My week in Kansas City has flown by.  I didn’t even get the chance to write yesterday, which is a pretty rare occurrence, though something that seems to be happening recently much more often.  I’ve seen some friends, hung out with coworkers, eaten some good food, and even taken a ride in a Porsche.  They had a farewell lunch for me today, as I hope this is the last time I’m back in KC for work, though time will tell.  If it is the last time, I’m sure we will be back for a fun weekend in the future.  So long Kansas City.

I hope I don’t jinx myself, but my allergies seem to have disappeared. While others are reaching for allergy pills, I haven’t taken any since sometime last year and I’m feeling fine. I brought along some Claritin on my trip this week but the only time I’ve opened them was to give one to a coworker. I’ve heard that this is one of the worst allergy seasons in recent years, so my cure couldn’t have come at a better time.

*knocks on wood*

Great news today for many Denver based travelers, including Kim and myself.  Our beloved Frontier Airlines is staying!  For those who have no idea what I’m talking about, Frontier was acquired late last year by Republic Airways, who also purchased Midwest Airlines earlier last year.  Recently it was announced that the two would be merging into one brand, and many were fearful that the Frontier name, slogan, and animals would be gone forever.  Fortunately, the announcement today was that the merged brand would remain Frontier Airlines.  Over the next twelve to eighteen months, all of Midwest’s planes will be painted with the Frontier livery, complete with their own unique animal on the tail, starting with a yet to be named badger.  In addition, Midwest’s famous freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies will eventually make their way onto all Frontier flights.  What a trade!

Over the weekend Kim and I participated in a hut trip hike.  If you recall from last year, I went on a similar trip and loved every minute of it.  This time our group of 14 hiked up to the Section House up on Boreas Pass.  This year’s trip was much easier than last, even if we wouldn’t have gotten lost last year.  This year the trailhead was at 10,350′ compared to 8,620 last year.  And the hut was at 11,481′ this year and 11,180 last.  So you can tell by the elevation gain that it was a slightly uphill hike, but not very strenuous.  In fact, the route we took was along a gravel road that is open in the warmer months, and it used to be a railroad, so the grade is very low.  Despite that, the hike still managed to deliver blisters and sore bones.  I guess this will always happen after hiking six and a half miles.  We had a great time though, and look forward to possibly taking a trip to a hut in the summer.

Boreas Pass on Dwellable

A lot of things have been happening at work recently.  My new team has been hard at work to release a new version of our product, as well as prepare for a big trade show next week.  I started dedicating more time to the project this week, and am now up to 75% of my time.  The other 25% is still spent on the transition for the old project.  But it looks like that is going to change again for next week.  I will likely be taking a last-minute trip to Kansas City on Monday to help directly in the transition, and I won’t have much time to work on my new project.  I’m really enjoying the new project and I’m looking forward to getting back to it after next week.  Another great thing is that I will soon be getting my own work laptop to replace my aging office desktop.  That will really help out, though I wish I already had it for next week’s trip.

Prior to the fun of last weekend, I had a 10:30pm hockey game on Friday night.  Normally my games are fun and a nice break from the work week, but playing this late on a weekend night was a downer.  Not to mention that despite our best efforts, we still came up short with a very close loss.  The team was happy to have at least won a game in the playoffs, but still we should have won this game as well.  With the loss our season came to an end.  We’ve called it quits until sometime around Memorial Day, when we will take the ice with new uniforms and improved focus.  The upstairs bar at the rink is sponsoring our team by giving us a free team pitcher after each game (a $20+ value).  It doesn’t take much to bribe our team.

After our big hike at the Grand Canyon, we spent the rest of the day working our way to Sedona.  We traveled east out of Grand Canyon National Park along AZ-64 and then south along US-89.  When we reached Flagstaff, we stopped for dinner at the Beaver Street Brewery.  We had excellent meals and beers at this brew pub and continued on our way down to Sedona via AZ-89A.  At this point, it was already getting dark out.  I wish we could have seen more of the scenery in the Oak Creek Canyon, as I’m sure it’s a very pretty drive.  We finally made it to Sedona, checked into the Sedona Real Inn, and called it a night.

The next set of pictures comes from the following day, our third day in Arizona.  We started off the day by driving down to the Montezuma Castle National Monument.  This is one of the best preserved cliff dwellings in North America, built by the Sinagua Indians around 700AD.  Part of the ruins was built deep inside a cave, and therefore it was protected from the elements.  I wish visitors were still allowed to climb up to the ruins, but that stopped in 1950.  There wasn’t too much to see, so our visit was fairly short.  We also made a quick stop at the Montezuma Well on our way back to Sedona.

Once back in Sedona, we stopped for some information at one of the visitors centers and then drove around looking at some of the amazing rock formations, namely Cathedral Rock, Bell Rock, and Courthouse Butte.  After that we stopped for lunch at the Oak Creek Brewery & Grill.  Yes, it was my goal to hit as many breweries as possible!  Again we had another great meal and washed it down with some delicious beers.  We had originally planned to take a ride with the Pink Jeep Tours this day, but decided to wait on that until the next day.  Instead, we decided to rent mountain bikes from Bike and Bean for a couple of hour adventure around the Bell Rock area.  It was so much fun, and I think everyone really enjoyed it!

After beating ourselves up on the bikes, we picked up a few six-packs of local beer and headed over to the west side of Sedona to view the sunset.  We decided on a spot along the Red Rock Loop Road, and enjoyed the amazing views east.  Sunsets in Sedona are viewed looking east, not west.  This is because the setting sun really lights up west-facing faces of the red rocks.  It was beautiful!  From there, we had another late dinner at the Barking Frog Grille.  Their website says they are an American restaurant…with a Southwest bark!  The restaurant is much nicer than their website or even the outside of the building would suggest.  We were all treated to some of the best food of the trip, along with some delicious margaritas.  I even got a belated birthday desert!

As mentioned earlier, my photos from the day are below, and again for more pictures see my mom’s flickr page.  Including this one:

Flagstaff on Dwellable

This past Saturday I headed up to Breckenridge along with Kim and our friends Ryan and Rob.  We made plans earlier in the week to attend the Breckenridge Beer Festival and arrived just after the event had started.  It was fairly cold and windy out, but that didn’t stop a pretty decent sized crowd from gathering outside to taste unlimited beer samples from over twenty breweries.  The website said, “Rain or Shine, we’ll be there and hopefully so will you!” We didn’t see any rain, but there was plenty of snow.

On to the sampling.  The first surprise was the beer from the Rifle Brewing Company.  I’d never heard of the city of Rifle, Colorado, let alone the brewery there, but their IPA was delicious as was their Anvil Point Amber.  Another brewery that I had never heard of before was the Grand Lake Brewing Company, also from Colorado.  While I wasn’t as blown away by their brews, they did have a couple of tasty entries.  Of the larger breweries, I was very happy to get a taste of small batch offering from Deschutes.  I walked up to their booth just as a bottle of Hop Henge IPA came out of hiding and encouraged them to give me a pour.  It went fast, but all in our group were able to try it.  We also enjoyed beers from Great Divide, Kona, Breckenridge (obviously), Avery, and many more that I am forgetting.  It was a great festival, and my only suggestion would be for them to add more restrooms into the mix, as we had to wait for fifteen minutes or longer each time.

Breckenridge on Dwellable

Earlier this morning the initial lineup for the 2010 Mile High Music Festival was announced.  This will be the third annual festival, and I’m hoping it mostly goes back to the way it was the first time, as I’ve mentioned before.  They are definitely off to a good start by announcing that the Dave Matthews Band will be back to headline the festival.  DMB headlined one of the nights the first year, and was able to bring in a very large crowd.  This helps explain why there wasn’t a Colorado date when the band announced their summer tour a few months ago.

In addition to DMB, I am very excited to see Steve Miller Band, Cypress Hill, The Samples, Amos Lee, ALO, Weezer, My Morning Jacket, Ozomatli, Railroad Earth, and many others.  The full lineup is below, though I’m sure there will be more additions at a later time.

Saturday August 14th

• Jack Johnson
• Steve Miller Band
• Slightly Stoopid
• NAS & Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley
• Phoenix
• Keane
• Cypress Hill
• Derek Trucks & Susan Tedeschi Band
• The Samples (All Original Members)
• Keller Williams
• Donovan Frankenreiter
• Rusted Root
• Amos Lee
• One EskimO
• Mayer Hawthorne & The County
• ALO
• The Constellations
• The Motet
• Bobby Long
• MyNameIsJohnMichael

Sunday August 15th

• Dave Matthews Band
• Weezer
• My Morning Jacket
• Atmosphere
• Jimmy Cliff
• Train
• Bassnectar
• Ozomatli
• Railroad Earth
• Drive By Truckers
• Punch Brothers
• Tim Reynolds & TR3
• Trevor Hall
• Matt Morris
• BoomBox
• Oh My Stars!
• Joe Purdy
• The Knew
• Danielle Ate The Sandwich

Earlier this week, I wrote about our big hike into and out-of the Grand Canyon.  Today I am posting photos from this amazing day.  For even more photos of our hike, check out my mom’s flickr site.

Arizona on Dwellable