Phoenix

 It's been a fun and relaxing week.

We headed back over to Mike's Tuesday evening so that I could finish the girls purses with them. We had a fun night of decorating the purses and visiting with Mike and Jen.

Scott and I decided to go on a hike Wednesday morning on South Mountain again. This time we opted for a couple trails that we are both very familiar with. We went hiking at about 9:30 and it was already hot outside. We had a good hike. After the hike we just relaxed around Brian and Jen's pool again.

Scott left for his annual fishing trip up to New Mexico on Thursday. I also found some motivation Thursday morning to go for a 3.5 mile run. It was beautiful and felt great; however I wish I would have started about an hour earlier. I relaxed around the pool for the afternoon and met Mike for my first hot yoga class and then we went out for dinner. The yoga class was great however it was hot. I've never sweat so much in my life.  The room was at 100 degrees for the entire class.   As I looked around the room I could see sweat dripping off of everyone.   Dinner was also great.  Mike took me to a restaurant called True Food Kitchen. The food was delicious! Overall, today was an awesome day.

Brian and Jen left town Friday afternoon for the weekend and I stayed back and dog sat and enjoyed some time alone. Friday and Saturday flew by and the only thing I had to do each day was to make sure the dogs were fed! I spent the next two days relaxing by the pool, watching tv, reading and playing with and taking the dogs for walks.

Scott, Brian, and Jen all came back Sunday afternoon. It was great having everyone back in town! Tomorrow we leave for Prescott, I can't wait!

Valley of the Sun

Savana at dinner Friday night

We have been having such a great time in Phoenix so far!!! I have missed everyone and it's been so great to catch up.

We woke up bright and early today to hike Camelback. What a great way to spend the morning. We then went over to La Grande Orange for their homemade english muffins and a piece of red velvet cake. We spend the afternoon hanging out by the pool, I guess it's good that Phoenix is expecting above average temperatures. We spent Friday night with Mike and the girls. I can't believe how they are both like little ladies now and not little girls. We had such a fun time with them. We also got to visit Uncle Ernie in the rehab center. Hopefully the physical therapy will help to heal his back quickly and he can be up and moving soon.

Brian and Jen's Dog - Pedals

Brian and Jen's dog - Velo

We did another hike Saturday morning on South Mountain. We met Jerry and his dog Macie. It was a great time catching up with him and hiking a new trail. We spent Saturday afternoon with Mike and the girls again hanging out at the pool at Mike's condo. Shawn, Erin, Jen, and Jason all came over. We had a fun afternoon. After hanging out at the pool Jen, the girls and I all went to see The Lion King in 3D and then to Jo-Ann Fabric to buy craft things to make purses. It was so much fun and the girls were very excited as they picked out fabric and obliques for their purses. Unfortunately, we got home too late to actually start putting them together so we have a project to look forward to tomorrow. The guys and Erin all went to watch the UFC fight.

Sunday morning we headed over to Mike's again so that the girls and I could start the purses and paint nails. Kailey had swim practice so Scott and I headed back to Ahwatukee to watch the Bears game at a local bar. Mike and Kelly also met us. It was so much fun!! We then went back to Brian and Jen's for their incredible crab legs and to watch the Sunday night game. What a great Sunday.

Miles and Pedals - Lazy day

We had a lazy day on Monday and just hung out at Brian and Jen's all day. Scott and I made a good dinner of grilled steaks and couscous. It was delicious!

Phoenix

We drove nine hours today.

From Farmington we headed for Alpine, Arizona. We have property for sale there and about six months ago Arizona had the largest wildfire on record less than a mile from our property so we thought that we should head up there to check out the property and to see what the surrounding mountains looked like. We were very happy when we arrived in town to see that there were still plenty of forests and that the whole area did not burn. We also stopped in to talk with our real estate agent to find out what the market has been like and if there's anything we can do to have our property sell sooner. It was a good and productive visit.

We then headed to Phoenix. I was a little worried because it was looking like we would get there right during rush hour, but thankfully we were able to take advantage of the carpool lanes!

We're staying with Brian and Jen for the next week and it should be a good one. I can't wait to see my nieces tomorrow night and then spend the weekend with them; we're going to have a good time.

I won't be blogging everyday that we're here; most likely it will be every few days. Coming back to Phoenix is like home to me and it's going to be fun seeing a bunch of friends and places that I haven't seen in a few years. We're planning on hiking Camelback mountain in the morning and then going poolside for the afternoon.

Autumn is in the Air

I was up at the crack of dawn today (6am that is). That's impressive for me for those of you who don't know me well. I was ready to get moving and start exploring new places...unfortunately Scott was still tired and wanted more sleep. That doesn't happen too often where I'm ready to start the day and he wants to sleep; although he says it was just too cold to get out of his sleeping bag. I finally got him moving at about 8am. The tent was covered in frost, apparently it was cold last night, I was nice and toasty with my many layers of clothes, blankets, and sleeping bag.

Fall Colors

We left for Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park through the Rocky Mountains and wow, was the entire drive today beautiful. All of the aspen trees and oak bushes are in the process of changing colors. The drive was beautiful and I can only imagine how much nicer it will be a week from now. Even today we saw yellows and reds! I LOVE the fall.

Huge Canyon

Rapids

Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park was beautiful. Essentially, it was a huge canyon approximately 140 miles long and over 2000 feet deep. We only saw the south end but we are told the north end is even more spectacular. We didn't do a hike today but even on the rim, 2000 feet above the rushing water, we could hear the rapids. The views were spectacular and Scott is already planning our next trip back to this canyon for a few days of backpacking.

After Gunnison we headed for Durango. This portion of the drive may be Scott's and my favorite of the trip. We passed through two very charming mountain towns, Ouray and Silverton. The entire drive felt like we were going through an amazing gorge/canyon the entire 60 miles. Some portions of the ride were very stressful because there was not a railing and about one foot from the road was a steep drop off. I was thankful we were behind a semi truck that way Scott had to go the speed limit. Other portions of the drive were on green and yellow plateaus and then before we knew it we were headed either up or down another mountain. We also passed through mining towns along the way. It was an incredible drive with all of the trees and plant life changing colors, the crystal clear streams/rivers and some streams that looked yellow, the huge pine trees, and the bare granite peaks with snow. The scenery and drive were breathtaking!

After Durango we headed to Farmington, NM for the night. Tonight we are just doing a quick stop over and then we're hitting the road hopefully bright and early in the morning. When we arrived in Farmington tonight the temperature was 83, I think this is the warmest weather we've seen for over a week. It's only supposed to get down to the 50's tonight!

In Loving Memory of Grandma Ruth

My grandmother passed away this morning peacefully with her family by her side. She was 90 years old. She was loved and will be missed by many. Now she is able to see her son and be with her siblings in heaven. Thankfully I was able to talk with her one last time last night. Love you grandma and see you again someday. 

Colorado Springs Day 2

Crags Trail Hike

Today started off as an exciting day of exploring a new town. We decided to first drive around to the different parts of town and then head to the mountains for a hike.

We spent two hours driving around town and never really got a good feeling. We enjoyed the downtown area yesterday but in general Colorado Springs feels old, not young and vibrant. We did find a really cool mountain park named Palmer in the middle of town that we drove through and walked around. This park had a ton of hiking, biking, and horse trails. Definitely a cool feature, but everything around the park felt old. One kind of funny thing that we saw in a neighborhood were three deer in the front yard eating newly planted trees and shrubs. I guess this was funny to us, not so much to the homeowner.

Garden of the Gods - National Natural Landmark

We also drove through the Garden of the Gods Park (a registered national natural landmark). This park consists of hiking, biking, and horse trails and can be seen from most areas of the city. The park has red rock formations throughout. It was a neat drive.

We then headed back up into the Rockies. We had wanted to drive up Pikes Peak, a 14,000+ foot granite peak, but the National Forest Service charged $12 per person and we decided not to. We did however drive over to Woodland Park, a city in the mountains. It was a very cool town of approximately 7600 people, surrounded by pine trees, with views of Pikes Peak. This is definitely a place where I could live because it's only a 20 minute drive to downtown Colorado Springs.

Aspen and Blue Spruce

Granite Peak

We also did a five mile hike (Crags Trail) today and it was beautiful! The hike started at 10,000 feet so I was a little nervous but it ended up being perfect. We hiked alongside a creek for the beginning of the hike, then through aspen tree groves, blue spruces, and huge boulder fields and granite peaks. The aspen trees were beautiful because they were already turning yellow. The creek was crystal clear and all that I could think about was how Mati and Jackson would have loved to run through the water and stop for drinks. The pine trees that we saw were awesome. I've never seen so many blue spruce trees together. At the end of the trail we had an incredible view of three lakes in the valley below. The hike was incredible.

As we were finishing up dinner at the campsite tonight a red fox thought he would check us out. Out of the corner of my eye I saw something moving and sure enough, it was a fox. He ran right through our site and then walked across to another one...apparently the hotdogs and sausages that Scott grilled tonight were appetizing to the fox also.

Overall, today has been kind of a bummer day for Scott. He was very excited, (as excited as he ever gets), when we pulled into town yesterday and today Colorado Springs did not live up to his expectations. The hike was awesome though so thankfully we did that today.

I'm not sure where we're headed tomorrow; I guess we'll see once we stop!

Colorado Springs

Thank you again Mike and Jaimee for letting us crash with you guys.

We woke up today knowing that we would be leaving Denver but didn't really have a plan. We left the house around 10am and headed to breakfast, Starbucks (to post the previous four days and update pictures on the blog) and the grocery store. While we were at Starbucks we received an email that we had to sign all of the closing documents on our house. Well that entailed printing them, finding a notary, and then next day shipping. Thankfully, we hadn't left Denver yet so we called Mike to see if we could go back to the house to print the documents. We then went to Wells Fargo for the notary and then went next door to UPS. It was now 3pm and we were finally on our way!

A little north of Colorado Springs things started looking up. The mountains seemed a lot closer and there were pines trees all around us. We were happy and wishing that Denver had been similar. We decided that it wouldn't hurt to take a quick drive through town to see what we thought. I think if it were up to Scott we would be staying. Colorado Springs seems to be Scott's number one place so far...let the compromising begin! We spent the afternoon driving around town and into the mountains southwest of the city. We were both very impressed with what we saw. We're going to plan on spending a couple nights here.

So we thought we would do the usual KOA and when we drove up to it we were not impressed. It looked like we would be camping on gravel, not fun. So, we spent the next hour driving around to different campgrounds...unfortunately most of them were mainly for RVs. Thankfully, my phone has a cool app and we found a nice little campground in the mountains in a cool town called Cascade. Now, I could see us living here! Tree covered mountains surrounding us and a quick 20 minutes drive into town. It is beautiful here. We also saw a red fox, he was so cool and really close.

Tomorrow we plan on doing a nice little hike and checking out Colorado Springs and the surrounding towns more.

It's supposed to get down into the mid-40's tonight. Hopefully staying the last week at Mike and Jaimee's hasn't made me soft so that I freeze all night. It will be sweats, long sleeves, and wool socks for me.

I think we've found another potential place to live! Yay!