1st Year Anniversary

We did it!  One year!  So much has happened between then and now, seems like a long time ago that we had all our friends and family come out to Bonny Doon for our wedding.

What did we do for our anniversary?  We are still trying to figure it out.  We found a deal on LivingSocial for a 2 night stay in La Veta.  Never heard of it.  In fact, no one we know from Colorado had ever heard of it.  And, there's a reason.  This place was in the middle of nowhere.  3 hours South of Denver on a forgotten highway, La Veta quietly sits at the base of the Cristo de Sangre mountain range.  
The main street was paved, side streets were dirt and deer walked around like the owned the place.

What does one do in La Veta?  There weren't really any bars or restaurants open late.  The few businesses in town just seemed to close when they felt like it.  Kinda eerie.

We arrived Friday night and Saturday morning, luckily, was one of the busier days in La Veta.  We found a fundraiser pancake breakfast, pancakes, OJ and coffee for 5 bucks each.  We joined the townspeople and were serenaded by the Orphan Valley Singers WOOOOO!

We sat down with a heaping plate of pancakes and enjoyed the company of no one under the age of 65.  

We consider ourselves old at heart anyway.  Here was the day's schedule:

Despite the much anticipated "Chicken Drop" we decided to head up the mountain to do some hiking and exploring.  If nothing else La Veta and the surrounding national park is beautiful.  

Blue Lake was beautiful and the water was an emerald green color.  What you don't see are the tons of people fishing all around the shore.  Apparently that is what you do here, fish.  We had a picnic and then left for another site.

Above: the view from Cuchara pass.  Jen reads, I take pictures.  It was a perfect day weather-wise.

Above: vista point from a hike near West Peak.

Above: coming back from West Peak, heading to the car.

Above: the wildflowers were bright and in full bloom.

After a long day of hiking and exploring we headed back to the hotel for our final night.  A word about the hotel.  When I called to check our reservation on Friday, as we were leaving, they said they had no record of it.  Despite the fact that I remember, verbatim, the conversation I had with one "Randy" about reserving a room, the same Randy was unable to locate the reservation.  When we arrived he talked fast, seemed nervous, mentioned something about putting us in the luxury suite (which never happened) and let his associate finish checkin us in.  The place was pretty funky.  The ceramic lining of our bathtub was chipped and peeling up pretty badly, they had single serve pump soap dispensers in the bathroom and when I went to pull my computer charger out of the wall, the entire socket came clear out.  I neatly put it back and went about my business.

We enjoyed champagne!

My beautiful wife busted it out.

            

Above: not realizing that pressure had built in the bottle as we ascended to the elevation of 7,000 feet in La Veta the cork prematurely shot out and tagged me in the neck.  Jen mercifully continued to take pictures.  Uninjured we proceeded to drink.

    

We managed some level of luxury despite being in....La Veta.

Later in the evening we headed to a wine bistro (totally out of place in this town) to claim our bottle-of-wine voucher that was part of the LivingSocial deal.  

We drank wine, ate cheese and played some cribbage.  By the time we were done, Jen and I were tipsy enough that we seriously doubted our ability to gracefully leave the bistro.  We managed.

We took a nice long walk around town, ran in to some crazy characters who would've talked to us forever if they could and finally wen to bed.  The next morning we left La Veta, refreshed/hungover (both?)  yea...both.

E.T. at Red Rocks

Every Monday night Red Rocks amphitheater plays a classic movie.  This week it was E.T.  (the movie is still as badass as ever).  We weren't allowed to bring the Nikon into the theater but here are some shots that we got outside in the parking lot:  

Getting to see the movie, again, was a huge fiasco.  We tried to bring in beer, waited in line, saw people getting sent back to their cars after being found out and ultimately sat on the rear bumper of the Honda, eating sandwiches and drinking beers tailgate style before we went in.

When we finally got to the front of a long line, our self-titled "print at home" tickets seemed to be, well, useless.  We had to go back to our car, DRIVE to the main entrance/ticket office, get new tickets issued and drive BACK, now, in the pouring rain, to a different, farther parking lot.

However we finally made it in, found good seats and the rain left us alone.

All in all it was a cool experience.  Red Rocks seems amazing as a venue and I would love to see some musicians play there.  It is small enough that you can never be THAT far away from the stage and the acoustics are ridiculous.  The bass moves the whole place.  

Surprise Lake / Upper Cataract

Jen and I traveled East of Denver for a backpacking trip that we hoped would be better than the first one.  We took I-70 and ended up in a small town North of Breckenridge.  From there it was a short drive to a trailhead for Boulder Lake (which is where we originally wanted to go.  We never found that trail).  We drove back and forth for about an hour trying to understand our map/directions.  It was pouring rain, we kept running into dead ends and private property signs.  The trailhead was nowhere to be found.  

Finally we headed back to town, defeated.  We found a State Park Ranger station and talked to them about where we should go, trying not to get mad for all the B.S. directions we'd gotten so far.  They directed us to a reservoir and an easy-to-find trailhead for Upper Cataract Lake.  We found it within an hour (after stopping for a delicious lunch at a local diner/dive spot) and headed out on the trail with thunderheads looming in the distance. 

2.5 miles of fairly steep trail left us tired and ready to stop when we hit Surprise Lake.  We were only halfway to Cataract but the rain was starting to come down and we'd already gotten such a late start that we set up camp here.

Surprise Lake had some beautiful lilly-pads, dragon flies and jumping fish.  It was quiet and peaceful.

On our first night we took an evening hike without our packs.

Jen making a couscous, bell pepper and sausage concoction.  It was extra tasty after all the hiking and trail mix.  We also brought along a couple o' boonts for good measure.

Cleaning my pot...

In the morning we got up and decided to hike another 2.5 miles to Upper Cataract Lake.  The hike was mellow and mostly flat.  We wandered through Aspen and Pine groves, over streams and guess what...NO DOWN TREES!!!!  Imagine that.

We made it to Upper Cataract and we were shocked.  This crystal clear lake sat at the bottom of a mountain peak and had abundant, lakeside grassy camping spots in the trees.  We wished we could have made it on the first day to spend the night here!  It was absolutely beautiful.