Craziness in Denver

The next day we decided to do a longer hike near Boulder and then go into Boulder to meet up with David's other friend. Following a suggestion (for still and easy, shorter hike of about 6 miles and 3 hrs roundtrip) we headed to The Center for Atmospheric Research (which was directly in front of the trailhead. The day was gorgeous so we didn't take our rain jackets and headed out to the trail. It was a pretty trial through hills with wildflowers, woods of pine and beech, some valley overlooks, and along a meandering stream. About 2 hours in we started wondering where the top of the mountain was (we were supposed to come out on Bear Peak with an amazing view). We looked at our map and decided to keep going. Another hour passes and we still aren't to the top so we keep going - we really want to see this view! After 6 miles and 3.5 hours we finally reached the top with a very rewarding view. And 6 miles of hiking back to the car! After a little break and some photos (below is a photo of David and David - hahha!)  we headed back to the car. On our way back clouds started blowing in and we stated to hear thunder. We booked it down the mountain as we stared to see lightening and feel droplets of rain. After going .4 miles downhill past our last turnoff to the car and then doing back up, we reached the car just as the sprinkling rain started coming down a bit harder. Our 6 mile 3 hr. hike turned into a 12 mile, 6 hour hike - okay we might be ready for the Tetons! Sadly we were too late to visit David's other friend. In the car I proceeded to pass our under my jacket in the back seat. This turned out to be a terrible idea. As soon as we got back to the house and I took a step out of the car I threw up! Ugh! Carsick! I went right to bed with lots of water and tea to sleep it off.

We went out the next day to get an oil change. While we waited for the cars (yes two cars David and David's friends car) to be ready we hung out at The Amsterdam Cafe where I tried my first Red Latte (rooibos tea and steamed milk! Awesome!) and a free peach iced tea (modeling does pay off! lol!)

After getting the cars back we drove out of town to try to see David's friend in Boulder. On the way the car started changing gears in a very strange way. We pulled off and checked the engine and the fluids. We had no deff. fluid and an inch too much of our transmission fluid. We took Dave's car to a shop and bought deff fluid, a funnel, and an oil pan. Back at David's car we filled up the deff and drained the transmission with the help of Eric ( a very nice stranger who stopped and happened to have a 24 piece wrench set) (we didn't have the right size wrench for the bolt on the drain for the transmission fluid!). We will be off to Vedauwoo tomorrow! I'll have photos soon!

Sunny all the way to Denver!

The next day we woke up to beautiful skies and continued on to Denver. Although there were no tornado warnings it was still amazingly windy! Here I am trying not to blow away while doing my best Dorothy impression:

 

 More beautiful skies and amazingly simple swatches of color and landscape:

 We reached Denver in the early afternoon and went strait to David's friend's house. It was a bit like Dr. Sues with having too many Daves as David's friend is also named David. It made it very easy when you wanted to call both of them! Dave (David's Friend) had a wonderful house that he has been fixing up. He just got solar panels on the roof and had a cooling system that somehow uses evaporated water. (It was so cold we through we were on the tundra instead of a little house in Detroit!) Here's his great sewing machine collection:

We went for lunch at a little hole in the wall mexican restaurant (why it is the hole in the wall places always have great food?). And then we went out for a nice easy hike. We felt a bit out of breath from the elevation difference but had a great time seeing some amazing rock formations and some mule deer.

Beautiful Morning turns to Stormy Weather

    We started the next day from the beautiful Inn at Woodhaven in Louisville, Kentucky. It's a great renovated manor and carriage house. Salmon, Eggs, and potatoes- Great Breakfast! It was a nice sunny day and we started one of our longer drives through Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas - about 13 hours. We were a little bummed that we didn't have time to see the Dali Lama's talk at the KFC Yum! Center. Yes they really do have a KFC Yum! Center as you can see in my photo! Do you think the Dali Lama knows what that name means?

The first four states flew by with beautiful rolling hills and big open skies - just big swatches of color that went on forever. And then we hit Kansas; those blue skies quickly turned to big black menacing storm clouds as we hit the same storm that brought so much destruction to Oklahoma. You can see the skies just starting to get dark behind that pretty white bridge. I decided to nap a little so I wouldn't have to think about the storm. I woke up to David telling me that he couldn't see where the road was; I have never seen such heavy rain. We kept following the headlights in front of us through Kansas City. Some hail started coming down and we stopped under an overpass where we got a weather alert: "Tornado Warning for your Area. Take cover now." We weighed our options: 1) go lie in the ditch on the side of the road with hail and rain coming down on top of us, or 2) keep driving through it. We opted for #2. It was pretty scary for a while and then we saw some blue skies up ahead. We finally drove out of the storm into a beautiful day - the change was like night and day. Kansas should really be like 5 different states. We drove all afternoon and night in Kansas, crossed two time zones and arrived in Colby, Kansas at midnight (2 am our time)! 

Here's the storm through photos:

Tire Trouble

We left North Carolina early, excited for the next leg of our journey only to find a bubble in our tire wall. The only tire center open on Sundays is Costco. So here we are at our unplanned stop becoming Costco members for new tires! And here's our poor car in the tire center! As you can see we had a lot more fun than the whisky tours we had planned on doing in Kentucky!

Seagrove, NC

Our first assignment in Seagrove, NC: find some flowers for the bride's hair! We found amazing orchids at Seagrove Orchids.

The wedding was a small, beautiful affair with a bit of a country feel. Cheers to the newlyweds!

Beginnings

People ask me all the time where I get inspiration and ideas from. They want to know where my creativity comes from. Well here is a blog about the everyday things that impact my life and my work; A Visual Adventure.

With the beginning of this blog, I'm also celebrating the beginning of a 4 week road trip to Yellowstone National Park! Here we are at 142.3 miles with a total of about 6,000 miles. Only about 5,860 miles to go!