hiking and nature

Last weekend, we went to Rocky Moutain National Park on Sunday (pictures forthcoming). It was a pretty cool trip, we took Trail Ridge Road through the park, which is the highest continuously paved road in the U.S. It reaches a little more than 12,000 feet and precariously winds through the mountains with a 3 inch shoulder that is actually eroding away. Kelly's camera battery was dead and we left the charger in Chicago, so we have no digital pics of our own, but will get some from Heather to post. It was a pretty amazing view.
We did get to make one stop around 11,000 feet up. We did a quick but steep hike to a few rock outcroppings that we climbed onto to have a snack with an incredible view of the valleys and mountains. We were then going to drive to the end of the trail and do a quick hike to a lake, but by the time we got there, it had begun raining. After finding out there was no logical way to get home from that side of the park, we turned around and drove the same road back, stuck behind a gigantic RV with an equally gigantic boat in tow. This did give us more time to sightsee, as we were going ridiculously slow, so we got to see a herd of elk (?) on the hillside of one of the mountains.
This weekend was equally adventurous. On Saturday, Kelly got to do her maiden bike ride down to the market on the new bike. It went really well; we both had a great time during the ride. The market was flooded with fresh produce and we bought a few things to take with us on our next adventure. A few tamales, a skewer of chicken and a rootbeer float later, we headed home to get our things together for another trip into the mountains.


This time, on the invitation of Matthew Billek (a co-worker at Webroot and a native Coloradan), we headed up to Brainard Lake for a hike and some fishing. We got there a bit later than planned, but just in time to grill out, have a beer, and get ready for the hike. Of course, we were all completely unprepared for a high altitude hike (we were all in shorts, Heather and Kelly were in sandals and it got down to around 50 degrees). The hike up was pretty strenous, mostly due to the altitude (hard on the lungs), but the scenery made it well worth it, especially our final destination, a gorgeous lake.
We hung out there for a few hours, did some fishing and a bit of exploring. We also saw another elk, but it was too far away for a good shot. Kelly was the only one who caught a fish. We threw him back, of course. He had a good story to tell all his fish friends.

the pics, as promised

no real news so far...eric's bike wound is healing, though he hasn't ridden since it happened (but it has been raining for like 2 weeks straight here). ooh yeah, i can tell you about the weather here. it's very interesting to have full days of 67 degrees in the middle of july. eric and i were discussing it and decided that we like it better than the sweltering heat coming off the asphalt of atlanta. it's an oasis of sorts directly in the midst of 90 degree days.
however, we're back to the 90 degree weather now, which means we're readying to go exploring again. as we mentioned several posts ago, our visit to estes park and rocky mountain national park was cut relatively short due to weather, so we're planning on heading out again to check out the good spots (so we'll know where to take you when you come visit, kristen). by the way, if anyone wants to come out and visit, august would be a really great time. kristen is lucking out, there are a lot of cool things going on when she's here.
anyways, here are the pictures:

this is the kitty i was talking about: banjo. she's strange.









this is the bike i was talking about. look, it has shocks. it's the most comfortable bike ever.

sorry jee

It's been forever since we updated, I know. Stuff's been going on, but nothing I deemed worth posting. But I didn't consider how bored Jee is, so I'll give you all the mundane details. We've both been working a lot. That takes up most of our time. Our weekends are dedicated to bike rides, hanging out with pals, and basically enjoying life. I followed Eric's lead and also bought a bike. It's a cruiser and as girly as can be. It's mint green. When I get it, I"ll post a pic (it's on special order so it'll probably come in tomorrow or the day after). Some of you will find it hard to believe, but I biked 8 miles this weekend :). It's true. That was a round trip total of course. Eric fell off his bike on Monday (reaching for his cell phone...what a jerk) and got banged up pretty badly, but I've been taking good care of him, dressing his wounds and whatnot.
What else...we have a new kitty. Four total. Her name is Banjo and we let her live on our porch. She's really sweet and wants very badly to play with our kitties, but we can't let them b/c she may have diseases. I'll post a pic of her as well at some point.
Eric bought a Nintendo DS, which is kinda boring to talk about, but for Jee it will make sense.
Jee: it has a new version of MarioKart on it that is pretty awesome. It incorporates a bunch of courses from the first two and some new ones as well. I beat Andrew on it all the time.
Work is going okay for me...the people I work with aren't what I expected. I thought I'd be able to make friends pretty quickly here because I generally do, but it's difficult with these two (there are only 3 of us that work here). We've come to rely more on Eric's work for friends. We've met some cool people, but so far no real hang-out-all-the-time friends like we used to have (excluding Heather, Andy, Jeff, and Elgn and their respective girlfriends). Anyways, that's all I can muster right now. Maybe cool stuff will happen this weekend and I can more sucessfully entertain you.