Great Sand Dunes National Park

On the drive back from our Thanksgiving trip to Texas, we decided to hit up Great Sand Dunes National Park. They're the tallest sand dunes in North America, and they're at 8,000 feet elevation. As a bonus, it had snowed the night before. It was gorgeous, and totally surreal to see huge sand dunes ringed by snow capped mountains. We didn't have as much time there as we would have wanted, but since we have to go back to the general area for Royal Gorge sometime, we decided that we'd also re-visit the park. The dunes, for your viewing pleasure...

If you're ever in the area, please check it out. It's definitely worth driving a bit out of your way (two hours round trip for us added on) to experience it.

On the Road, Again

Friends in Canada, Bobby behind the camera. I can't lie, the last road trip was way more fun.

 Hello there! I'm typing this from a dorm room in Gunnison, CO. I'm here doing a 5 day/4 night orientation for graduate school. I arrived on Sunday, and I'm leaving late Thursday. It's a pretty intensive week, incredibly busy, so this will be the lone post until Friday when I'm back in my regular spot in Colorado. I don't have much time to explore the town, but I am keeping notes on local attractions, restaurants I've tried, and suggestions people have given me for when/if I come back for a visit. I can tell you this much for sure- HWY 285 is treacherous, and I'm only slightly joking. It's a two lane road that cuts through several mountain passes, oftentimes at at 6% or 7% grade. And the people driving it are insane. No, truly. I mean, that is the only logical reason I can give for passing someone on a blind curve on a 7% grade pass. Oh, but no worries- the crazy person saw the two school buses in time, I slammed on my brakes, he cut back in front of me, and he narrowly avoided killing tens of innocent school children, and possibly himself and hell, maybe even me while he was at it. Yes, that happened. No, not the best time on the road to say the least. But, the moral of the story is I did get here safe and sound, and I'm being stuffed full of learnin', which is, after all, the goal. I'll see you all when I head back North. Fingers crossed as I trek back along 285...

Son of a...

A sunny picnic in Yellowstone National Park. This picture is not relevant until the second half of the post.**

 I just realized, as I was organizing photos from our most recent road trip (the 3rd, and last, of the summer), that I have yet to blog about our 2nd road trip- mentioned here- when we traipsed back up to South Dakota for some Memorial Day weekend fun. Damn. The Texas road trip- spread out over 5 parts, I don't think any of you find Texas or me *that* interesting, haha- took up so much time that I was just road trip re-capped out. And then, of course, I realized that after the Galapagos re-caps wore me out, I was over it and didn't start the Peru re-caps until a few months after, but... damn, now that's been a month ago. I have so many posts in the can- my garden is all growin' and stuff, and it's a joke how big those tomato plants are since they avoided dying, I did some around the house craftiness, and there is a whole grip of news on the school/work/internship/life front. Per my last post filled with excuses, it's just been crazy town busy central around here. Today is the first day since the day before our trip, way back on July 7th, that I have gone grocery shopping, for example. I'm also just now caught up on laundry/cleaning and random rat killin' (errands/to-do/it's a down South slang kinda thing) that it wasn't until this evening that I finally felt like I was truly home after the trip.

I'm about to reassess every area of my life- kind of like an activity/time de-cluttering project- in preparation for going back to school come August. Technically, I go to school this Sunday, to live on campus for 5 days, take a super intensive first course, and go through all my necessary orientation to start my masters program. So, yeah there's also that- it seems like I'm finally feeling a bit settled, and then it's off to southern Colorado for 5 days. I suppose the only reason I'm feeling stressed is because of the totally optional responsibility I have placed on my self of keeping up with my blog, but still, I feel behind because I'm, well, behind. About twice a year I'll go back and read through old posts and think "I am so glad I wrote that down. I totally forgot that happened until I re-read it just now". So I'm grateful to have a random online record of my life, if only so I can look back on it and feel a little reflected shine of nostalgia via my computer screen. I'm also grateful that I froze half of the raw brownies I made, because, while typing this rambling bit of navel gazing nonsense, I polished off a little guy smeared in all natural peanut butter and I was incredibly happy for how delicious it was.**Relevance activated!

I have a really good book waiting for me, so I'm not going to keep it waiting any longer. The windows are open, the hot spell is broken, and the fan is purring some old fashioned white noise into our bedroom. G'nite, kittens. See you on the flip side, whenever/wherever that might be appearing in the midst of this busy time.

Absentee Excuses

I been hangin' around (somewhere in Capitol Hill in Seattle)

 I had the best of intentions to avert such a long silence on my blog, but things got hectic, and here's why. My last post was on Thursday, July 7th. I then spent all of that day and the next cooking, cleaning, laundering clothes, packing, and organizing because on Friday, July 8th, we hit the road for a 3,000 mile/12 day road trip. I thought I'd have more time than I did, but I didn't, so my plans to blog a lot on Friday afternoon before we left were tossed right out the window. But I'm back! Here's where we went:

Summer Road Trip 2011

A night and a morning in Thermopolis, WY to check out Hot Springs State Park

2 days in Yellowstone:
Madison Campground reservation first night

Mammoth Hot Springs Cabin Reservation second night

Yellowstone to Seattle, WA- with a long visit to Helena, Montana- to visit friends for 3 days and check out their new place

Amtrak to Vancouver to visit our Canadian friends for 2 days

Back to Seattle for one last night out on the town

Portland, OR for one day/night

 

Portland to Salt Lake City (with a long stop in Hood River Oregon for lunch, and a stop in Boise, Idaho for dinner)to stay the night and visit my cousin before she leaves Utah for Texas

Home to Colorado

 

While we were gone, our friends stayed in our place for a few days to apartment hunt for their upcoming move, which is one reason I wanted it to be clean. We got home on Wednesday at 1 a.m., Bobby went straight to work a few hours later, and I got to work cleaning/unpacking/doing laundry. Thursday afternoon, our friends Brooke and Chris stopped by on their way home from a family vacation in Wyoming, and they were here until yesterday morning- a second reason I wanted the place to be neat and tidy. Bobby and I napped like professionals yesterday, an unexpected gift since the aforementioned moving friends had originally asked for our help in moving them in Saturday afternoon. The plan was to say goodbye to Brooke  and Chris and head straight over to Tyler and Amanda's. Turns out they got in a day early and unpacked everything. So we napped away the afternoon, met up with Jenny for some frozen yogurt, and crashed out relatively early. I wish I could say I continued catching up on sleep fest 2011 with a deliciously lazy sleeping in session, but nope, I woke up at 7:45 this morning without an alarm, just as I did yesterday.

 

But don't worry, it's 10:12 and I'm typing this in my underwear with an unwashed face and unbrushed teeth. Bobby just woke up and I'm going to convince him to go to Snooze for brunch. In random updates, my plants are still not dead, and they grew 6 inches while I was gone. Oh, and I barfed 30 minutes into a 3-D midnight showing of Harry Potter 7 in Canada (sorry, neighbors to the North!) so we're having a  re-do this afternoon with our friends Matt and Paige. I think first I need to put on some pants though.

Texas Girls Part V- The Last Stand at the Alamo

Our first weekend was pretty wall to wall gogo with late nights and early mornings, from Brooke's birthday party to clubbin' it up at the Church and random lunch meetups and afternoon coffee get togethers with friends. Monday we all recovered, and then we headed out for sushi with a big group. I think this picture sums up the day after pretty well...

Love Arielle's face here. I felt that way on this inside, but I'm really good at turning on suck it up smile

Tuesday was more laid back visiting, spending an afternoon on my Dad's back porch drinking coffee and continuing to catch up. We hit the hay early-ish (midnight for me, about 2 a.m. for Arielle) because Wednesday morning we were heading out early to go to Austin for lunch, and then continue on to San Antonio. I have an embarrassing confession to make. I'm a Texas girl, born and raised with the exception of a year in California in the 2nd grade... and I had never seen the Alamo. Or the Riverwalk. I went to San Antonio with a boyfriend when I was 18, but we didn't do any sightseeing, just went straight to his sister's dorms at Our Lady of the Lake. So, yeah, I knew that San Antonio had to be on my "to-do" list during the trip.

Wednesday morning we headed out early, and I made a mercy stop at Denny's. Y'see, Arielle runs a great blog called Foodie Asshole, and she was on a mission to take part in their "Baconalia" promotion. Basically, it was Denny's regular craptastically opposite of delicious food, but they added bacon to it so it was supposed to be special. Do yourself a favor, and pop over to Arielle's review of the experience. It was so bad, she cried a tear.

I just judged, harshly. I think I was also annoyed because we were eating Denny's next to a dumpster at a convenience store off of I-35 in rush hour traffic. We started at the convenience store across the street, but had to leave after we attracted a pack of men who stood at our bumper and stared while we attempted to eat our "food".

Eventually, we both just gave up and trashed the whole lot. Good riddance.











We hit the road towards Austin right as the traffic was clearing up. A short three and a half hours or so later, we were in Pflugerville, having lunch with Mel and her husband Josh. We couldn't stay long, though, because Austin traffic is notorious and we still had an hour and a half to get to San Antonio before rush hour. We were staying with my childhood friend, Sarah, who was also going to show us around town.

 After hanging out at Sarah's house and showering off the result of having no air conditioner in Texas, we headed downtown to a tapas style restaurant Sarah recommended, the Liberty Bar, a restaurant in a restored convent. First of all, I just need to say that I had such terribly negative assumptions about San Antonio. I didn't realize it was a real city, more so even than Dallas. It has a bustling downtown, people were walking and biking, dogs were out with their owners, children toddled on sidewalks in front of their parents during an evening trip around the neighborhood- it was quite charming, really. And this place was incredible. If you're ever in San Antonio, please try it out. You won't be disappointed.

The object of Arielle's affection? Geranium cream. Yes, that's right. It was phenomenal, as was the rest of the food.

 We conned the waiter into taking a group pic. Also, note Arielle's lack of chair in the reflection. That is a skillful photo squat. After picture time we meandered back through downtown checking out where we'd be going the next morning. We all agreed that an early bed time was preferable to going out, so it was back to Sarah's and promptly to sleep on the trusty air mattress.

The next morning Sarah took us to a local bakery called Broadway Daily Bread Bakery- Arielle's review can be found here. They had a huge cutting board filled with samples, and we unabashedly helped  ourselves to a little bit of everything before carb loading our final choices.

 This is my food review of the place. A picture is worth a thousand words, right?

Golly, thank goodness for these instructions, or else I'd NEVER know how to shove money in a slot.

 After breakfast, we sadly parted ways with Sarah. She had a lot to get done before heading back to work, and Arielle and I needed to cram a lot of sightseeing into our afternoon so that we could head back to Austin that night. We headed downtown, found super cheap parking, and set off to revel in our home state's rich and glorious history. Remarkably, the weather was cool and sunny. Perfect for wandering around an unfamiliar downtown.

Putting a female face on history

 So, the Alamo was kind of...ok, I don't want to say "not impressive". It's not that. I'll say... unassuming. I guess I just had this idea in my mind of it being a bit bigger. It was a lot smaller than I thought it would be, and it was also crazy how it's just chillin' in the middle of downtown. It's interesting how the town just crept up around it. Funny story- when I told my Granny I was a bit underwhelmed with the Alamo in person, she said that she had the same experience. After years of living in Texas, apparently she told my late Pop Pop that she was going to finally see the Alamo. They booked an expensive hotel room with an Alamo view. She excitedly planned the trip, they drove down, checked in, and she pulled open the curtains. Silence. Then- "Well, I guess I can finally say I've seen the f***ing Alamo!". Don't worry, they did a real tour and all, despite her initial reaction, haha.

 It's also interesting that this is called the "Museum". It's a gift shop, ya'll. Straight effin' up. Gift shop. However, this was the perfect opportunity to pick up some post cards to send to the lil' nuggets in my life. I snagged a wooden postcard and sent it to three of my favorite kiddos. How rad is a wooden postcard? I would have loved to get something like that as a kid.

 After the Alamo and various downtown wanderings, we moseyed to the Riverwalk. Again, where did my negative expectations come from?! Can I be frank? I assumed the Alamo would be in the middle of a crappy "downtown" consisting of one strip of chain restaurants and tourist shops, with a piddly little dirty river running on the other side. Instead I experienced something that had a distinctly Californian feel to it. The Riverwalk is gorgeous. It was tree lined and breezy, perfectly landscaped, and covered in flowers and cute local restaurants and bars.

 We ended up eating at a place called Boudro's, because my friends had recommended the guac. Apparently, this guac is in one of those "1,000 blah blah blah to blah blah blah before you die" books.

Good, but don't sweat if if you do die before getting a chance to eat it

 After lunch, we rambled back down the Riverwalk, loaded up on Gatorade- aka our internal air conditioners- and once more we were in the car.

 Once more, we were a little punch drunk..

and we played around with the scorpion sucker souvenir I picked up at the Alamo in the museum that was not a museum at all. I was so overtaken with the sheer ridiculousness of the ingredients list- "Watermelon flavor, red number something, Scorpion, something or another, etc."- that I bought it without thinking about the fact thata I'm a vegetarian and thus bugs are off the menu. Anyway. We made it back to Austin safe and sound, which is where Arielle and I took leave of one another. She was off to spend the night at her friend's house, and I was staying with Mel for a girl's night. We would meet up one last time the next night, which would also be my first time going out on 6th Street. Again, this is a shame! How did I not go out on 6th street until I was 28 years old?! But that's a blog post for another time.

5 Years Ago

I was sorting pictures (I cull those, too, periodically) and came upon these pics of a road trip my cousin Mel and I took back in late September '06. I got home from Japan on Sept 10th, and 3 weeks later I found myself visiting my mom in Brownwood. I was up late, on the phone with Mel, and she mentioned she was going to be road tripping from Ventura, CA, to SLC, UT, and then back down to Dallas. She was moving home, as was her brother, who lived in Utah and needed to be picked up along the way. I asked her when she was leaving. She said "day after tomorrow". I was severely depressed due to culture shock upon returning home, missing Japan and regretting not staying longer, wanting an adventure, unemployed, and I had five grand in the bank thanks to my end of contract bonus. So of course I said "I'm coming with you". The next day I drove 3 hours back up to Dallas, packed a bag, and got a ride to the airport. I bought my ticket at the counter, to use a mere 2 hours  later to fly out to California. It cost a not so mere $300 one way. Whatever. I needed out of there, fast.

A few blocks from Mel's house

Mel picked me up from the airport, we hung out with her friends and got dinner, and then we set out very late that night.

This is probably about what our vision was actually like upon hitting Sin City

 I may have thought I was obliterated on the Colorado-Texas road trip, but we were insane tired between Ventura and Las Vegas. We rolled in at around 2 a.m., and just for the sake of doing it we hit up a casino. We played a slot machine, drank some free orange juice, used their bathroom, and hit the road again.

 We were in a bad way a few hours later at the gas station...

 I really didn't want to get back in that car.

 We drove through the night until we hit the top corner of Arizona, when the sun started to come up.

 This was an entire sky, stereotypical "Arizona has the best sunrise, ever" kind of experience. We watched it until it faded away, and somehow dragged ourselves into Utah. Directly after crossing the state line, we pulled Mel's tiny Ford Focus off to the side of the road, snapped back the seats, and promptly slept  for 6 hours, with the car periodically rocking back and forth as 18 wheelers zoomed past. Still, it was safer than driving.

 I'd never been to Utah before, and since I was seriously dating a Mormon at the time I spent a lot of time on temple grounds. It was a few blocks from Jen's house (Mel's sister, remember Thanksgiving?). We were in SLC for about a week, and I went there almost every single day. I prayed a lot. I didn't hear anything that sounded anything like "Be a Mormon". We all know how that ended.

 We spent a lot of time hanging with Jen, just being stupid, all the girls together again. This was taken across the street from a bar we frequented. I'm supposed to be lamenting the impending birth of the child that will launch me into mommy van status (pure jokes, I love mommies and babies and mommies who drive their babies in mommy vans). The fact that it said "Kid Hauler" had to be ribbed on.

 And then it was time to leave. We packed up and headed south through the fall leaves.

Southern Utah, somewhere near Moab. I would go back there 3 years later with Bobby :)

 Colorado- I'd come back here with Bobby, too :)

 

Driving up to Four Corners Monument

 We're nerds.

 Big time.

 A bit of New Mexico, another state I'd return to and explore more with Bobby.

Finally we were back home in Texas. I think I ate my weight in those trashy chicken sandwiches at Burger King (no, not the "fancy" ones, I'm talking the craptastical creepsauce long oval shaped "chicken" sandwiches they have which are way cheaper than the other chicken sandwiches and have nothing but lettuce and mayo on top of a fried patty. Gross). I know both Mel and I were at insane transition periods in our life, and it was really awesome to be with someone who truly understood what it was like to pick up and leave everything, go out on your own, change in ways  you never thought possible... and then come  home and try and fit back into your old life. I can't believe it's been 5 years ago.