Day after Christmas

Jo and I had wanted to go hiking on Christmas day, but since we got a later start than we expected, we postponed it until the day after. On a whim, we decided to head up to the Allenspark trail, which we figured would provide some awesome snowshoing. So, after packing our gear, we hit the road and drove an hour or so to get to the trailhead. Roads were icey and dicey, so it took us longer to get there than what we were expecting. The Jetta, as always, got us there safe and sound. I'm not sure my car would have made it...

And here's the trailhead. Notice the nice thick blanket of unbroken snow leading to it. Yup. Unbroken snow. Both of us were surprised that the trail hadn't been trampled yet, and even though I was a bit trepidatious, with a little prompting from Jo, we decided to be brave and just go for it.

Here we are, ready to go. Jo and I don't do bright colors. It's all about the black, baby...

The trail was clearly marked, even though it was covered up under fresh snow.

And, even though it was pristine when we got there, it didn't stay that way for long......

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It wasn't as bad as I expected. Blazing the trail can be incredibley tiring, but the snowshoes prevented us from sinking too far down, so it turned out to be alright.

Some random photos of the snow-covered woods...

We came across this little burrow along the trail. I wonder who made it, and where the critter is now.

Trail shot!

Here is a shot of Mt. Meeker out yonder, all covered with snow and looking pretty. Shortly after this we stopped for a quick lunch. Quick because it was very chilly when we weren't moving, and since there was no where to sit that wasn't covered in snow, we ate standing up.

We never take as many pictures going down as we do coming up, so after turning around we hiked back to the car and just talked and laughed. It was a good day.

Christmas

This is going to be a very short post, but just wanted to say Merry Christmas! After sleeping in and opening up presents at our place, we headed over to Connie and Walts for gift exchange and food.

Just a low-key way to spend the day. We were planning on taking a Christmas snowshoe trip, but since we got such a late start on the day we decided it would be best to do it the following day.

I really need to document the gift that Jo made me, which is the coolest thing anyone's ever done for me. He traveled around to different places in different cities and captured a letter at various places that have significance to us. The end product was this message, which he spelled out for me and covered with a blanket. AMAZING.

Lyons Gulch Trail

Since I didn't have to work until later in the day, Jo and I decided to get out and put our snowshoes to work. We couldn't drive too far because of time restrictions, but of course Jo had a trail in mind that was pretty close, so after hitting the local bagel shop for a few necessary supplies, we drove 45 minutes or so to the Lyons Gulch trailhead. I saw it spelled both ways (Lion and Lyon, ) so I use the two interchangebly.

We were both feelin' good and ready to go.

There were clouds in the sky that made it a chillier day than it otherwise would have been, but in between the rolling clouds the blue sky would come out and light everything up, and it was so beautiful.



The trail was empty, which was surprising since it is supposed to be a really popular trail. It leads to a series of homesteads from the 1800s. We knew we didn't have time to see them all, as they're pretty spread out, but our goal was to make it to the first one and back, a trip of about 6 miles. The trail crisscrossed a small creek seven times. The water was mostly covered up with ice and snow, but you could still hear the gurgle of the running water, a sound we always find welcoming.

We followed some puma tracks for part of the trail. I don't care what you say, Jo. They were puma tracks.

The obligatory trail shot.

And some random fluff, including snow-covered rocks (this would have been a cool B&W shot) and some animal tracks in the snow. We saw lots of tracks besides the puma's, including hare and squirrel. I'm still waiting to see a snowshoe hare in person, but no luck on this trip.

As the trees started thinning out, we could sense we were getting close to the homestead meadows.

At this point we were walking on unbroken snow, which luckily wasn't too deep at all.

And then we were there! We came across this old frozen trough. One of the way the homesteaders made a living was to raise cattle, and this trough is a remnant of that venture. A little ahead was the Walker Homestead.

A sign explains Sarah Walker of England was the only woman to homestead in this area. She moved here in 1908. There are conflicting stories on whether she moved to the area after seperating from her husband or after he died. All sources agree she lived in this homestead by herself. Imagine being alone trying to build a home and make a living. Sarah had a garden, a milk cow, chickens and a spring. She didn't have a horse so she would hike down to what is now Highway 36 to sell her eggs and cream. She would hitchhike to Lyons for supplies. Walker lived here for 15 years, then moved to Lyons. The property changed hands several times and was even used a schoolhouse at one time.

All that is left of it now are some rocks from the foundation, a rusty old bedsprings and the rusty old stove, as well as various small artifacts strewn about.

We were both hungry and decided this was as good a place as any to eat, so we invited ourselves into the Walker Homestead, at least what was left of it, and busted out one of our favorite trailfoods. BAGELS!

We had to hoof it on the way back because I wanted time to shower before heading off to work, but we made it back in plenty of time.

A last shot of the meadow...

We both want to come back to check out the rest of the homesteads, but it'll have to wait for another day...

Hotel stay

So, earlier in the year, when I was still working as a server at Carino's, I won a gift certificate for one free night in the best suite available at the local Radisson Inn. Jo and I haven't had a great opportunity to go, but since it expires at the end of the year we figured we'd better go ahead and use it up.

The timing was actually pretty good, since we've been talking about picking a night to go drinking for awhile now. Yes, that's right. Jo and I plan when we're going to consume alcohol. Kinda' dorky, I know, but neither of us are big drinkers and, frankly, we are too busy to get totally wasted all the time, since the hangover that inevitably follows seriously impacts us the next day. Plus, I'm speaking for both of when I say that alcohol is overrated; we have a ton of fun without it a lot of hard liquors taste so nasty it seems silly to waste the money. That being said, we've wanted to get drunk together for awhile now, and decided that the hotel room would be a fun place to do it. So, we booked a Saturday night and stocked up:

• Kahlua
• Bailey's Irish Cream
• Butterscotch Schnapps
• Creme de Menthe

The plan was to mix two different types of shots: Dirty Girl Scouts and Buttery Nipples.

After going out to Carinos for dinner, we came back and layed everything out on the coffee table and got to work:

I do need to take a moment to draw your attention to what's possibly the cutest shaker I've ever seen, which I'm the proud owner of. We found this baby at Marshalls for $13, and it was love at first sight, at least for me. For reasons I cannot fathom, Jo finds it slightly kitchy.

Both drinks were very simple and oh-so-delicious. I don't like the taste of alcohol, but these were like liquid candy and both of us thought they tasted amazing. I preferred the Buttery Nipples, which were made with equal parts butterscotch schnapps and Bailey's...

...while Jo really liked the Dirty Girl Scouts. Equal parts Creme de Menthe, Kahlua and Bailey's. Yum.

It was fun mixing the drinks and knockin' em back while we watched the movie War of the Worlds with Tom Cruise on the tv, but the problem was that I was so full from our dinner at Carinos, I wasn't able to drink as much as I intended. The result, sadly enough, was that neither of us got off-our-asses drunk, which was the plan. A giggly buzz was the final result. Somewhat of a fail, I know, but we plan on trying again;-)

The next morning, we woke up around 8 and lounged for awhile before deciding to hit the free breakfast buffet.

Jo and I have an interesting history with hotel breakfasts. Once, in New Mexico, we picked a motel room for the night based on two criteria

1.) Price (of course) and

2.) what type of free breakfasts was offered.

We literally jumped around to about 5 hotels and asked the front desk clerk what kind of free continental breakfast would be served in the morning, and made our choice accordingly. But, don't get the wrong idea. It's not like we expect fancy, gourmet offererings. Quite the opposite, in fact. Because we are quite possibly the cheapest couple ever when it comes to hotel rooms, we are happy of there is anything more than stale donuts and Tampico.

So, we were both interested to see what kind of fancy-schmancy breakfast the Radisson would serve up. These are the kinds of things that excite us.

The verdict? Much better than what we're used to, but not as grand as I'd imagined, either. Still, we were more than happy to chow down.

We got back to our room to brush our teeth and get ready to go. Jo found out that the bathroom mirror distorted the viewer's face pretty bad, so of course we had to entertain ourselves with that for awhile:

And, as one last testiment to our immaturity, we had to take a Shining-inspired shot of the creepy hall way on our way out.

All in all, a fun night and morning. Then again, Jo and I have fun pretty much anywhere we go, even if it is dorky.

A shot of icicles on the outside of the building.