Earthroamer Factory Tour-

An earth roamer is what I would consider a highly evolved, extremely thought-out and efficient RV. They are custom built RVs with options like night-vision, a wine rack, a slide that opens in the ceiling above the bed for stargazing- that is one thing we have actually been wishing for! We visited the factory where these incredible machines are built, just outside of Denver, Colorado. They only build around 10-12 per year, so you can imagine the quality and attention to detail that they provide. The chassis is a Ford and they open the back of the cab up so you can easily move from the driver/passenger seats to the living space. Every inch of the vehicle has been carefully thought out and efficiently used. It’s 37 inch tires are designed to handle any off-road adventure that you could think of while running solely on diesel and solar, which will keep you comfortable without hookups.

  

The feature I dream of....the roof above the bed opens to the stars!

Denver's Butterfly Pavilion -

This is a magical place where butterflies surround you with their silent, fluttering beauty. They almost seem unreal. There are pretty much NO butterflies in Las Vegas, so the kids were even more enamored by this place, Asher especially. He and I actually went back into the butterfly rainforest a second time before leaving.

We were lucky enough to watch the zookeeper release a collection of just-emerged-from-the-chrysalis butterflies and hear about a few of the species as we witnessed their very first flight. Some were so new that they fell to the ground instead and he replaced them on a tree so they could have a little more time before trying again. They do not breed butterflies there, but rather have 500-1200 chrysalides shipped in daily from other countries! They generally have only a 2 week lifespan, so that allows them to maintain more than 1000 adult butterflies at all times in their rainforest exhibit. You can see all of the different cocoons and chrysalides displayed there and watch for moths and butterflies to emerge. I am always amazed at how different each species' chrysalis looks.

Not only do they have butterflies, but other insects, turtles, aquatic creatures and spiders. My brave little monkeys both held Rosie the TARANTULA! Yes, I allowed and even encouraged this! It kind of helps that she holds the same name as their favorite Horses4Heroes horse! 

I held her too, and was shocked that she is light as a feather! 

This was the first day the kids went to bed at 5:30pm and slept for 14 hours! They were exhausted! They kept that schedule for 3 days straight, just long enough for us to be excited that this could be the new normal...and just like that, it was over.