I added a few photo albums to the site from Kim’s family’s trip out to Colorado. I wish I could have joined them for more of the activities, but it looks like they managed to have fun without me. I did visit their cabin on night and we went to a local track to race some go carts. That was a good time, even though I always seemed to get stuck with the slow cars. Next time I will definitely have more vacation saved up so I can do even more activities.

I hope you aren’t sick of our pictures yet; I’ve added more! The first group comes from our drive out to Utah last week, which became my first time in Wyoming. The drive was very windy, cold, and we ran into a little storm too. It didn’t make for the best driving conditions, but it led to a few good pictures. Check them out in this gallery.

The second gallery comes from our brief stay at the Zermatt Resort. It was a very nice place, but a little secluded. Fortunately they had enough activities to keep us entertained for a little while, including some shuffleboard.

I’ve also posted pictures from our super busy Saturday after leaving the resort. After making a long drive, our first stop was at the Hovenweep National Monument, which is actually a series of various Native American Puebloan-era villages. The building remains date back to 800 years ago, or more. Had I known how much there was to see, I would have planned to spend more time here, but unfortunately we were only there for less than an hour.

From there we made another quick stop at the Four Corners. I’m sure most people know what I am referring to, but if not this is where four states all meet at one point. What I didn’t know prior to visiting is that the site actually sites on Native American lands, and the Navajo Nation Parks and Recreation Department actually run the site, charing $3 admission per person. There isn’t much to see there, but it’s cool to say that you once stood in four different states at the same time.

Continuing on, we drove through parts of New Mexico and Arizona to get out to Monument Valley. This area near the Arizona and Utah border is a sandy desert filled with many bright red buttes and mesas. It has been filmed many times for movies, especially westerns, TV commercials, etc, so it may look familiar. We didn’t make too many stops, as it was already getting late, but did manage to take a number of pictures. The best of what we have can be found here, along with other pictures of Hovenweep and the Four Corners.

After spending so much time at Arches on Saturday Sunday, we were left with only a few hours to explore Canyonlands National Park. This is a large park that is divided into four different districts by the Colorado River and Green River. The district that we explored is called the Island in the Sky. Once inside we found multiple amazing overlooks of the surrounding canyons from up on the 1,000 foot sandstone mesa.

If we had more time I would have loved to explore the off road vehicle trails, but since we were limited on time we mostly drove to the various overlooks and took in the incredible scenery. We did take a two mile round trip hike at the southern tip of the region, from the Grand View Point Overlook. Although there was no real goal we were trying to reach at the end, the hike provided nonstop views of the canyons and surrounding landscape. Kim called it the coolest hike that we took of the day, and I would have to agree. It wasn’t as cool as seeing the arches earlier in the day, but this hike was better than the hikes to the arches.

I’ve added another photo gallery for pictures from Canyonlands that can be found here. We didn’t take quite as many pictures as we did in Arches, but I still think there are some really good ones.

I’ve started sorting through the over 500 pictures we took while in Utah and the other surrounding states. The first batch of pictures that are ready for viewing come from Arches National Park. I knew going into this weekend that this was going to be my favorite place we saw, and I was not disappointed. It truly is an amazing place, and I’m not sure that the pictures will even do it justice, although there are some pretty good ones.

We started the day by driving toward Balanced Rock, which is a sandstone boulder the size of three school buses that sits atop a pedestal of mudstone. The mudstone weathers away more quickly than sandstone, and this will eventually lead to it’s collapse. There is a short hike around the rock but we opted to save our energy for later hikes and try to avoid the big crowds.

Our first hike came in the Devils Garden section as we decided to head up and see Landscape Arch. Landscape Arch is the largest known natural rock arch in the world. It spans 290 feet and at it’s thinnest is only 6 feet thick. At one time you could hike all the way up to the arch, but since some larger pieces fell from the arch in both 1991 and 1995, it is no longer allowed. This arch really could fall at any time.

From there we headed toward Delicate Arch, the most famous thing in the park. We opted to take the longer hike all the way up to the arch instead of a much shorter hike to a viewpoint one mile away from the arch. The hike is 1.5 miles each way and it ascends 480 feet in elevation. But doing this hike is so worth it once you finally come face to face with this massive arch. The longer hike also helps avoid the crowds. When we finally arrived at Delicate Arch there were only a few other people there. It was very easy to get as many pictures as you wanted. In fact, I found it hard to stop taking pictures. It definitely was the highlight of the park, and made the tiring hike well worth it.

All of our pictures from Arches can be found in this photo gallery. There are 45 of them there, weeded down from the 140ish I started with. I hope I didn’t leave anything out. Enjoy!

Snowboarding in June? Yes it is possible, and that’s what Kim and some friends did on Saturday afternoon. Arapahoe Basin is by far the longest open ski area around. In fact they just closed for the season yesterday. Since I was having some ankle problems, I sat this one out and spent most of my time hanging out at the base taking pictures. Kim also got some shots from up on the mountain where people were attempting to skim across a small pond on their skis and snowboards. It was a gorgeous day in the mountains.

Taking full advantage of the weather, later in the day we headed to the Green Mountain Reservoir to camp with a group of twenty or thirty others. We spent the afternoon and evening cooking up food, hanging around campfires, playing glow in the dark bocce, and having a great time with lots of new friends. As it gets very cold at night, I think Kim and I are going to have to invest in some better camping equipment soon. Otherwise, we all had a great time and I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Over the holiday weekend we finally made the trip to Rocky Mountain National Park. Our good friend Amy was visiting for the weekend, thus giving us a great excuse to finally make the drive up. We started on our way around 8:30 and were at the park’s west entrance around 11. We made a quick stop at the Kawuneeche visitors center for some information and then continued on our way toward a trailhead that would take us to Adam’s Falls.

Before we could even make it to our trail, we stumbled upon a couple of Moose who were grazing right off the side of the road. This was the first time I have ever seen Moose, and it was on the top of my list of things to find for the day. I was astonished that my first goal was met so quickly and easily. Throughout the rest of the day, we only managed to see a glimpse of another Moose after that. So I guess we were a little lucky to find these two.

The hike to Adam’s Falls was a fairly simple one, measuring .3 mile each way. The only difficult part about it was the constant changing altitude, but we survived it with no problems. These waterfalls were wonderful and all of the varying colors of leaves provided the perfect backdrop. I took lots of pictures of this area, but it was very hard to capture the multiple stages of the falls and the twists and turns that lie between them as the crystal clear water winds through the rocks.

Another highlight of the trip, at least for me, was the drive on Trail Ridge Road, which is the highest paved continuous highway in the United States. This road is closed for the winter and even still has high snowpacked banks along the sides of the road that had to be cutout. I wanted to wait for this road to open before going to Rocky Mountain National Park, as it is the only way to get from one side of the park to the other. Originally I planned to spend as much time on the east side of the park as we did on the west, but by the time we got there we were hungry and ready to head back.

Before leaving the park, we did get some of our closest moments with multiple groups of Elk. At times, we were probably within twenty yards of them. The largest groups we saw were near the Sheep Lakes, where I was actually hoping to see some Big Horns, but no luck this time. However, the Elk were a pleasant surprise, as I don’t think I had seem them this close before. Plus with the backdrop of the trees and mountains I was able to get some good pictures of them.

I decided to snap a couple more pictures of our ever improving front yard today while I was out watering. I still have to mulch some areas, and decide how I want to edge one particular area. But the porch is completely re-stained and we even have some grass growing. It’s quite a change from what it looked like when we first moved in, but it’s definitely a good change. Just look at these pictures from before (especially this one) compared with how things are looking now in this photo album.

Even the neighbors are taking advantage of the good looking yard we have now by putting their house up for sale. Anyone want to join us out in Colorado?

In case you missed it the other day, my pictures from our extended weekend are up on the site. The only events I have pictures from are our afternoon at Red Rocks and the New Belgium Brewery tour. I forgot the memory card for the camera a couple of times and the internal camera memory quickly fills up. Luckily, everyone else took lots of pictures. Phil has posted his pictures on his site. Be sure to check those out!

Speaking of the New Belgium Brewery tour, I would highly recommend this tour if you are ever in Fort Collins. Or even if you are in Denver, it is worth the approximately hour drive north. They do not take reservations so I would encourage showing up early to get your name on the list. If you have to wait long, head down to old downtown Fort Collins. There are numerous brewpubs in the area. Our choice was CooperSmith’s, which had great bear and great food. After finally going on the tour, we got to choose four beers each to sample. After tasting all of our choices, Abbey and 1554 were on the top of everyone’s lists.

Last night we dropped off Kim’s old company car and picked up the new one! The car that she was driving around (Mercury Sable) was nearing the end of it’s life, and instead of fixing it up they just decided to get her a new one. Obviously there were no complaints from us. They gave her the choice of a Chevrolet Equinox or some style of Buick. Obviously with the weather and mountains in Denver, the choice was easy. We went with the Equinox, which is an all wheel drive crossover SUV.

The color we picked is called Granite Gray Metallic and was the darkest shade of gray available to us. The highlights so far are the all wheel drive (although we haven’t had to use it yet), the spacious interior, and an auxiliary input jack on the stereo, which makes it very easy to hook up our Sirius receiver or an mp3 player. It drives really smoothly and has quite a bit of power. There is even a towing package on it, so now we just need some snowmobiles or a small speed boat.

A couple of weeks ago we started our landscaping project by first removing all of the old and overgrown bushes. From there we then fixed up the beds, moved some heavy slabs of rock for the walkways, and finally yesterday planted eight small plants: five Winter Gem Boxwood (Buxus microphylla) and three Emerald ‘n Gold Euonymus (Euonymus fortunei). I still need to add some mulch, but things are definitely looking better than before we started.

Within an hour or getting the plants in the ground a crazy storm came through. It was nice because I didn’t have to water anything, but I could have done without the hail and the excessive rain. We had a little flooding which may have washed away some grass seed that I put down a few days ago. Time will tell, I guess. I have some before and after photos along with some pictures of the hail.