Kate and I headed to Arkansas for JBU’s homecoming. Let’s not mention that it’s been 10 years since I’ve been in college.

It was fun to see how much the place had changed, and to see a few old college friends to boot. Thanks Chris for housing us, and waking up your kids.

Here’s the choir reunion practicing in the Cathedral.

We spent a portion of our last Colorado weekend… underground.

First, at Country Boy Mine in Breck:

Then at Cave of the Winds in the Springs.

While I was in California stuck in meetings all day and barely hanging out with the Pearcys, Molly flew out to Colorado for a visit.

When I got back later that week we went for a hike up McCullough for one last time (I think it’s like my seventh trip up the ‘ole gulch, but still a beautiful view).

Then the next morning we had a visitor in the driveway looking for some treats.

We then took Molly on an off-road adventure over Mosquito Pass.

And at the top of the pass there were some anxious snowboarders getting some early season practice in.

On the other side, in Leadville, we had a looong lunch, then headed for another short hike up Mayflower Gulch where we explored what was left of old Boston Mine.

The next day we woke up to Kate’s birthday, and Molly and I served her icecream in bed as requested by the birthday girl. We then packed up and drove to Colorado Springs to ride the Cog Rail Road to the top of Pike’s Peak (Kate has a thing for trains if you haven’t noticed).

Then sadly we trudged to Denver to drop Molly off at the airport. But since we’re leaving CO behind and moving back to Kansas City in a week, we’ll see her and the rest of the gang soon enough. Where did our year go?

See more pictures of time with our last visitor to our mountain retreat.

After the Wonnells left on Friday morning, Kate and I hopped in the car and made the trek to western Colorado for some exploring. We ended up spending two nights at the historic Strater Hotel in Durango, riding a restored steam powered train through the mountains and exploring well preserved cliff dwellings dating back to the 1100s.

First thing Saturday morning we were able to snag a couple of the last tickets for the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad.

We rode on the open air car which offered some great views of the passing mountain scenery.

The all-day train ride took us from Durango to Silverton, a small mountain town that has a great “Old West” feel. Above is Kate standing in front of the oldest bordello in Silverton.

Riding the train was a last minute idea, and we’re very glad we jumped aboard. If you’re in the neighborhood and can swing the tickets, then we recommend it.

See more pictures from the tracks.

Sunday was history day for us. We left Durango and headed west for Mesa Verde, home of a host of cliff-dwellings tucked into canyon walls in Colorado’s western high desert.

It’s amazing to think of how old these dwellings are, and how good of a shape they’re in. Pueblo Indians were building these multi-story building in the side of shear cliffs around the same time that Henry V was building castles over in England. You expect to find buildings 800 years old in Europe, not necessarily here in America.

And these Ancestral Puebloans were a crazy folk. Some of these dwellings were insanely high and rather difficult to get to even with crude stairs and tall ladders… back then, the only way to get to most of these mountain condos was to literally scale the side of a cliff using only small toe and foot holds carved into the rock face.

After exploring several of the dwellings, Kate and I took a great little hike along the canyon wall to see some petroglyphs.

There are many more photos of Mesa Verde here.

We ended up taking the long way home and headed north to Montrose, and through our now favorite stretch of road: 550 from Durango to Ouray.

Western Colorado is now on our list of places to go back and explore some more. (anyone up for skiing Telluride?)

Our friends Rob and Sarah came out to visit us for a week and Kate and I took them on their first backpacking trip to the Maroon Bells outside of Aspen. The weather wasn’t the best and we had some slight food issues, but overall it was a good trip.

On the way to Aspen we took them over Mosquito Pass which was also another fun adventure for them. No broken shocks this time on the ole’ 4Runner, so that’s good.

After roughing it for a night, the four of us headed to Boulder for a few days of shopping and eating. Oh, and during a detour to Fort Collins, Rob and I took a tour of the New Belgium Brewery (makers of the popular Fat Tire amber ale)… which turned out to be a very interesting tour. So if you ever find yourself in Fort Collins…

See more of our photos here.

That’s Rocky Mountain National Park. Our plan was to take a drive through the park then onto Estes, but mother nature had a different plan.

We woke up Saturday morning to a nice little blizzard… in the middle of AUGUST!!! By late morning the little snow we got was starting to melt and we were on our way to RoMo, but when we got there, the Trail Ridge Road was closed due to snow!! (The Trail Ridge Road is one of the highest paved roads in the world, and the only road connecting the west side of the park to the east.)

So we made due and went on a little hike and got a chance to see some great wildlife including 3 moose (one bull and two cows).

(this is a view of Quandary as we left in the morning)

This ended up being just a short scouting trip. Our friends from KS, the Wonnells are coming to visit us the first week of Sept, so we’ll have more time to explore the park (and do some camping).

Kate’s parents were kind enough to fly us to Kansas City last week for a little visit home. The week started with the boys and I having some quality Starcraft time on Sunday while Kate was doing Pilates with the girls.

I had to work all week while Kate was running around town, but we got to catch up with a lot of people in such a short amount of time.

Our trip coincided with Ava’s third birthday party, so Kate and I drove to Newton for a day of Tinkerbell fun.

We had a blast in Kansas besides the 100 degree heat and we’re looking forward to our move back. But in the meantime we’re cherishing our last two months in the mountains. (The entire Sawyer/Sweigart family are coming to visit us next week… we’re very much looking forward to that!)

Our final day was spent driving through Nevada, Utah and half of Colorado. We noticed the whole truck start to shake pretty violently the more we drove. Finally home and grabing our mail in town, I noticed the whole truck smelling of oil. Sure enough, the entire undercarriage and rear of my poor 4Runner was covered in oil, and there was a terrible knocking sound as we drove to the house.

First thing the next Monday morning I dropped Kate off at work then drove to the shop. After several hours they finally got back to me that it was the rear differential that was blown. I guess somewhere along our trip, a seal got blown and leaked oil from the differential, which caused the bearings to overheat and basically blow up. Thankfully the rear axle was still in good shape, but the $1,600 repair bill wasn’t something we wanted to hear. The trucks still in the shop and in the meantime we’re being gouged with a $60 per day rental car. You don’t have very many options here in the boonies.

If you haven’t done so already, I’ve posted all of our good photos on the site. You can see them all by following this link:
Pacific Northwest Road Trip Photos

You may also want to scroll down to the bottom of the page to start from Day 1.

I woke up with my headache mostly gone, but still not feeling up to the 16 mile hike to the end of the trail and back. So we picked up and made our way back to the truck. Instead we drove to the end of the road which was also the end of the trail: Glacier Point. The views were phenomenal.

After taking in the view, we scoped out Mariposa Grove, to see some giant sequoias.

Can you guess which pine cone belongs to the sequoia?
It’s actually the small one. Amazing that this little thing can grow to be one of the largest trees in the world and live to be over 2,000 years old.

Here I am counting the rings on one of the fallen trees. Mind boggling.

It was time to start heading home so we drove east towards Nevada… when we came across some yahoo parked on the wrong side of the road on halfway in our lane. But it didn’t take me long to notice what they were after… a BEAR!

This is the first time in all my many wilderness excursions that I’ve ever seen a bear in the wild. Kate and I would comment often how we haven’t seen much of any wildlife, and here, on our final trek home, we come across a bear feeding in a small meadow. We watched it for a while, as it paid no attention to the crowd that has formed by the road, but it eventually lumbered back into the forest out of sight.

But just as I was about to get back in the car, I turned and saw him actually making his way closer to us! We watched in amazement as it slowly came our direction, finding a downed tree and then clawing into it to snack on some grubs. It was the coolest thing ever. I think at one point it came to within 25 foot of me (standing by the open car door ready to jump in). Here’s some more shots of what easily was the highlight of our entire trip:

Today we went to my favorite place on the planet: Yosemite National Park.

We first made our way to the valley floor to the Visitor’s Center to pick up our wilderness permits. Camping at the typical campsites (complete with toilets and noisy neighbors in RVs) or at the many lodges in the park is next to impossible. Booking for both the campsites and lodges are hard to come by, but REAL camping in the wilderness is thankfully still easy to do. The permit is free if you get it on-site, or $5 if you reserve ahead of time which is necessary for the popular spots near and around Half Dome. They’ll even rent you a bear canister for $5 which is nice and very much needed.

Our site was going to be on the trail to Sentinel Dome. It was an easy two-mile hike to a footbridge where we setup camp. But wouldn’t you know it, I was hit by a massive migraine once we’re away from the truck (and much needed Excedrin). Kate was a trooper though and cooked up some spaghetti and finished cleaning up camp before bed. I think the roar of the river really helped calm Kate from thinking every noise in the middle of the night was a bear.