Colorado 2012-Day 3

Got up early once again. The altitude is really affecting everyone. Every time I blow my nose, blood comes out of it and my nose is raw. Sadly no Boulder today. Instead dad changed the schedule. Everyone was frustrated because no one would work together and communicate. The only reason why there was a schedule to begin with is because certain things were open on certain days at certain times. And there wasn't really that much cleaning to do since Erika did most of it already. Mountain out of a mole hill. I just thought it would be fun for Erika to get out of her apartment and see the area before she left for boot camp. Instead I got "doesn't matter, I don't care and I don't know" answers. I wanted input so everyone can express their opinion. So to get away from the hostility, mom and I went for a walk in Expo Park. We were gone for a couple hours. They were in and out getting rid of stuff in town. We got back and they wanted Mexican for lunch. We assumed we were going to a sit down Mexican restaurant. We went to Chipotle. I've only been there once, mom hasn't been. Everyone had to chill out a bit. Dad cleaned the kitchen for a while, mom and I washed the walls, while Erika sat in front of her computer watching shows on the internet. You could only do so much when there really isn't that much to do. Mom and dad watched Sparticus, I watched some of my Hulu shows until I ran out and Erika gave me access to her Netflix account so I watched some Bones, Erika was watching a bunch of random shows including South Park. Clothes were washed everyday we were there. We packed up some of her clothes because I was to take the purple suitcase with me on the plane, since I am allowed 2 checked in suitcases for free. Most of the night was easy going. Ate dinner and went to bed early. The time difference was staring to mess me up. Hopefully tomorrow would be a better day.

Colorado 2012-Day 2

Once again, we got up way to early. Because everyone's internal clock is messed up with the hour difference time zone, we all got up at 5 a.m. instead of 6. Grumble grumble. We ate breakfast, people showered, we all got ready and we headed out to Colorado Springs. The night before we ordered tickets online to Cave of the Winds. We didn't have a printer so our first stop along I-25 was the FedEx place, which we found out bought out all the Kinkos. She set us all up and for some reason their server did not work with Yahoo. It thought it was malicious and blocked everything. So the girl said, oh, send it to me through your phone and I'll print it for you. Thank god for smart phones. A few min later we had our printed out tickets and a random act of kindness from a stranger. We asked her what we owed and she said it was on the house because of the Yahoo problem. We hopped in the car and headed towards the cave. Hwy 24 in Colorado was interesting. Had to be careful on it, it's not taken care of very well. Most of the roads in Colorado suck. We got to the turn off and the road was very windy. We got to the top, parked the car and got out. We headed towards the building. There wasn't very many people due to the weather and the fact it was winter. We had to wait about a half hour until the group ahead of us came back.



Our tour guide was Brandy and she was very nice. We were the only people in our group. She started off by giving us the history before the cave. How it was discovered, the names, years, significances. We learned about each section of the cave, all the different formations and names.





At one point, she asked if she could turn the lights out. We were totally on board. First she showed us an old school lantern and then wanted us to experience total pitch black. The darkest areas you will ever experience are in a cave or at the bottom of the ocean. Once the lights were out she said to look around and even wave your had in front of your face. You will not see anything and if you do you are hallucinating. It is your brain's way of trying to see something while in total darkness. Even after 30 seconds of the dark you started seeing things. She turned the lights on and we continued on the tour. It was around a 40 minute tour. It was pretty incredible these amazing creations are still around. She thanked us and we got our picture she took at the beginning of the tour. From there we went to Manitou Cave Dwellings, similar to the ones we saw in southwestern Colorado Summer 2010. These ones weren't as remote. We ate lunch, walked around the gift shop and looked at the dwellings.





It got colder. We wrapped it up and headed over to the Garden of the Gods. Awesome rock formations. I wish we could have spent more time here.







From there, we tried to go see Seven Falls, sadly it was frozen and not worth the $9 dollars per person. It was around 4ish and we decided to head back to Aurora. Traffic started getting bad. There was a bad crash up ahead that messed up traffic for a while. Then it snowed. We got back before the bad rush hour started. We were happy to be back to the apartment. We made dinner, showered, watched some shows and went to bed.

Tomorrow: Cleaning...

Colorado 2012-Day 1

My alarm went off at 5 a.m. I didn't get to go to bed until about midnight the night before. I haven't been on a plane since I flew to Missoula, MT to bring Fitzy home. I was very excited to have the opportunity again. Grandma got there about 6:30 and we didn't leave until about 7. We piled in her van and off to SeaTac we went. It didn't take us long and we got there with time to spare. We checked our bags and went through security and down to our departure gate, B12. We sat there for a few min watching the news about the deadly tornadoes that ripped through Southern Illinois and the surrounding states. Then it started snowing outside the terminal. I used the bathroom one more time before we got on the plane so I wouldn't have to get up during the flight. We boarded and because everyone wanted a window seat and it was general admission, we all sat at a window. Mom and dad sat two rows ahead of me. The take off is the best part. I sat next to a lady who kept very quiet and to herself the entire flight. I did offer her a piece of gum and she kindly accepted. I stared out the window when there wasn't cloud cover and read my book I brought with me. We started to descend into Denver.



I had no idea the airport was out in the middle of nowhere, 10 miles from anything. When I was here back in 2006 with my fastpitch team, I didn't really pay attention to my surroundings. People take forever to get off the plane. We got off the plane and made our way to the retrieve our luggage. We had to take a underground train system to the terminal. It was pretty cool. Erika met us at the entrance of the arrivals, said hi, people went potty and off to the luggage we go. It was very quick. Our bags were one of the first on the carousel. Then we had to hike to her car. It was a beautiful day in Denver. A sunny, cloudless sky of a high around 55. We were all hungry so we decided chicken was the best bet. I haven't been to a Chick-Fil-A since I was in West Virginia, so it was very exciting to go again. Erika wanted to go to the mall to pet puppies so we did that for a while. Then just walked around the mall. We went to Walmart to get some groceries and then went to her apartment. It was almost time to head down to the Leap Day event in Greenwood Village, Co, and mom decided to go with me. The GPS avoided the rush hour traffic on I-25. We arrived just on time to the restaurant the event was hosted at. We met a bunch of local geocachers, discovered and swapped coins and TB's and I even added one more coin to my collection. I got my first geocache in Colorado!



We found five more after the event on the way back to Erika's. We brought them KFC to munch on, we all got ready for bed. Tomorrow: Colorado Springs.