Traveling selfie montage

as much as I hate to do this, I thought I would share some photos that we have taken along the way...

Hiking Vancouver 

And more hiking Vancouver

Jelly Belly Factory

5 Lakes Trail, Tahoe

Dead Horse Canyon, Moab

Biking in Moab

More biking in Moab

Arches Nation Park

Inside an arch at Arches National Park

leaving Denver, 9/1

9/1

Time to head out of Denver and on to Austin. As we left Denver we headed toward Garden of the Gods out side of Colorado Springs. We made a slight detour to walk through the park and the rock formations were pretty cool. It was interesting to see the difference between Garden of the Gods and the formations at Arches (not quite comparable really, Arches make Garden look like a small town public park) between the type of rock in the parks and the way that it was formed.

After the park we went to an Ethiopian restaurant for lunch. It was…ok. Nothing great, flavor was really mild and somewhat bland.  The just 400 miles down toward Austin. We made it just south of Amarillo before deciding that we had covered enough and called it a night.

Sandy, missed this post before...

Sandy; 8/26/15

After getting up a little late and taking an easy morning we went to check out Unified BJJ. It was really close and they had a class from 12-2 that fit perfectly along with everyone else’s schedule. The school was really good and paired with the elevation it was quite the workout. It was nice to see quite a few of the high level students in class, including at least 3 black belts. The class itself only had one white belt and the rest comprised a group of about 20 blue to brown belts. Covered a little x-guard for an hour and then spent about 45 minutes rolling. After about 45 min, we looked at each other and were both in agreement that we were done. Everyone else kept on going, but dry air and elevation had finished us off a little early.

We headed back to Dave and Sylvia’s, did some laundry and it was time to get ready for dinner. Fortunately Ryan and Darin were able to join us for dinner. Afterwards we dropped by briefly at Ryan’s house to see Shae and introduce Marina and Natalie. Hopefully next time we meet up with them we can have more time.

It was a nice relaxing day and spent a little time with the Utah contingent of the family. It would be nice to have more time, maybe a camping or ski trip sometime in the not to distant future.

Up to St Mary's, 8/31/15

Marina and I headed up to St Mary’s Glacier, which is really more like a snow pack at this point. It was a pretty easy hike, but the altitude didn’t help. The top was cold and the wind had some real bit coming off the snow. It was cool to see one person skiing in August on the glacier and several others heading up with ski’s on our way down.

The rock areas around the glacier were covered in chipmunks, ground squirrels and we briefly saw a marmot before it hit in the rocks and stared at us while we tried to talk it back out…didn’t work.

After that and brief stop at Wilderness exchange we headed back to the house. I had an interview with the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless. Figured I would at least get a job interview done while on the road. They are a really interesting group that works with the housing first model to get the homeless off the streets and into sustainable housing. They are part of a large coalition (somewhere around 500 employees) in a range of services that work with the underserved in Denver and around CO.

After the meeting, Marina and I went to meet a former grad student that Marina went to school with who is now teaching in Denver. The plan was to head after to see my old MMA coach and try to train for the evening, but it didn’t go as planned. We weren’t able to get a hold of him ahead of time and so we just headed to the address on the website (which hadn’t been updated in at least a couple months to years). When we got there we learned that he had headed up to the mountains to go hunting. So instead we headed back, found a 24-hour fitness, ran 2.5 miles there, worked out and ran/walked home.

Lazy Sunday, 8/30/15

After a long night it was time for a lazy day. Sunday we went to REI and then realized that we should have been shopping across the street at Wilderness exchange (used and affordable gear).

In the evening we met up with some of my college friends for drinks at Nallen’s Irish Pub. Matt (Reddog), Matty, and Trevor, along with Danielle (Trevor’s GF) came out and met Marina, Pablo, Kristin and I. It was really good to see them all doing well and talk story for a while about fun (stupid) shit that we did in college.

Riot Fest

8/29/15

After a good nights sleep we headed with Kristin to Moe’s bagels and got some good food that we had not been able to find in HI. After breakfast the three of us drove over for a quick stroll down DU memory lane and capped the tour with a stop at Ben and Jerry’s.

We met up with Pablo after lunch and went to a dispensary to see what CO has been smoking since legalizing the marijuana. The dispensary was a like candy store crossed with a doctors office. They had everything I could think of and ton more. Normal pot, but then everything edible from gummy bears to lollipops and all baked goods. Even lotions and tinctures to apply topically. Oils for your skin, sodas, you name it and they have put pot in it. It is interesting to say the least, and at least from the place we went to, incredibly professional looking.

That night we went to see Riot fest in North Denver at the National Western Complex. A good show, but really dusty and nowhere to sit. Some people who had been there earlier had some really awesome farmers tans going. It appeared that one of the earlier shows had sprayed something into the crowd like red dust and people were covered. People ranged in get up, dressed in all kinds of things including one guy with a tail. We went to a food truck and I had one of the best gyro’s I have had, but it may have been enhanced by our stop earlier that day.

The bands were really good and the crowd wasn’t too bad. Was able to win a rose for a Marina at one of the dart throwing carnival game stations. The line up we were able to see was: Cold war kids, The Bunny Gang, Alkaline Trio, Run DMC, Pixie’s, and Modest Mouse

8/28/15

The next morning it was time to try our hands at some real trails. We went to the Bar-M trails. It was good that we got an early start (7am) because it gets hot fast. After a warm up on some green and green/blue trails we decided to try a blue. Well thought it was a blue. Turned out to be a blue/black; and we crushed it. After a couple bails off the bike we learned that going down was really easy, but going back up the steep other side was a bit more challenging. You can build a lot of speed going down and then the uphill section comes at you sharp and fast. If you are not careful with the shocks you can hit the uphill with the shocks compressed and vault off the bike. It was a quick learning curve. Also understand why we saw people going out in body armor. But after a morning of biking it was time to hit the road to Denver. Leaving Moab we took a riverside road that was recommended to us by a local in the trails parking lot and it was a beautiful meandering drive toward the boarder. Then a bit of the most boring landscape we covered and into Colorado.

As we were leaving Utah to CO, Marina learned that her PhD advisor and several of the people she had interviews with were all in Denver that week for a meeting and would be there through the evening. A quick drive cross CO, a shower, and out for drinks and professional networking. We met at a bar in LoDo and then headed to another new bar that was full of old school arcade and video games. It was a place with dozens of mostly young men playing video games, some dressed in onezies (spelling?) and a few in capes. Marina kicked my ass in Double Dragon. Unfortunately it was team game where you were supposed to work together and not fight each other… $10 in quarters later and it was time to call it a night.