Mesa Verde

So, excited! Road trip to Mesa Verde!

Melissa, taking a self portrait. So nice!

Gotta have the fruit!

Fruit for the road, apple for Ally, orange for Melissa and banana for Megan.

Mesa Verde next exit! Only 45 minutes from Durango. We had to check it out.

Melissa and Ally at the entrance

Melissa and her good friend Megan from Oklahoma

A lot of Mesa Verde has been burned by natural forest fires in the last 20 years.

Stuck behind the slow pokes...Geeze.

Melissa, the photographer


So pretty looking out at Mancos.

Oh, we better be careful.

Super cool ruins from 1300 AD, right before the Pueblo Indians left.

Cliff Palace, you had to be a really awesome rock climber to live here!


The gals being tourists

A lot of the trails were closed because of all the snow they received this winter, so we road around and did all the short hikes to the cliff dwellings.

Lunch break!

Mmmm...yummy

Checking out the Juniper Berries, getting the seeds inside.



Oh, so sad...dead, burned, charred...


Posing in the dead forest

Trying to look tough


It was crazy how much of the park was burned.

Pearl, my beautiful Subaru with the burned trees

Smiling after a wonderful park ranger told us all about the Pueblo Indians.

Looking down into the kiva

Melissa chillin' at the ruins

The Orange Puffs

We camped out in the Chugach Mountains after work one day. We left around 8pm and got into camp around midnight. No worries about the sunlight, 24 hours baby!
Looking good with that sweet Bam-Bam hairdo!

Brad and I looking off into the distance.

We had an awesome time taking photos of each other in our sweet orange puff jackets. Crazy times.







Dang! Look at that mosquito!

Okay, time for bed.

Geeze! Can I yawn any bigger?



Our awesome camp right above a bunch of beautiful lakes.




Getting ready to head back to the trail head where we stashed our bikes to ride back home.




Hiking back in the Nomex long johns. People gave us some interesting looks.

Dumpster Diving

I was taking the trash to the dumpster one day and looked inside and saw all this cardboard that could have been recycled! Sara and I jumped into the dumpster, pulled out all the cardboard, and put it into the recycle bin. We got pretty dirty and yes, super smelly, but it was worth it.