Its Been Amazing

For the past four months, we've called the Colorado Rocky Mountain National Park our home. This beautiful place has given us a lifetime of memories and so much more. We've been given the chance to spend the most beautiful time of year in a place that makes you feel better just by smelling the air and looking at the horizon. A place that gives you more energy the further you hike rather than wear you down. A place that feels completely untouched by the rest of the world. A place that frees in every way. Free to be who you are, do what you always wanted, and feel like everything is possible. A true feeling of escape from the everyday world that you know.

I know. This is pretty cheesy. I'm thinking that as I'm typing it, but the moment you step foot in this place, it doesn't matter if it sounds cheesy or not. The feelings are real and can't compare to many places in the world.

The first picture is one that I took in the park the first day that it snowed this season. Truly amazing. I sat in a field and just stared at the view for nearly a half hour. I just couldn't stop staring at it.

So I took a picture.

It's been like that all summer. Finding one place after another that looks like a picture in a book. Perfect. Amazing colors, great composition, thought inspiring, and romantic in all senses of the word. However, they're not pictures. They're real and all around us.

So what have we done? We've taken pictures.

More than a thousand!

Pictures from hikes, backpacking trips, visits to breweries, nights at the hot springs, time spent with family, and much more. Even pictures taken at work are beautiful.

It'll be hard to leave this place behind. Sonya and I explain it as bittersweet. Its too bad we're leaving, but it will be wonderful to see family for the winter.

What have we learned from our experience here?

Beauty is all around you. Everywhere you look. Sometimes its the snow covered mountains in the distance. Sometimes its as close as the person holding your hand while you're looking at them. Although we can't take this place with us, we can take our memories, our pictures, and our new views on life and how we love to live it.

I've loved our life here and I know I'll love my life where ever life takes me, as long as Sonya is by my side. Every day we've spent together has made me fall in love with her a little more and has made me realize that I couldn't be luckier than to be with her.

Thank you for going on this adventure with me, sweets. I can't wait to see what's next.

Rock Climbing in Boulder

Rock climbing has always been very exciting for me. I started climbing with a few of my friends when I was in college in Pittsburgh. I loved the challenge, the heights, and the trust and faith that you learned to put in your friend with the other end of your rope.

So of course, it always excited me to think about going out west and attempting some crazy climb somewhere like Eldorado Canyon. Never really thinking that I'd get the opportunity, but always dreaming.

Well, this is me.

Rock climbing in Eldorado Canyon.

My family from Boulder, CO took Sonya and I climbing while we were in town for a visit. It was an incredible experience. They've been climbing for a lot of years, so they had a wealth of knowledge and pointers to share.

To start the climb, my cousin and I climbed up the backside of the face and set the ropes and all of the fall protection at the top. Then we checked to see if everything was going to hold by rappelling down. As you can see from the picture... it held.

Thanks Owen. That made me happy.

Once we both made it down, we all started to climb. Taking turns of course.

Unfortunately for me, I didn't realize that we were going climbing, so I didn't bring along my climbing shoes. As it turns out, hiking shoes are no match for 1/4" wide, at best, foot holds. I tried my best, but the shoes just weren't going to let it happen. I really enjoyed the attempt though.

Next up was my uncle Don.

Here's a picture that's just purely amazing to me. It proves to me that the lifestyle you choose can make you old or keep you young. It's completely your choice.

That little speck of a person at the top of this rock face is my uncle. In a few weeks, he's turning 60.

Unreal.

Sonya and my aunt Emily climbed next and did very well. Sonya was amazing. At first, she didn't seem to have the confidence in herself, but once she started up, she was a natural. I was very proud to say the least.

So, feeling like I just had to give it one more try, I decided to go barefoot. Everyone gave me the "that's going to hurt more than you know" look, but I was determined to at least try.

Well guess what, it hurt more than I knew.

I only made it about 3 feet higher than this picture and stepped on something extremely sharp, lost my grip, fell, swung, smashed, scraped, and bled. All in about 5 seconds.

I loved it!

We wrapped up the day by going to a microbrewery with my cousin. We had great food and lots of great beer. Then we met my uncle back at his house to hang out and share the huge growler that we brought back from the brewery.

Life in Colorado is everything I've ever imagined.

Living in the Rockies

Well, its been a very long time since I’ve blogged. I’ve been super busy with life. In a good way, of course. Sonya and I recently moved out to a small town in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. We actually live in the Rocky Mountain National Park. This is Longs Peak, the highest peak in the park. This is what we look at from our front door.
Pretty spectacular isn’t it? It's a little washed out, but hey, you get the idea. It's awesome.

So. What brought us here? Well, one week when I was working late at the shop again, Sonya decided to look for new jobs for me. She happened to stumble onto a posting for a carpenter for the National Park. I figured…what the heck. So I applied and after a very, very long process, I got the job!

Ever since we’ve been here, we’ve been taking advantage of our surroundings. Hiking, taking up photography, slowly-but-surely gathering backpacking gear, and enjoying the natural beauty of the mountains. This place truly is breathtaking.

Here we are at Alberta Falls. One of many waterfalls in the park. We actually had to climb down a little rock face to get to it, which ended up making for some pretty nice pictures. One of the things that we love about these hikes is how rapidly the environment changes. Our hikes, very commonly, start in the hot dry elevations around 7,000ft. then work their way into snow covered trails in the peaks around 11,000ft. Just recently, we ventured into a Tundra region above 12,000ft. At that elevation, you are above the tree growth line. It’s so high, that trees actually can’t survive there. It actually doesn’t even accumulate snow there. The wind is so wicked that it keeps the ground completely bare even through the intense winters.

Impressive.

It definitely does snow here though. One of my current construction projects is building snow doors. They are huge solid wood doors that are about three inches thick that will hold back 14’+ of snow for eight months out of the year. Such a cool job.

Another pretty cool part of the job is being able to drive around some cool toys. This is the military all-terrain forklift that I drive every few days.

Only bad part about the job is having to look like Ranger Rick.

Say what you want about the hat. Without it, my ears would melt off of my head out here.

So yes. We're absolutely loving it out here. The job is pretty cool most days. Just like any job anywhere else, except this one is in the freaking Rockies. Plus, Sonya and I get to hike, backpack, rock climb, and get some pretty amazing pictures on a nearly daily basis. We're happy, we're healthy, and we're having the times of our lives.

How can you go wrong with that?

We've certainly become mountain people and I mean that in the best ways possible.

Wine, Dine, and Change the Time

Last October, we hosted a beer tasting party in honor of turning back the clocks. We called it The Fall-Back Beer Fest. It was pretty sweet. We had a bunch of people and a ton of awesome beers.

Now it's "spring ahead season", so we decided to host another party. This time it was our Wine, Dine, and Change the Time party. We had pile of friends over and celebrated with a big Italian dinner and a bunch of great wine.

Of course we had to stay true to ourselves and go a little overboard on some things, so the morning of, Sonya and I tried our hands at making homemade noodles for our pasta. We made light-wheat fettuccine and basic egg noodle spaghetti. Then we realized that the size of our table wasn't big enough for the number of people, so I decided to tear our table apart, then build a new one from the scraps of past ridiculous projects and parts of the original table.

Frankenstein-style.

It's pretty sweet. We went from seating for four to seating for ten comfortably. We managed to cram about thirteen or more around it though.

It was an awesome night. A ton of great wine, a good time catching up with friends, lots of food (the pasta was a success!), and another great excuse to build unnecessary things.

It's Official

As of today, I am officially the owner of a truck. It took me 10 years to get one, but it's finally in the driveway. Well, the neighbors driveway. Turns out that a 2 wheel drive truck in a snow storm isn't the best. It sure turned out to be a great sled though. I owned the truck for 3 hours, got it stuck in two driveways due to a lack of weight in the bed and best of all, parked it in my parents driveway, (well, half way up since it couldn't make it all the way up) only to later find it out in the road. Hence the sled comment.

I know, it sounds like a bad situation, but I bought it as a work truck to get materials and deliver my furniture and cabinets, so it's going to be awesome! I'm really happy with it and very proud. It even came with a cat slipper glued to the roof of it. It was some kind of joke by the guy who sold it to me. He's really weird. Hard to explain, but he's weird enough to glue a cat slipper to the roof of a truck.

So anyway, I now have a truck and I am super happy. Now I just need to put a thousand pounds of sand in the back so I can drive it around PA til the roads melt off.

Snow. Who needs it.

By the way, the cat is in the garbage.

Ski Dummy Race 2010

Well, I have mixed feelings about this one.

Last year, two of my friends and I competed in Seven Springs' ski dummy competition. It's a pretty ridiculous competition, but usually that is the only type of competition that I get myself involved in.

This year was much simpler than last. This time we didn't use a water jet, a MIG welder, or even an angle grinder. This year we built it somewhat Macgyver style. A couple feet of PVC, a few nuts and bolts, a little cardboard, and of course...duct tape. Tons of duct tape.

Last year, three of us built the dummy in about 1 1/2 days and managed to win a trophy. This year, we had a little trouble getting together because of everyone's busy schedules, so I ended up building it alone in about 12 hours. I nearly scrapped the plans of competing about five times, but my ever-supportive wife pushed me to finish it up.

Results...

1 person, 12 hours, 2 trophies. Not too shabby.

To be completely honest, it was pretty lame this year. I only had one guy competing against me. I'm still proud of the fact that my dummies have been the only ones to finish the race two years in a row.

Even though I left the competition feeling a little let down by the turnout and a little overcompensated with trophies, I'm glad that I did it again this year. Plus, we all went out for breakfast afterward again and the food was awesome. You can't beat a good breakfast day.