Words to live by...

"A good teacher is like a candle - it consumes itself to light the way for others." ~Author Unknown

"A good wife is her husband's biggest fan -- no matter how crazy he is." ~Me


"May God give you.. For every storm a rainbow, for every tear a smile, for every care a promise and a blessing in each trial. For every problem life sends, a faithful friend to share, for every sigh a sweet song and an answer for each prayer." ~ Irish Blessing

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Wild Weekend

After completing two more fourteeners on Thursday and finding a much needed Starbucks in Pueblo, we headed down to La Veta (waaaaaaaay down south in Colorado) for our friend Scott's wedding.

We originally planned to camp in the Hotelement with Turbo, but after finding a half-open cabin that allowed dogs (with our friends Craig and Emily who own their own golden retriever named Turbo), we gladly settled in to this wee little cabin:
The cabin itself was a nice little size, but our closet that housed our twin bed for the weekend was a bit cramped between two adults and a full sized Golden. It was cozy enough though but we won't take our queen sized bed for granted again any time soon!

The cabin had this awesome rock climbing area right behind it. We brought the gear and had a really fun afternoon of setting up a new route. Chris did some great route finding and we weaseled our way up this rock and over a difficult roof to the top. Finding a way down through the trees and bushes was another adventure in itself!

After rock climbing, we threw on some clean clothes and hustled over to the rehearsal BBQ.
The next day, Chris and I kept it pretty low key and hung out on the porch reading books most of the day. Before we knew it, he was all spiffed up in his tux and we were ready to watch a beautiful wedding!
I'd say we clean up pretty well!
The wedding was a lot of fun -- hopefully there will be more pictures to come from a friend's camera (including a few photos that document what happens when you take a few engineers, a fire fighter, a kindergarten teacher, and put them alone with some little silicon balls from the center pieces... Let's just say it was quite amusing...)

On Sunday, we went to see the Great Sand Dunes with Erik and Michelle. Chris had never been to this crazy national park and I hadn't been there since my fifth grade trip -- over 18 years ago). The normally HOT tourist attraction was actually quite pleasant with some heavy cloud cover. We were on the lookout for lightning, but never saw any and instead just enjoyed the cooler weather.
The Great Sand Dunes sit at the foot of the San Juan mountains. The contrast between high peaks and endless miles of sand is stunning. Go there if you've never been.
Disclaimer: Chris is really good at backflips. Surprisingly good. At least on a slope. So he immediately found us a good dune and started hucking backflips off of it. He made it look pretty and easy, just as he does everything else, so I decided to give it a try.

Not so easy.

Not so pretty.
Chris essentially had to toss me over backwards. I completed the flip -- more like a back handspring since I put my hands down somewhat -- but then couldn't stop the rotation and ended up on my back in the sand. The good thing about sand is that it is quite forgiving.
I have a great husband who would even break from his hysterical laughing to come help me up. The sand would just pour out of my shorts!
Chris is an acrobat. Very impressive!
Chris and Erik hiked over to a far away dune and wrote us a message. The two ladies on top of the dune with Michelle and I swooned too!
There are so many great pictures from this trip that I'd love to show. I need to put them in a slideshow and then I'll post it. We had an amazing time at the wedding and at the dunes. Many many laughs were had over the weekend and it was great spending time with friends who we only usually get to see on bike rides (which don't really allow for much conversation!).

Congratulations to Scott and Melissa on a beautiful wedding!

3 comments:

Fonk said...

I'll be down in La Veta in a couple weeks for the Stonwall Century. How much was that cabin rental? Sounds like that'd be perfect for us...

The Sand Dunes are awesome. It's been probably 4 or 5 years now since we've spent any real time there, but have driven by them a few times since, and I'm always amazed by them. Like you said, quite the contrast.

Marni said...

Fonk -- not sure how much the cabin was since it was part of a wedding package.

It was called the Sulphur Springs Ranch -- the owner guy was really nice and the cabins seemed to have one master bedroom, one bedroom with a twin bed, and a full pull out futon (and they allowed dogs).

Fonk said...

Cool, I'll look them up. Thanks!