Did you see that Castle??????? 3/5/11

This weekend is my birthday weekend and Dawn has found a relatively easy trail for us this week. Cheyenne was still a little stiff and I was on the verge of a hideous cold so we planned to take it easy. I have always wanted to do Lair-o-the-Bear, I just have never stopped there on my way to Evergreen and done it. It looks much prettier from above in the summer time but also very crowed. We basically had the place mostly to ourselves.
The day was a little overcast but that didn't stop us. We traveled up toward Evergreen on my favorite road and went to the park. The trail follows Bear Creek so there was water involved in our hike which makes me happy. We even had to cross it at a point. This path had some mud but a ton of very slippery ice. Cheyenne was feeling much better and didn't seem to have any problems with the ice but Dawn and I almost fell a couple of times.
There were these crazy birds along the way that would literally dance in the water while singing and then swim in it. It was like a little birdie ritual. Just when I was thinking that the trail was getting a little long and I thought maybe we were going to walk to Evergreen I saw the most amazing thing---a castle.
There is a castle that you can't really see from the road and Dawn said it is nearly invisible in the summertime but we got to see the whole thing! It was amazing! It is someone's house and I doubt you can go inside but the outside is spectacular. It is made of stone with arched windows and doorways. There are crenelations at the tops of the walls and there is even a huge gargoyle statue. There is even a tree house that looks like a turret. It has two ponds with a waterfall in one of them and a bridge over the river that forms half a moat around part of the castle. It was sooo awesome! The trail that we were on was so slick with ice that we decided that it must be a line of defense for the castle as well. Did I mention the castle is right by the road yet hidden from site! I told Dawn that it was the best present ever!!
After we passed the castle, Dawn found a black squirrel that looked like he was trying to hide from us in plain site. He was so cute! We finally went as far as we could go (not quite all the way to Evergreen) and turned around and headed back. Near the castle we saw a hawk soaring overhead on the currents.
Since we were almost there anyways, we left the park and went to Evergreen and got ice cream at Baskin Robbins. For some reason ice cream always tastes better in Evergreen.
We had to get going back down the mountain so we didn't miss our combined birthday dinner at the Sullivan's house.