On one of those late winter days when the air was unseasonably warm but the ground was still covered with snow, Lexie and I decided to take a walk in the Lair. Lair o’ the Bear, my favorite name for a park. We parked by the road at the western end and strolled down to the trailhead. Lexie was wearing shorts, a light jacket and snow boots. It was one of those Colorado types of days.
Suddenly Lexie stopped and gasped.
“Mom!” she exclaimed excitedly. “This is the swimming hole!”
Lexie, 11, and her sister Kyra, 14, had gone to a Bear Creek swimming hole several times last summer with a friend and her mother, who had never been able to describe exactly how to find it.
But sure enough, and the very edge of the park, Bear Creek widened and had a slightly deeper, calm pool. It was flanked by large boulders for sitting on, trees for lolling beneath, and the water was still halfway covered with snow and ice. That didn’t deter a bunch of kids who had discarded their shoes and were splashing around in it while their parents watched, amused. On the third week of March! It was about 65 degrees, but that creek had to be closer to 40 degrees.
“You want to go in?” I asked Lexie. Fortunately, she declined, and we walked on down the trail, alongside cliffs, through deeper woods where the trail was snow-covered and slippery, and suddenly we came upon a wrought-iron fence along the left side of the trail. There was a gate that prevented us from crossing a stone bridge to the left, and across the creek was a small, exquisite stone castle, Dunafon Castle. You might have seen the crest on a flag while driving down Route 74 north of the Lair o’ the Bear entrance.
We stood at the padlocked gate and took in the castle, with its gazebo, sweeping grounds, and fountains, and shared dreams about fantastical other lives, other places, about magic and princesses and unicorns. A workman came around the bend with a couple of huge dogs to abruptly end our trip of fantasy, and we giggled as the canines frolicked with each other enthusiastically.
The whole walk was only about a mile and a half by the time we got back to the car. But it took us back several centuries, off on flights of fancy, and even back to last summer!
