I've driven through Colorado a handful of times, and I'm here to tell you that state will ruin you for flat country. Not because the scenery is pretty, though it sure is. Because every time you come around a bend in the highway and the Rockies open up in front of you, you forget about whatever was bothering you back home. Just gone. Like the mountains soaked it right out of your chest.

So when I ran across a piece from Family Destinations Guide about a small Colorado town that makes for a perfect weekend escape, I paid attention. I've been down enough gravel roads and two-lane highways to know the best trips are the ones where you park the truck, stretch your legs, and everything around you feels like it was put there on purpose.

Colorado's small mountain towns have a way of doing that to you. You roll in past a creek that's running cold and fast off the snowmelt, the air smells like pine and dirt and something clean you can't quite name, and before you've even unpacked the cooler you're already thinking about staying longer than you planned.

The hiking around these towns is no joke either. I'm not talking about paved walking paths with interpretive signs every fifty feet. I'm talking about real trails that climb through aspen groves and over granite shelves, where you might spook a mule deer around the next switchback or catch a bull elk bugling down in a drainage if you're there in the right season. The kind of hiking that makes your legs burn and your lungs work, because you're up at altitude and the trail doesn't care if you drove eight hours to get there. It's going to make you earn the view.

And the views. Tell you what. You can look at pictures of mountain valleys all day long, but standing on a ridge at 10,000 feet with the wind pushing at your hat and a whole string of peaks stretching out in front of you, that's something a camera can't hold. Too big. Too wide. You just stand there and let it sink in, and after a while you start to understand why people keep going back.

What I like about the small-town angle here is that it gets you away from the crowds that stack up at the bigger destinations. Don't get me wrong, I love a good national park. But there's a lot to be said for a town where the diner opens at five in the morning because the fishermen are already heading out, where the local hardware store sells fishing licenses right next to the bug spray, and where the guy pouring your coffee will point you toward a trailhead that isn't on the tourist map if you take the time to ask.

I reckon that's what makes a weekend trip worth the gas money. Not the stuff you planned, but the stuff you stumbled into. The trail you found because somebody at the gas station mentioned it. The sunset you caught from a pullout you almost drove past. The burger at a place that didn't have a sign out front but had six trucks parked outside, so you figured it had to be good. And it was.

If you're thinking about making a run out that way, do it. Load up the truck, get off the interstate, and take the back roads into town. Colorado in late summer is about as good as it gets. The afternoon thunderstorms roll through quick, the evenings cool down enough to sit outside with a jacket, and the stars out there away from the city light will make you stand in the bed of your truck with your mouth open like a kid seeing his first firefly.

Just make sure your spare tire is good and your coolant is topped off. Mountain passes don't care about your plans, and neither does a gravel road at dusk. But if you've got a full tank and a little time to spare, this is the kind of trip that sticks with you long after you're back on flat ground.