Colorado Trip Highlights {Part 1}

I have so much to document about our trip to Greeley, CO over MEA weekend (October 21-24), that I decided to break the trip highlights into parts. Our first official adventure began Friday morning, Oct 22nd, when our hostess & event planner, Kathy, took us to the Wild West Corn Maze in a nearby town of Hudson, CO. Kathy, always loving a surprise, kept us all in the dark on where we would be going and what we would be doing. The only info we got ahead of time was to wear comfortable shoes & dress for the 45 degree weather.
This advertisement on the side of the highway was our first glimpse of what we would be doing that day; however, knowing we were visiting a corn maze really didn't give us any insight on what eventually unfolded.
When we marched on up to the Ticket booth, we should have noticed that we were the only car in the parking lot.
However, since we were there right at opening time of 10:00 AM, we didn't give it a second thought. In fact, we were patting each other on the back because we were FIRST! Unfortunately, there was no one at the ticket booth. We could see a few pickup trucks near one of the outbuildings, so we decided since we were early, we should just as well walk on up anyway.

The closer we got, the more and more it looked like it wasn't opened. First, we were the only car in the parking area. Second, there were no employees to be found. Poor Kathy was just worried sick because this was her big surprise, but she held it together. By now, we saw Zipline sign and Kathy told us she planned for us to be able to go on it. Kippy was spastic and bouncing up and down at the thought of it. Steve boldly knocked on a door marked "Employees Only". We met, Kyle, who informed us that they didn't open until 5:00 PM, but we were more than welcome to go check out the corn maze. Kathy asked Kyle if there was anyway we could do the zipline. Kyle said we would have to wait until 5:00 PM when the rest of the staff was available. Hearts sank and Kippy whispered to me, "Does this mean we can't do the zipline?"

Kathy then confided to Kyle, "My friends came over 800 miles this weekend and I really wanted to take them on the zipline. Is there anyway you can help us out?"

Kyle said he would try to make some calls and see what he could do. Kathy gave Kyle her cellphone number and Kyle gave us maps of the maze, which turned out to be the World's Largest Corn Maze, with over 12 miles of maze to traverse. Based on the size of the maze, we decided to go back to the car to get water bottles for the adventure.

On our way back to the maze entrance, Kyle came out to meet us and asked, "Would you be able to do the zipline now?" Apparently, he made a quick call and got the help needed to man the zipline. Talk about a turn around! We went from disappointment to ULTIMATE HAPPINESS in less than 5 minutes.

The zipline was 700 feet long and began on a scissor lift 43 feet in the air. Jake was the zipline expert (and a semi-pro bull rider) who helped us to get into the harness gear and helmets. I referred to the harness as "cheek-chillers" since they perfectly outline our behinds.

We could go up on the scissor lift two at a time, so Abby & Angelique went up first. Surprisingly, Angelique started to get nervous at the last minute, so Abby ended up being the one to offer encouragement to her and had to go first on the zipline. Abby LOVED it and this helped Kippy get past her nervousness. I'll have to admit, it was unnerving for me to see both of my girls 43 feet up in the air. Next up, Kathy & me. Now, this is probably a good time to point out that my dear friend, Kathy, is teeny-tiny bit afraid of heights and was trying very, very hard not to back out on the whole adventure. As it turned out, Kathy went before me and she said that since I was calm and reassuring she was able to go. Then it was my turn, I couldn't wait. I had to do a little upside down action on my zipline to add a little more adrenalin.

Last up, was Steve and he was more than ready to take the leap off the lift. Lucky for him, he got to be the fastest across the zipline. Something to do with gravity and mass. Kyle and Jake saved the day for us and all 5 of us got to have first time Zip-Line experiences.

The girls both wanted to ride it again, but with the worlds largest corn maze ahead of us, we figured we had better get a move on it. This is an aerial view of the maze, which we were given maps of as well. Throughout the maze, there are 24 spots with unique hole punches to mark the map. If we could collect all 24 punches, we would be added to the coveted wall of fame & enter a drawing for a plasma TV.
After 1 1/2 hours of being lost in this gigantic maze {from Hell}; we seriously had to amend our original 24 punch goal. We ended up being very happy just to score TWO punches. I am not kidding you, this maze is extremely hard and it didn't seem to matter what we did, we just continued to get lost. The best part, was that everyone kept a great attitude and looked at it as an adventure. The kids didn't whine and we had a ton of laughs especially when we thought about how confident we were when we started out. Amateurs!
Kathy planned ahead and packed a picnic lunch for us, which we enjoyed right on top of the Kiddy Bale-Maze {in hindsight this maze would have probably been more our speed}. And in the Bytnar tradition of rating experiences on a scale of 1 to 10, when Kathy counted to three, we all revealed our rating for the day...
as she snapped a picture. Four 10's all around!