sunshine in boulder

today was an absolutely beautiful day! the sun was shinning it was warm enough not to wear my heavy jacket...could it get any better? brooks, natalie, berkeley and i went for a hike today near the flat irons in boulder. even though snow covered a lot of the trails it was beautiful! afterwards natalie and i went to a meadery, didn't even know there was such a place and to rent my skiing equipment for tomorrow. for those who don't know mead is a honey wine, very sweet and you sip it more than drink it. i'm use to mead from the renaissance fairs, but this meadery had so many different flavors i don't know which was my favorite the raspberry or boysenberry or the traditional. enjoy the pics from the hike, going to bed early tonight as we are leaving to go skiing at 6:30am tomorrow...joy!

relaxation at last!

2.8.08 today was a nice and easy day...sleeping in until 11am, walking to the store for lunch catching up on e-mails and business stuff that had built up, benny even got a bath today! after natalie finished with school we went microbrewery hopping...first Avery then Twisted Pines. we were quite shocked to find out that anyone reading this will probably be able to find Avery beers in a liqoure store near you, for a small brewery it has quite a distribution. it was a nice slow paced day and natalie and i decided to cook dinner like we use to when we lived together, on the menu a nice veggie dish of quinoa with fresh and steamed veggies...yummy! after dinner it was on to science projects and Across the Universe a movie that has so many Beatles songs in it, Mom you have to see it! check out the link to see my loser picture with brooks, natalie's boyfriend, from 2.7.08 at trivia 80) http://www.geekswhodrink.com/blog/

illness and whiteouts

upon awaking in Grand Junction Colorado Chris had a fever and really didn't feel good, perfect time to get a cold, at least that is all i'm hoping it is! we headed into the rockies and everything started out great until we hit vail. talk about a winter storm! we were stuck in traffic as the roads were covered in snow and ice, not to mention the blowing snow that made visibility near impossible and to top it off the windshield wipers were frozen. growing up on the east coast, i have driven in my share of snow, but nothing like this! with chris moaning in the passenger seat and me with white knuckles from gripping the steering wheel and only going 40 max with 4-wheel drive on i wasn't sure if we were going to make it through. i have no idea how many miles we traveled through the rockies in this storm, but it felt like a lifetime! finally we made it through the worst of it all and were able to meet up with our friend Debbi who took chris back to her house in Conifer, Colorado and I continued on solo to Boulder, the 40 minute drive was a lonely one!
benny, the jeep was even dirtier than before...if that is possible after going through the rockies, but he was a trouper! just as i was stopped at a light to go pick up natalie his break light came on and i noticed that the break pedal lost pressure and went down to the floor...talk about scary! turns out the brake master cylinder is shot, great! but the amazing part is benny got me through all the crazy snow covered roads for the last 2000 miles and brought me safely to boulder before developing a problem, talk about faithful! i have him scheduled to go into the shop on monday to be fixed before we leave for new mexico on wednesday.
after arriving in boulder natalie took me out for happy hour to de-stress from my most recent trip and later we met up with other friends to play trivia...i am proud to say that i am a big loser! they actually award you for that kind of thing! I'll keep you posted for when they post our pictures on their website...
not too many pictures this time with the white out it was difficult to see, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

beautiful utah

so I have probably driven through utah at least two other times before today and never did i realize the natural beauty that exists there!
we woke up to snow so decided to sleep in a little until the plows could get to the streets. we were both really happy to be leaving the hole of a hotel we stayed in the night before! i got my first hard rock cafe shirt that i needed, for those who don't know i collect the shirts from the cafes and plan to one day frame them and hang them on the wall of the house that i will own...one day 80)
chris slept most of the day in the car since he wasn't feeling well which allowed me to get lost in my thoughts...it hit me today that i am homeless. i've always wanted to pick up everything i owned and just hit the road and that is exactly what i am doing...what an amazing feeling! but at the same time i realized that home has become my car, which is now gray instead of blue and black, and which hotel i check into next, which based on where i stayed last night wasn't any place good. but life on the road definitely isn't too bad, you are in a different city each night...you see everything the country has to offer and lucky for me i'm only a few hours away from good friends and family from here on out! happiness is!
i decided to take a side trip to the arches national park in eastern utah and am so glad i did. the red rock was beautiful! my only regret is that we didn't get there sooner to take the hike through the devils garden, but the sights along the drive were well worth the price!
we've stopped in grand junction colorado for the night...highway 70 is too dark at night and chris still isn't feeing well. we were picker tonight in picking a hotel so hopefully i will get a good night sleep! tomorrow boulder 80)

our sh*t hole

morning in tahoe, gorgeous! i had forgotten how beautiful it was at the lake, and this time of year was even prettier! we had ice sickles about 2.5 feet long outside our window, but still the lake was not frozen over.
we drove all day across nevada. thank goodness chris was with me because i woke up with a migraine that only got worse as the day went on so he drove all day and i hid from the sun as much as i could. Anyone who has been on highway 80 through Nevada knows that there is nothing to see, you have no good radio stations, no good sights…it’s a wonder you can make it all the way across in one day without driving off the side of the road from exhaustion and boredom! (PS chris thought it was beautiful) We did see natural hot springs…that was the most exciting thing of the day, oh and possibly passing our POD on the way…
As luck would have it at the nevada/utah line chris got tired and i was able to drive the last 100 + miles into salt lake city where we were greeted with a rude awaking...lodging is expensive unless you don't have any standards, which was us. for a whole $35 you too can stay in a sh*t hole in salt lake city. the sink was clogged when we got there, the sheet was covering the window that was right next to the bed. it even comes complete with graffiti and paper to fill the holes in the walls 80) no i'm not joking! And you can’t forget the rowdy locals who decided to knock on our door at 2:30am and keep us up for the rest of the morning. Needless to say I didn’t get much sleep and woke up congested and chris woke up with a fever…what a way to start day 6 on the road!

all day on the road

we finally got into Yosemite today and it was spectacular! the falls were actually flowing which was a shock since the roads were snow covered and icy, it was well worth the wait! benny (the jeep) did amazing and only slid once and even then it was just minor. famished from not eating we decided that the next food place we see we are stopping...the airport bar and grill it was. chris and i stood out like a sore thumb from the locals in the bar. but they were friendly and even wished us a happy journey as we left. so we started our day on the road at 10am and am now just checked into our hotel in tahoe at 9pm talk about a long day! the roads were slow going since it was just one lane each way and windy and twisty for the majority of the trip, benny even got his first road battle scar on highway 80 from a piece of salt bouncing up and cracking the windshield 80( hopefully it won't spread too much! we hit our 1000 mile on the road today and in the next two days we will hit 2000 as we have two full days of driving ahead of us to get to Denver by Thursday. i'll let the pictures speak for me tonight as now i just need to stretch my legs and relax...oh and did i mention it is only 8 degrees here?

snow and ice

Talk about adrenalin pumping! First it started with Chris’ driving in the city, and then the snow/ice covered roads going into the Yosemite area. After being held up on RT 41 for about 20 minutes the CHP decided to allow a chain of about 7 cars to follow each other up to their destinations. Thank goodness for new snow tires and 4-wheel drive! It was slow and slippery moving through the snow/ice, but we made it to the Apple Tree Inn. As you can tell they received a lot of snow! The room was luxurious after staying in hostels for the last two nights, but unable to get the Super Bowl on our TV we trekked it out to the next lodge up to see the Giants bet the Patriots…YEAH! Dad you owe me a $ 80)
So, keeping in mind the workout our tushes are getting from diving, Chris and I decided to try out racquetball for the first time…not knowing the rules we decided to make up our own…let’s see, winner is the one who can hit the ball off the most walls, or winner is who can hit the ceiling the most and my favorite, the winner is the one who can play looking more retarded then the other…needless to say I think it was a tie. Tomorrow is another day…hopefully we will be able to make it into the actual park as the south entrance was closed today.