As a Montanan, I grew up surrounded by mountains. I summited my first ones when I was a young teenager and I’ve bagged quite a few more in the years since. I won’t lie and say they were easy hikes, because they weren’t. But most of them weren’t too terribly difficult because these mountains topped… Continue reading Conquering our First Colorado 13er – Mount Flora
Within the first few weeks of our arrival in Colorado, we learned that if you want to find a place to park at any of the trailheads within about a 2-hour radius of Denver, you have to be willing to get there early. And by early, I mean 6:00am. It’s a multifactorial issue. Coloradans are… Continue reading Six of one, a dozen of the other – Brainard Lake Recreation Area, Colorado
When I mention giant redwood trees, Sequoia National Park and California are probably two of the first places that come to mind. But if I’d mentioned giant redwood trees about 34 million years ago, you’d most likely be thinking of Colorado instead! Thirty-four million years ago, what is now the Florissant Valley in the Rocky… Continue reading Shadows of the Past – Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, Colorado
As a perpetual vacation planner, it’s probably not terribly surprising that I started planning Colorado adventures months before our arrival in Denver. Nothing too in depth, because reality forced me to balance adventure planning with job applications and apartment hunting and the like. Nevertheless, I decided early on that we were going to spend as… Continue reading Rocky Mountain National Park Hikes: Gem Lake
After spending a short time in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, it’s very easy to see why John Denver wrote a beautiful song about them. It’s just about impossible not to feel a natural high from spending a few minutes surrounded by the red rock canyons and pine forests and wide-open meadows and towering peaks… Continue reading Colorado Rocky Mountain High
(Read part 1 of this post here) Day #5: I pride myself on being a pretty good vacation planner, but the logistics of this portion of our cross-country trip completely slipped through the cracks. I’d done my best to divide up the driving into relatively equal amounts – about 8 hours – each day. But… Continue reading Westward Bound, part II – Kentucky to Colorado
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I hadn’t planned to spend so many years in Connecticut. And I certainly never expected that I’d be sad to leave. Admittedly, I wasn’t sad to leave behind the humidity and the brutal winters and the traffic and the rude drivers (because yes, New England drivers really are… Continue reading Westward Bound, part I – Connecticut to Kentucky
