”And the Home of the...CHIEFS!!”

This past weekend I went to the Chiefs v Seahawks game in Kansas City where I watched my elementary school friend sing the national anthem. They did awesome!! I also got to spend some time with my two good friends from college at the game. Even though the Chiefs didn't do so great, it was nice to hang out with my friends.

My friend Stephanie (who is also a Broncos fan) drove from Topeka to hang out with me

"Here come your Kansas City Chiefs"

While I was back in Kansas, Reid decided to mark off some more 14ers in his quest to climb all 55. To date he has done 11. Unfortunately he forgot the camera so no pics...

I have 6 1/2 days of work before I'm off to Kansas again for the K-State v Miami game. I love living so much closer :)

Here and There....

Looks like I have a little bit of catching up to do. Last weekend Reid and I went out on another hiking adventure. We attempted the James Peak hike again and made it one step further by making it to the right trailhead but this time took the wrong branch off trail. Good thing with Colorado is there is always a beautiful place to explore.

Our wrong turn landed us at Crater Lakes. We decided to hike above the lakes and found a campspot between to smaller lakes. Afer setting up camp we set out to do a bit more exploring around the area. We ended up at the top of Peak 1260 where we could see James Peak, the place we inteded on going from the get to. This time around I had my Nook on-hand so I wouldn't get too bored before bed time. Between that and the small stream running near our tent, I had a pretty good night's sleep for camping. Good thing because the next day I was leaving for Seattle for a few days.

Looking down at Crater Lakes

Family photo at our campsite

Twice a year myself and the other home-basers for my work head out to Seattle to work in the office. We always love our August because it is such a beautiful time to be in Seattle. On this trip, we explored a new port town and went on a ferry to Bainbridge Island. Even though it was a work trip, itsure is nice to be able to get away to one place I enjoy visiting.

View of downtown Bellevue, WA from my hotel room

Cute part of downtown Edmonds, WA (port city on the Puget Sound)

Our office always has time for a game of Whirly Ball

Seattle skyline on our ferry ride to Bainbridge Island

View of a new ferris wheel in downtown Seattle

This weekend Reid headed out to Aspen to do some technical climbing with a friend. That left Snyder and I am home to hang out. On his way out of town, Reid dropped us off at the dog park. Snyder and I stayed there for a bit then headed across the street to do some hiking on Green Mountain. It ended up being quite a long hike but we enjoyed some great views of Red Rocks and downtown Denver. We finished our hike only to have another 3-4 mile walk home. Let's just say Snyder and I are now enjoying some nice relaxation at home.

View of downtown from Green Mountain

Red Rocks from Green Mountain

Hiking with my pups

 The weather finally feels like fall is coming and this is my most favorite time of the year! Football, pumpkin flavored goodies, spice candles and trees changing colors...very much looking forward to it.

Where Are We?

Last weekend we had a trip planned to hike Heart Lake Trail to James Peak. This was going to be about a 14 mile trek we were going to do in two days. With us being last minute packers, we packed up morning of, printed off directions and we were off into the mountains.

Then the fun begins. First we drive right past our road, but that's okay, we wanted to see Winter Park anyways ;), then we found the road only to get lost again by the directions. So we turn around and head in the direction we thought. Turns out we went the right way the first time but the road we needed to take was closed off. Lucky us our GPS was working on the phones so we weaved the back country roads around our road closure only to come to a dead end. THANKS GOOGLE MAPS! You were unhelpful yet again. We ultimately decided that where we neeeded to go was not accessible the way Google maps took us. So instead of driving another hour and a half to get to the right place, we went back to the drawing board and found a new place. Here is where we ended up...

The Vasquez Peak Wilderness! I'd say we did pretty good. So we pitched out tent and set out to explore. We were sitting in a valley so we had plenty of small peaks to choose from for a climb up. We chose one to our north, thinking it was Vasquez Peak. This short 30 min hike was a tough one but we made it only to discover this...

 That Vasquez Peak was through the next valley and not where we were :( Oh well, we got to see the Indian Peaks off in the distance where we were about a month ago. So we hiked the ridge we were on for a while and headed back down to camp to rest our feet.

We took in the scenery, let Snyder run around the meadow and made some dinner. Reid had some very cheesy mac n' cheese and I chowed down on some pesto pasta with salmon. YUM!! After dinner we decided to entertain ourselves by tossing rocks at a "target" to see who could hit it first. Sounds lame but it entertained us for a while.

With the sun setting and the temps cooling off, we decided to head into the tent for some sleep. Reid fell asleep just fine, but I suddenly was wide awake and could not fall asleep at all. In the end, I asked if we could pack up camp and head back home so I could sleep in my cozy, comfy bed (I guess I should mention Snyder popped a hole in my sleeping pad so I was basically sleeping on the ground). Reid was on-board so we packed up, started hiking out as the sun was setting and ended the journey out by headlamp. On the way we passed multiple campers who had fires going!! Would be fine and dandy expect Colorado is under a fire ban! Geesh people...

The next day was nice and relaxing! We spent some time at the pool, watched some Olympics and that evening took Snyder on a walk in the Ken Caryl Valley. If you've ever been to Colorado and seen the red rocks area, this vally is very similiar in scenery. Since we went in the late evening, we had the pleasure of seeing some wildlife.

It was a wonderful evening walk and afterwards we enjoyed some good ole burger and fries from Rox's Bar and Grill. We had our order to go and went home to also watch the Seattle Sounders beat the LA Galaxy 4-0!! Unheard of but oh, so happy :)

Reid has one more test this week to take (an ethics exam) and we have plans to go back to our original hike this weekend. Then off to Seattle for work next week for me...