Colorado, day 3

Monday was a lot of fun. I had doctor offices to visit in Colorado Springs (an hour away from where we are staying) so we planned on staying there until dark taking in the sights. I'm so glad we did.

Our first stop was to the house John lived in when he was little. When we were taking the picture the owner pulled up on his Harley. We explained John used to live here & he invited us in to see the rest of the house. It was for sure a bachelor pad! It was cool that John remembered some of the rooms...despite the mess. :)

After that we headed to the Garden of the Gods. The pic. below is of John changing in the car. It was a neat place. We got to see a mule deer up close!The velvet is still on his antlers.

Afterwards we headed to Seven Falls to see the waterfall and do a little hiking. It was so pretty! It was 224 steps up to the top of the waterfall and they were very steep. After that we hiked to "inspiration point." It was amazing and the pictures do NOT do it justice. You could see Colorado Springs from the top. There was also a grave for Helen someone who wrote a famous book while sitting at that exact spot. I would include a pic. of her gravestone, but it wasn't anything spectacular. :)

The 1/2 way point of the waterfall

Not so thrilled about this bear sign!
King of the mountain!


Just hangin' off the mountain

Sneaky deer eating that lady's flowers. I love all the wildlife here. A little later we saw a baby deer with it's momma.

I'm so sad we didn't get a picture of the restaurant we ate at that night b/c it was soooo cute. We ate outside in downtown CO Springs at a brick oven pizza place. It was called Il Vicino. yum! Also, I have to mention that this day August 11 was our 2ND YEAR ANNIVERSARY! I'll write more about that when I post about our celebration dinner later in the week. Don't expect anything too mushy though...you know me!

Colorado, day 2

Sunday was more of a tourist kinda day. We headed out to Estes Park & drove all day through the Rocky Mountain national park. It was great, but rained almost the whole day. :(On the way there we stopped at a stand and got elk jerky. Surprisingly it was actually good. We just missed the road work scheduled to start on Monday with a lot of expected delays!

The first thing we saw when entering the park was big horn sheep laying in the mud. I wish we could have gotten closer, but between the rain and the park rangers that wasn't an option.

The big horn sheep.

We still got to see spectacular views throughout our long day in the car and managed to see the entire park! We entered the park from the SE side and crossed over the Continental divide down to Denver. We also were able to spot some large mule deer and finally as we were leaving... a moose!! We also visited the highest paved US highway just over 12,000 feet.

The mule deer.

She was so big!

Our picnic that happend in the car thanks to the rain. :)

The tundra with snow in the mts.

Off the beaten path...

Saturday was amazing. For those of you that don't know, John and I are in Colorado! Colorado is part of my territory for work, which is why I'm here. However, it happened to work out where John could come with me! So...we decided to head out a day early to enjoy this beautiful state!

The Lord started blessing our trip from the very beginning. I made a horrible mistake when I booked our tickets for 9:50PM instead of AM! To try and fix the mistake we got up at 4:00am to drive to Minneapolis and try to fly standby on the 7:00am flight. When we got there the computer said we could fly standby for $50 extra, but the lady said it didn't look good. However, for some reason it said we could get on the 9AM flight as "confirmed" not standby (so it guaranteed us a seat on the flight) for FREE! The lady at the counter had no clue why it was allowing us to do that, but we're so thankful for that blessing! It allowed us to arrive in Denver 11 hours earlier than expected! The second blessing was that we got an upgrade at the car rental place & they allowed us to add John as a second driver for FREE! Then, we were upgraded to a king room instead of doubles. He really did look out for us!

Since I had been so busy planning this trip for work and John had been in Minneapolis for the previous 2 weeks for Thrivent training, neither of us had looked up things to do in CO. Luckily John had heard about a wildlife sanctuary that rescues bears, wolves, lions, tigers, bobcats & leopards not too far from where we were. He knows me so well doesn't he? We decided to check it out and then just drive after that. The big cat reserve was amazing. The stories behind why each cat is there is unreal. Who in their right mind thinks they can actually have a Bengal tiger as a pet!? Really people!? Some of them had been beaten, teeth flied down and claws removed to be more "pet friendly." Some had been rescued from a hunting club that planned to set them free only to hunt them down. The coolest part was that we got to hear one of the huge male lions roar. It doesn't sound cool, but trust me it was....you could feel it in your chest!

There are 2-3 tigers in each cage...eventually they get moved to plots of land.

If you'll notice, her tail is missing. She couldn't walk when first rescued b/c she had been in such a small cage for so long and her body created fluid sacks around her joints to create padding from the concrete.

It was so fun to just get out a big map and say, "let's head there." We made it our goal to stay off the interstates and only take roads our map marked as "scenic routes." I'm so glad we did! We went through national forests, state parks and the cutest small towns. For those of you that enjoy knowing exactly where we went (Mike Davis) we went from Aurora to Keensburg then over West through Boulder & then down through Denver to get back to Aurora. All back roads if possible.

The best part was finding a little mountain town called Nederland, 8,236 ft. elevation. We ate dinner at a local BBQ restaurant. This was the most laid back, hippy town I've even been in! The food was amazing & the people were beyond friendly. We decided this was a mountain version of a small southern town. We saw a bumper sicker that kinda sums up the town..."Nederland were there's a dog in ever subaru." They weren't lying! There were dogs everywhere & they weren't abandoned. Everyone just walks around and their dogs hang out right beside them...go inside the stores and everything. Would Jax like a new home!? :) John & I are convinced if he and Davis were to run a town somewhere, it would be just like this! Everyone had a mt. bike, kayak or some sort of water equipment strapped to their car. The restaurant we ate at was so informal & our dinner was a Davis creation if we had ever seen it! You choose one meat and two sides, but they came mixed together in one bowl. haha! I've included a picture of what John said was his, Chris' and Monty's future homes

The best restaurant ever!

Dogs tied out on the porch of the restaurant.

The three houses that will someday belong to John, Chris & Monty.

Here are some more pictures to commemorate out first day in CO. It was so relaxing to just see a indigenous place or pretty waterfall and just stop...no agenda. We hardly saw other cars, but did see signs saying 19% grade.

Random barn we found.

Can you find me?.

Lots of turns! Boulder Falls.

Yes, the lady was hiking in those!A glimpse of heaven!

Chicago!

I was dragging at work Monday morning! I had one of those moments when the alarm goes off and you know that if it were college you would totally skip your morning class. Ah, too bad it's the real world and you're an "adult" now! :) I guess that's what a 6 day work week will do for ya!

I got back Sat. evening from a conference in Chicago. It was work, but it was also a lot of fun. We (the sales team) travel to about 3 conferences a year. The summer AAD meeting is the best one b/c it's smaller and more laid back. Luckily they are in great cities & this time it was Chicago!

Erica and I got there early in the morning on Wed. so we could do sightseeing. We ate at Giordano's and had their famous stuffed pizza, toured the Chicago art institute museum, walked the miraculous/miracle/magnificent mile, had ice cream at millennium park & had a short lived visit to China town. Let's just say, it's not like NY's China town! We ended up grabbing a quick bite to eat that evening before crashing.

Th, Fri & Sat was pretty much the same. We ate breakfast & worked our display booth until about 6pm. I always describe these conferences as the "COG assembly" for Allergists and Dermatologists. The winter derm meeting is huge & you can basically get all your skin products for the year by trading products with other companies! It's great, but I didn't do much of that this time. It's also a great way to meet doctors & get contacts in your territory. I will say how hilarious it is to watch these derms that make tons of money working maybe 4 days a week go crazy over free stuff! I love giving our products away & making relationships, but I hate the snotty docs. that think they can be bratty to me and still get free stuff. It's kinda nice to politely say, "oh, I can send you something in the mail if you would like" after they practically beg for a free product. For one split second I have the power. :)

Ah, the food. We ate at a wonderful Italian place called Francesca's on Th. night and at Ditka's steak house Friday night. I love food so these places were a great treat!

Some of the side story high lights included Erica taking a flash picture in the art museum & apologizing about it LOUDLY after she was yelled at! I had to leave the room before I burst out laughing. However, it was totally worth it b/c without the flash we may not have captured the lady meditating by the painting! Erica's mouth also got us in trouble on the elevator going to our room. A older gentleman was headed to the 30 something floor and Erica made a comment about him being "big dog." When he didn't respond....she kept talking to fill the awkward silence. He didn't even look at her! Tears were coming down my face to keep from laughing!! At least this time I didn't have a doctor tell me to "do my job" and massage the cream into on his hand, which happened at the last conference. Oh, the joys of work trips!

outside the art museum

side story: I'm pretty sure our room was being tapped b/c I found this behind the dresser. ALSO, John thought this was a picture of corn and a tractor plowing it....wow, we've been in MN too long!