Fun Valley is a trip to your childhood

I often wonder what my wife was like when she was the same age as our teenage daughter is now.

Was she spoiled?

Was she flirty?

Was she a tomboy?

Was she the kind of girl who dotted her “i’s” with hearts?

I’ll never know for sure just what she was like in her formative years in Leedey, America, because, obviously, I don’t have a time machine.

I did, however, take a trip back in time with the lady and the rest of her family on a recent vacation.

The place is called Fun Valley, Colo.

Situated just a little southwest of South Fork, Fun Valley Resort was established in 1959.

It’s - just as the name suggests - a valley in the mountains. It’s picturesque place that looks like a Bob Ross painting (happy little trees everywhere).

My wife’s family visited the spot multiple times when she was growing up. They had great memories of the place and decided to make a return trip to try to relive them.

Judging from my experience, few things have changed since they went there in the 1980s…or the decades prior.

Sure, it’s got a few newer cabins. The office area has WiFi. There are golf carts you can rent to get around.

But everything else? It’s like a trip back to your childhood.

Ever watch Dirty Dancing and wonder where such a place exists where whole families go to what is seemingly summer camp?

That’s Fun Valley, minus the risqué dance sessions held by staff members after hours.

There are the new cabins. There are the old cabins (our accommodations for the week). There are RV spaces (hundreds). There are campers to rent and places to pitch a tent.

The Rio Grande runs from one end of the other and you’re more than welcome to tube the length of it.

There’s fishing for little kids (you can’t NOT catch a trout).

There’s dining. A grocery store. Paddle boats. Places to play basketball, pickle ball and cornhole. There’s a putt-putt course.

There’s a square dance hall (yes, square dance hall). They have a street dance once a week, complete with a DJ. They have a non-denominational church service on Sundays. They have arts and crafts sessions.

You can hike. You can ride a golf cart around. You can just go for a walk. You can sit and do nothing (cell phone service was minimal at best down in the valley).

But what got me the most was the bicycles.

When I grew up in Dover, the bike (had to have that BMX or Mongoose) was the transportation not of choice, but necessity for kids my age.

That’s how we got around. Steve Matthews and myself biked for hours in our neighborhood.

But you don’t see it much anymore…unless you go to Fun Valley.

Adults biked. Teens biked. Kids biked. It was like I was back on the north end of Dover in the early 1980s.

Bikes were everywhere. Parents just let their kids take off for the day and they didn’t have to worry about their safety.

And when a gang of kids wanted to make a trip into the cafe or the grocery store? They laid their bikes on the ground and went inside.

Nary a worry about someone taking off with it. It was the true trip back in time.

I had the chance to golf in the mountains in South Fork. We took one day to go on about an 80-mile trail ride through even more mountains. We drove to Creede where I ate a steak on the banks of the beautiful Rio Grande.

All of that was fantastic. But I still couldn’t get past reliving my youth inside the boundaries of Fun Valley.

I didn’t fish. I didn’t putt putt. I didn’t ride a bike. (I did however, take my greatniece on multiple rides on the golf cart to put her to sleep).

I sort of just watched everyone else and took it all in.

Watching our daughter do all of that and more - while not once worrying about her phone - was a true joy (whereas I was making several walks to the WiFi zone to check OU and OSU softball and baseball scores each and everyday).

During our trip there - and since returning - we’ve discovered several other people in and around the Kingfisher area have also been to Fun Valley at one time or another.

Some have even said it’s one of their favorite places on this earth.

I hope to go back sometime. It’s one of the more calming, relaxing, peaceful, happy places I’ve been.

It’s even got a game room, or rec hall if you will. It’s one of those places where you write your name on the wall or ceiling.

People have been doing it for decades.

It was there that I discovered that my wife in 1987, when she was about the age our daughter is now, did, in fact, dot her “i’s” with a heart.