Once upon a time, my darling dear grandma needed to go back to her beautiful house in Colorado. And by "needed" I mean "really really wanted and wouldn't stop talking about it until one of us caved." I divided up the pro con list.
Pros:
Road Trip
Getting to see Garrett in Salt Lake City
Being in Colorado where it's all country living
Not having anywhere to be
Living on the land
Relaxing with my family
Cons:
Being away from my mom and dogs
Reminds me of Papa
20 hour, 2 day drive
I knew mom would send me picture texts all day of the dogs, and we would talk multiple times a day, and I made like 15 mixes for the car ride, so pros won.
So we packed up the Honda Odyssey and off we went. I might or might not have cried saying bye to my mom. Embarrassing.
I took so many pictures in Colorado (over 800) I didn't even know how to attempt to blog about this trip and choose between the pictures. So for my sanity and your interest being upheld through out the post, I decided to just organize them into sections. Yay for being a list maker and organization freak. My future home will be so happy.
Road Trip
So I headed over to Nanny's house at like 7am, packed up the car, cried saying bye to mom and gave her the look, and we were off. We hit a storm five minutes into the drive which lasted to vegas. Yay traffic and slick roads. But it gave us the chance to stop for some hot chocolate at starbucks. And we got to change outfits for the highway fashion show like nine times due to weather changes. Anyways, I made a bunch of cds for the road, and bought Nanny 3 crossword books to keep her busy, so the trip to salt lake went faster than I thought it would. That trip is so redundant it's almost painful. I've been doing that drive at least once a year since I was a tiny little girl with pigtails. My favorite part is still from arizona to st. george. We finally got to the Little America, where my family and I always stay, and Garrett met me in the lobby.
I hadn't seen him since August so I was really excited and didn't even care that I was in pajamas and road trip hair. We left Nanny in the hotel room and Garrett drove to Cafe Rio, where we got dinner and brought it back to the room. After dinner, and talking with Nanny, Garrett and I went for a long drive around Salt Lake. He showed me where he works at the Huntsman Center, we drove by his new apartment, drove up to the capital...
...drove through all the Avenues and by all the haunted houses, cute houses, and crack houses. We drove by Temple Square...
...drove by all the nice houses where the Apostles live, and finally ended up at Ensign Peak.
We spent probably an hour at Ensign Peak trying to ditch a rent-a-cop so we could take some pictures overlooking salt lake. We finally got up to the overlook and the wind was like 50 mph. Thanks wind.
We attempted a couple other places, got creeped out by the homeless inhabitants lurking in the bushes, and ran to the car in a random church parking lot where a gay couple were making out. Awkward. We decided the few pictures we got were fine and booked it. It was a great start to the trip. I miss living 2 minutes from Garrett in Utah. Thank goodness for cell phones. Serious. I got home from the drive and was really tired. Nanny and I stayed up watching movies on the hotel tv and finally woke up to our alarm. I snoozed it until an hour later, put on another movie and we decided to take our time, order room service and just relax.
We shopped at the hotel gift shops for a while, filled up the tank, got our morning caffeine fix and we were off. Again. We got to the 215 East when all hell broke loose. Aka hail, rain, wind.
This lasted throughout Park City, up to Wyoming. The little Utah towns we passed through were actually adorable and I took a mental note of my favorites as a wife and mom to be one day. I know, it's sick, but I am who I am. We hit Wyoming and the wind was insane.
I literally white knuckled the entire 10 hour drive. But it was sunny, Nanny was happy with her crosswords, I had my music, so all was well.
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[Finally we had made it to colorful colorado]
Sunsets
After long days of nature walks, long naps, homemade dinners, movie nights, watching our favorite shows, catching up on reading, and sitting around talking...nothing was better than sitting out on the back deck listening to the crickets starting their nightly chirping (shout out to Walter my cricket), sitting on the porch swing, feeling the cool air, and watching the bright sunsets waiting for the stars to come out.
What do we do on vacation? We hang out...
Sleeping in, staying up late, movies all day long, sight seeing, reading, watching hulu until the laptop was hot, dancing in the kitchen and around the house, living in pajamas, cooking at home, reading, long walks, long runs, naps on the porch swing, living outside; basically the days consisted of doing whatever we wanted.
[movies and falling asleep]
[weekly grocery nightmare]
[nanny was so excited about my new soft taco recipe]
[the chef]
[the best day was when my aunt came into town bearing gifts from my mom and had this little gem. a huge letter and pictures from nick. i cried.]
[read some books, but mostly it was magazines consisting of celebs, martha stewart, interior design, recipes and other goodies]
[homesick for mom...smelling her sweater i found in the closet. loser.]
[so many postcards. sent to my family, one to my dogs, garrett, and nick.]
[nanny knitting me a scarf. lets hope it rains in sd so i can wear it.]
Surrounded by nature
[crab apples in our yard, pumpkins on the fence, chupie's homegrown radishes and carrotts]
[goodies in the garden]
[bunnies in the yard, mating grasshoppers everywhere you looked, wood pecker, old crow and my friend Walter the cricket in the basement]
[walking the loveland trails, devil's backbone, roosevelt national forest and lovely shin splints]
[the lake, the geese, the full moon]
[one of my favorite old trees]
Everyone who knows me well knows my one true passion in life besides art and dogs are horses. Horses are my favorite things in the whole world. I could sit and watch them forever. They amaze me and make me so happy. Being around horses is almost a spiritual experience for me. It awakens something within me. I was driving around Loveland and found this old pasture with horses grazing on the other side of the meadow. I couldn't see them that well but stopped at the fence anyway. They looked up and saw me, looked me in the eyes for a moment, and walked over. I was so excited. I spent the next two hours petting them and just enjoying being in their presence. It was my favorite part of the trip.
There is this park just down the road from the house that is filled with big trees, a lot of sculptures by local artists and little ponds everywhere. We always go here when we come to Loveland and it holds special memories for our family because it's where we held my grandpa's memorial.
[meet my friend thomas. thomas the squirrel]
[thomas saw a dog run under the tree and hit the deck]
Chupie Dates
I wish you all knew Kristina, aka Chupie. She's practically my cousin. My aunt and her mom Barb have been best friends since they were little girls. My mom and Aunt grew up with Barb. Barb and Ross are best friends with our family, and Chupie is one of them so she's one of us. Chup lives in Fort Collins which is like 15 minutes from the house in Loveland, so we got to see her tons. She would go over and knit with Nanny every night and take her trash out and sleep over after my aunt and I left. Basically Chup is our angel. Chupie is probably one of the nicest, most genuine, hard working people you'll ever meet. She's so smart is constantly baffles my mind and she's got such a good head on her shoulders. She never talks bad about anyone unless you really need to vent and then it's hysterical. Basically, I love Chupie a lot.
[chup came over for dinner, then i did her hair]
[wine for the ladies...]
[...and chup brought sparkling peach cider for me]
[before]
[after]
[and then i put it in a snookie poof...and then i braided the back to look like a polygamist wife]
[Chup took us to her favorite restaurant Cafe Vino. Amazing]
Estes Park
We always go up to Estes Park whenever we're in Colorado. It's only half an hour down the road from the house. It twists and winds through the Roosevelt National Forest and is a gorgeous drive. We have our favorite stores to go to, favorite places to eat at, favorite spots to take pictures, and favorite places to buy sweatshirts and other souveniers.
[one of my absolute favorite stores ever. plus i found my fossil wallet here]
[one of our favorite stores in estes]
[you know you're in colorado when there's a fisherman's christmas tree]
[the best food]
[motorhome birdhouse]
[my friend maggie in the candle store]
[i wanted to buy these for garrett]
["hella: your headband is hella tight."]
The Stanley Hotel
On the way home from Estes, we stopped by the Stanely Hotel. It's right next to Estes Park, and is the hotel where they shot the movie The Shining. It's a gorgeous hotel, but you can just tell it's haunted. Their gift shop is amazing, and there's nothing more relaxing than sitting on the southern style front porch in a rocking chair, looking out at the view and drinking a cold diet coke.
On the way home from Estes Park and The Stanley Hotel, we decided to stop on the side of the road, hike down to the river and put our feet in. That turned into me crossing the entire river like a pioneer. Except replace the oxen and covered wagon with rainbow flip flops and a camera. It was so great. I splashed in the river and laughed, feeling like a little kid again. It was amazing to sit on a rock in the middle of a bustling river with the wilderness all around me. It was perfect.
So after a very long, busy trip, we sat on our luggage so we could squeeze all the extra stuff we bought in them, shoved it all in Chupie's car like a puzzle, said bye to Nanny and were on our way home. It was a great trip, but we were ready to be home in our own beds, with our dogs, in the california sunshine.
