Colorado anniversary!

For our third anniversary we thought we might as well take a vacation! We don't have any kids yet, and we haven't had a lot of opportunities to travel, so now is the perfect time! As we were trying to figure out where we should go, the usual "Branson" was thrown out there, but that is getting a little monotonous. There was kind of this moment of "wait a minute... we're young and adventurous, why go to Branson??" Then there was this realization "I've never flown before..." So we decided to fly to Colorado! (It was cheapest :P)

We were both so excited right away! I was having dreams about it, we were reserving hotels, making plans, etc. Neither of us have been to Colorado so, after some recommendations from several people, we decided to hit Estes park and Colorado springs.


To start with let me just say that Luke did not go to sleep Thursday night at all, because he got off work at 1am Friday. And to make our 5:45am flight Friday morning, we needed to leave by around 2:45. So Friday was a little blurry for both of us. But my first flight was amazing! I wasn't expecting the experience to be emotional, but I was so happy to be flying! There was so much to see from the air and I could see for miles.

After we got to Estes park and slept for several hours we ventured out into the TWO FEET OF SNOW! It was freezing. In St. Louis is was 90 degrees! But we loved every minute of driving through the snowy mountains, walking on main street and trekking through all that snow! The mountains took our breath away. We could've been looking at mountains through a window, sitting in pile of soiled garbage in a hoarders house, but we would've been happy! They were so beautiful.

After two days of admiring the beautiful scenery of Estes park (we could've stayed there our whole trip!) we made our way to Colorado springs. We were definitely excited to make our way to Garden of the gods, pikes peak, red rocks and whatever else we decided to throw in. First we hit red rocks and did a little hiking. The weather was perfect! And did I mention there was no humidity?! There were so many different trail options at Red rocks, you could stay there all day and not see it all, I'm sure. Guess why they call it Red rocks? They're really red. Oh and guess what else!

 



We didn't see any Bobcats the whole time! Next we went to the Garden of the gods, pikes peak and the cliff dwellers museum! All were amazing! It was so strange going from garden of the gods at 75 degrees to the top of pikes peak at 30 degrees and snowing! But every stop was so worth it. It made us so happy to admire this atmosphere of God's creation! The most above sea level we ever are in Missouri is about 600ft. On top of pikes peak we were standing at 14,000ft! Making these kinds

of memories and living these experiences with
your best friend is one of the best
adventures I could've imagined! Thanks for 3
years of joy. Here's to next year's adventure and
decades of happiness!