On the road again...
Trip Start
Aug 15, 2006
1
12
16
Trip End
Sep 04, 2006
Colorado Springs,
Colorado,
United States
Friday, July 13, 2007
Well it looks like we were wrong about not taking another road trip for a while!
We have been in Colorado for about 10 months now (and love it!) but we have been given an awesome opportunity to work in Antarctica with Raytheon Polar Services...so it looks like we will be packing up the Xterra again and heading back to Florida to store our stuff with family before heading down to the ICE.
I wanted to share some of the fun things that we have done in our short time here in Colorado before moving on to our next adventure. First of all, let me say that Aaron & I have lived in Tropical climates pretty much our entire lives so we were excited to move to Colorado because we had heard from friends and family that we would be able to enjoy all 4 seasons with very mild winters and hardly any snow
01. Our first blizzard of the season
. Well, this was not the case!It is just our luck that the one year we are not in Florida they do not get any hurricanes (we were in the eye of 3 of them during the past 2 years!) And, it was also our luck that this was the year that Colorado experienced the worst snowfall of the past 20 years! All we could do was laugh! We learned very quickly how to drive in the snow/ice without a 4wd! (We bought our Xterra in FL where you don't need 4wd!)
Although, there was a plus side to all of this snow - skiing! We had the opportunity to go to Vail twice during the winter. The first time we stayed in my sister's time share for a week with some friends from Florida. We tried snowboarding for the first time! We also went ice skating, sledding, and spent a lot of time just wandering around the various ski towns. The second time we took my dad, who was visiting from FL. This time we went snowmobiling, tubing, and took a gondola ride up to the top of Vail Mountain.
During the Spring we spent the weekends exploring Colorado Springs. We had a lot of cookouts on sunny days at the Garden of the Gods Park right behind our apartment. The park is an amazing area of large red boulders and granite rocks
02. Learning to snowboard
. It is know for the 'kissing camels' which is a rock formation that looks like two camels kissing. The park offers a lot of trails for hiking, biking or horseback riding.Downtown Colorado Springs had a lot of small shops and bistros. We would go down there to wander around the shops and check out some of the local breweries such as Bristol Brewery & Phantom Canyon . Another small town nearby that was fun to wander in was Manitou Springs. It is more of a "hippie" town with a lot of local artwork and some really great people.
When Aaron's parents came to visit we went on the Cog Railway up Pikes Peak. The views were amazing! Our tour guide said that on a clear day you can see 5 states from up there. The highlight of the journey is to try one of the freshly made donuts; mostly because you are eating it above 14,000 ft., but also because it is a heavy donut like something you would get at a state fair.
We were able to see a Norah Jones at Red Rocks Amphitheater - this venue is a must see if you are in the area! The location is great! It is cut right into the mountain so you don't even feel like you have left nature at all! We also went to a Colorado Rockies (baseball) game, Colorado Crush (arena football) game, experienced white water rafting, toured the US Olympic Center and the Coors Brewery. In our "spare time" we volunteered at the Humane Society walking the dogs, spent Earth Day planting trees with REI (our new favorite outdoor store), and participated in a Relay For Life marathon with the American Cancer Society.
Our last site to see before we left Colorado was Rocky Mountain National Park
03. Snowmobiling in Vail
. It was amazingly beautiful! We spent 3 days exploring Estes Park & RMNP. There were so many beautiful log cabins everywhere it made you want to stay for awhile. RMNP is huge! We picked the main route and drove all the way to the top - what a view! The air was so crisp and the scenery would take your breath away! We had our own entertainment while in the park - chipmunks! The were everywhere and would do anything to get some nuts, or any other type of food for that matter! We had to laugh as this Japanese couple fed this chipmunk - the husband was video taping his wife feed this chipmunk walnuts - the funny part was that the chipmunk kept taking them and stuffing them into his mouth even though his cheeks were already very full!
We hiked 6 miles to see the magnificent Alberta Falls. Once we reached the top and looked down at the falls we realized how far up we really were! On the drive back down the mountains we spotted some wildlife which we were anxiously awaiting to photograph all day. We spotted a Wild Turkey with it's chick in tow, along with some Mule Deer and a herd of Elk. The park was amazing and we hope to go back one day when we have more time to do some camping and hiking.
After our "mini vacation" at RMNP it was time to load the Xterra and start our road trip back to Florida. We drove for 4 days before stopping to see Aaron's family in Georgia. After a 2 day visit we continued down to Florida to our final stop at my mom's house.
We will now have 3 weeks to visit friends and family in Florida and get all of our gear ready for Antarctica. We are so excited! It is hard to believe that we will actually be leaving soon! But in a way we can't wait because the hot weather here is about to kill us!
