Buffalo

Ever since we moved here there's been this heard of buffalo that we see nearly every day. But since I've been home from my last trip to San Diego I haven't seen them once. I'm bummed about it. I like them. They are quite impressive, especially up close. This pictures where taken with my camera phone so they aren't the best but they'll do.

Beaver Brook

Several weeks ago Mr X and went on another hike here. I love the hikes here. There are so many! We have yet to go on one more than once. And because there are so many the trails aren't packed with people. It's so nice. In San Diego the few hikes or trails were always inundated with people. It takes a bit of the joy out of the activity.

This hike was the backside of the Beaver Brook Trail. The beginning of this trail was set up so that blind people can enjoy it. There are signs up in Braille along the way and there are posts connected by this thick metal rope. I impulsively kept singing, "Hold to the rod, the iron rod..." Mr X wasn't impressed with my rendition of the song and he especially didn't like that I sang it over and over like a broken record. But relief came for him when the blind-friendly portion of the trail ended and I subsequently stopped singing.

Here are a few photos from our hike:

(The beginning of the Beaver Brook.)

(I love when we have wildlife sighting during our hikes.)


(Signs of spring. At last.)

Random Photo

This is a random photo taken at my company Christmas party this past holiday season. Clearly I'm missing Mr X - after he's been away for a while I peruse through old photos so I can admire his handsome face. And remember what he looks like. Kidding.

I know I'm obsessed

I realize I talk about the weather here in Colorado a lot, but it's just because it's so bizarre and unexpected. And fascinating. You'd be befuddled by it as well if you were new to this place too. It changes from one minute (literally) to the next in sometimes very extreme ways. I actually feel sorry for the meteorologists here because predicting the weather in this part of the country must be a crapshoot. I mean the meteorologists in San Diego? Cake job. All you have to do is predict that the weather will be in the 70's and sunny and 75% of the time you're golden. The northwest? Easy - just predict cloudy skies and drizzle and you're probably going to hit it on the nose 85% of the time. Let me show you what the end of May looked like here the other day:

(This is the view from our back patio.)

Seriously it's nearly June! What you can't see in this photo is that accompanying the heavy snowfall was loads of thunder and lightening. I heard the booming sound of thunder so I went to peer out of my window at a rain storm but instead there was a huge snowstorm going on. Weird, huh? The rest of this day alternated between snow, rain, full sun, wind, thunder/lightening, hail and sleet. Oh and then on the news I saw that there were tornado watches in several counties and a couple of tornadoes even touched ground.

(This is the view from our front door. You can see the poor Aspen trees are very much ready for spring. I feel sorry for the little green baby leaves that are getting smothered in cold, frigid snow.)

Garden Of The Gods

I believe I've posted about the Garden of the Gods before in this blog but for the life of me I cannot find that post. Regardless, you're getting it again because Mr X and I love it so much that we went back again. I'm sure there will be many more return trips in our future. If you ever make it out to Colorado you should try to go exploring around this place. It's fantastic. I can see why it was dubbed "Garden of the Gods". Unfortunately for Mr X and I the weather was turning a bit sour shortly after we arrived so our visit was cut short. I'd love to just wander the miles of hiking trails in this place, or biking them would be fun too. Here are a few photos:

Colorado Cliff Dwellings

Recently Mr X and I wandered off to explore some cliff dwellings in our area. I was very impressed by them. The exact date of when these dwellings were created is unknown but it is speculated that they were built sometime between 1200 and 1300 AD. I find the architecture and the ingenuity astounding. And of course the beautiful red color of the rocks into which these dwellings were carved makes them even more beautiful. In some of the little rooms they even carved out little 'pillow-like' areas for their heads, if you can call a rock a pillow. Of course these rock-pillows caused these people to develop misshaped heads over the course of their lives. There's a display in the museum which is adjacent to the dwellings. The skulls of these cliff dwellers were very flat in the back. I wonder what these people would have looked like alive and in person. Maybe I wouldn't have even been able to tell that they had flat-backed heads. Here are some photos from our excursion. The first is yet another mountain view picture I took on the way to the cliff dwellings. (I can't help myself, I'm a sucker for beautiful mountain backdrops.)

Welcome to Cripple Creek

When Mr X and I first arrived in Colorado we saw signs for a town called "Cripple Creek" as we drove about. Mr X, capitalizing on the fact that he had been a Colorado resident years before, decided to tell me about how this town got it's name. Back in the "old days", according to Mr X, the people of the area would take all of the "cripples" to this certain creek and drown them. Hence the name. Nice story, huh? Needless to say I didn't buy into Mr X's story, much to his dismay. Mr X possesses quite an imagination though, doesn't he? You should hear the things he comes up with on a daily basis. The conversation is never boring at the X household.

Anyway, we decided to go have a tour of this Cripple Creek since it's now famous at our house. It's a minuscule old mining town set in the middle of the mountains. The drive there was hands-down the most breathtaking drive I've taken here thus far. I attempted to get some photos so you could all live vicariously through them but, as usual, the pictures never quite seem to do the landscape justice. I guess you'll just have to come see for yourselves one day.

Seven Falls

Mr X and I went to a place called Seven Falls in Colorado the weekend before last. The drive to this place was beautiful. It is privately owned (I'm jealous of the owners) which I thought was unusual. In order to get to the top, you pretty much have to do the equivalent of a mini Stair Master workout. There's a long set of stairs leading to an overlook point that is away from the falls so visitors can take photos of the falls from afar. Then there's a lengthy set of stairs that goes all the way to the top of the falls. Since I was still in the recovery stages of being really sick, all of these stairs made me winded and dizzy. But I'm pleased to say I did them anyway. Here are a few pictures of our tour of Seven Falls.

This is a Steller's Blue Jay we say during one of our stair climbs.

Colorado Springs Olympic Training Center

Mr X and I decided to go do some sightseeing last weekend. We went down to Colorado Springs to tour the Olympic Training center. There's also an Olympic Training center in Chula Vista, CA, which wasn't too far from our place in San Diego when we lived there but for some reason I never cared to go check it out.

It's a pretty impressive compound and they really do have state-of-the-art facilities, as we got to see. Here are a few photos from our trip:


This first picture is at the entrance, naturally. I'm sorry to say that we didn't take too many photos so these will have to do.

I was most interested in the aquatics center. I love the swimming portion of the Olympics. I was totally bummed that there were no Olympic athletes actually training when I was there. I guess they are slacking on their training or something. Lazy bums.

Mr X took the opportunity to hop into one of the bobsleds to see how it felt. They aren't quite as thrilling on carpet as they are on ice but Mr X made the most of it.


All in all it was in interesting excursion and I was happy to have seen this impressive facility. I guess it costs about $25,000 a year for the athletes to stay and train here. Of course that's just for use of the facility and for lodging on the grounds as well. That doesn't include the coaching, incidentals, food, etc.