Hows my little colorado adventurer?

Ok This is going to be a HUGE! Post, because I want to tell you all about our Colorado adventure.

**Also, I stopped writing this halfway so please forgive the lack of photos and description.**

First off. The state is awesome. I love it. I would move there and live there and retire there and play there and love it the entire time. They have mountains, and hills and rivers and fake lakes that you can't swim in and all sorts of other excellent things that I love. It is a very Blue state which kind of sucks though. But on the other hand it is also a very dark green state, where fitness is almost a snobbish part of the daily life, which is awesome compared the the glut of fatties here in Central Illinois.

I'll try to keep this as brief as I can I promise, but there is a lot to cover in 10 days, hopefully the photos speak more than the words do.

First off we headed off into the sunset from IL to Lincoln NE. We made several pit stops to find some Geocaches the most notable one came in the town of west branch where we found a pink toilet (outdoors) a lot of bugs and a couple of geocaches. Naturally when I was looking for caches along our drive I could not pass this stop up. Between the bugs and the realization that it was a long ass walk, we decided to call this one quits long before the middle, let alone the end.


I should clarify we had very few if any plans before going into this trip, so if you are a fellow shoot from the hipper I would recommend to pay attention to the books everyone ignores at rest stops because they are full of some pretty awesome deals for walk in hotel reservations. We stayed in Lincolin for $35, which included breakfast, which if you think about it, at Perkins or something is a $15 value for two people. Not bad.

The next day was a good learning adventure, I was craving random cool side stops since we were taking a road tirp. We didn't find any Dr. Satan stops but we decided that learning a little more about Wild Bill Cody would be pretty cool. Afterall he was a big hit and the Colombian Exposition in Chicago. (Thank you Devil in the White City) So we stopped in North Platte Nebraska for some learning. We decided his ranch would be a fun whole day adventure complete with camping, so we decided to visit his park instead, which was closed. Lame. So the visitor center lady said we ought to check out the "Golden Spike" since it was in the same town we said why not it would be cool to see the worlds largest train yard from up high. Can you believe they charge $6 a person to take an elevator up three stories to look at the top side of a bunch of trains? Me neither. I bought a Post Card and sent it to my sister to tell her not to go.

So Nebraska sucks. If you can find a way to avoid it go right ahead and do it. Fun facts about Nebraska: There are more cows in Nebraska than people (holy shit!) The ratio of cows to people 3:1 (holy shit!). Another fun fact. When the Corn Huskers(!) play a home football the stadium becomes the 3rd largest city in the lame state. There is a reason the mid-west states are called flyover states, Nebraska ruins it for the cool States, like Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Chicago ;)

We got into Colorado and did some excellent hanging out and catching up with old Pal Rich and newer pal Ali. We attempted to reach the summit of our first fourteener (a mountain over 14k feet above sea level) and Due to harsh weather conditions and the snow! we didn't make it to the top, but we did find a cool geocache nearby. They also have a really great little one called Adrianne, she is a hoot and when she cries she makes baby Chewbacca noises, I love it.

After our adventures with Rich and Ali Laura and I headed up toe Estes Park Co. Probably the coolest city I've ever been to. A little tourist town nestled in the mountains with two gorgeous (and natural?) lakes! My goodness I feel in love with that cute little town. And the donut shop! mmmmm.

(ok I started writing this post ages ago and I've been holding back on posting other blogs until I finished this one. I just really hate the blogger picture loader and I wanted to post bunches of photos and tell even more, but now I'm like a month overdue so here is a quick summary of the rest of the trip)

As a list from here on out:

* Camped in Rocky Mountain National Park.
* Heard a funny quote about that time of year, "The only people who come here are the nearly wed and the nearly dead" so true!
* It was elk mating season, the noises they make are CRAZY!
* We hiked a mountain and began our engagement to marry.
* We drove around the park and took a ton of landscape photos.
* Saw a Marmot
* Drove to Colorado Springs
* Visited the garden of the Gods, next time I would like to go climbing there
* Took a driving tour of the city.
* Decided CO Springs is a great place for a family adventure. Not nearly weds
* Took the Cog railway to the summit of Pikes Peak, found a Geocache there
* Saw Mountain sheep.
* Spent another excellent night with the Keller Family
* Drove back in one long grueling 16 hour trek.
* Listened to Stephanie Meyer's Newish book, The Host, Will not recommend that to anyone looking for a book as satisfying entertainment. Good concept, poorly finished.
* Reflected and loved the whole adventure.

Hows my little reDirect?

Life is full of changes and surprises. Meeting someone you love and feel like you can spend the rest of your days with tirelessly is one of those changes and surprises. My love happens to have taken the form of Laura Davis. Quite a catch I would say, and many (at this point I'm pretty sure all of) my friends would agree. So from the beginning of my relationship with Laura I knew we had something unique that I hadn't experienced before, I thought gosh I could probably marry this woman, never before had I seriously thought that about anyone I spent time with. So that was a big step for me.
Several months ago I was talking to Laura's brother on the tele and he was telling me all sorts of "fun" baby things and I said, gosh I'm not jealous of you at all, and he came back with something along the lines of well we decided after waiting for so long, if we're not ready now we never will be, and that is when they started growing their family. And that was my *Aha* moment. If I'm not ready to marry her now I never will be(of course there was a lot more thought before I reached that conclusion). So fast forward a month or two, I built up the courage to ask Mr. Davis if he would mind if I asked Laura to marry me. He said no, I like you, and a bunch of other things. That was pretty great, I was crazy nervous for some reason, but now that I think that part is out of the way I won't be nervous for the actual moment(future tense because I haven't asked yet) We'll see though.
Fast forward another month or two and Laura heads out of town, a perfect chance to go ring shopping! Hurray! For those of you fellas looking for rings, let me tell you, do your homework first. All jewelers are willing to train you and teach you all about the qualities of diamonds. I also encourage you to use bluenile.com to learn more about settings and you can build your own rings, this way you have an idea of what you like and you can cut your in-store shopping time down to sometimes just a few minutes. The first store I walked into by myself I had a lady say, how can I help you and I said confidently I'm looking for an engagement ring! I was expecting to be all timid and shy but no, not at all, it turned out I was excited to go shopping for this.
Back when I first got my job down here in Illinois I left a "secret" bank account open with Wells Fargo to save for this very purchase. I initially decided if I save a little bit from each paycheck I would have enough for the ring I wanted by this coming October. [My thoughts about the timing were: well if we get engaged in October we wont marry until 2011 maybe, sweet!(I wasn't ready yet) I've changed my thinking on this route for various reasons now.] Anyway of course this savings account has my mom's name still on it, and I'm pretty sure I told her what this account was for. So a few weeks ago when I made my first withdraw of the account my surprise, was lost, I'm pretty sure.[9-20-09 Not So! Apparently my mom had forgotten about this account and had no idea how much money was in or going out of it...or so she claims...:)] Which was kind of a bummer to me since I wanted everyone but me to be surprised, now I know I have one person actually expecting it. And when she sees the rest of the account drained this week sometime she will know its coming. Of course I can't get her name off the account either, lame!
Back to shopping!
After walking around in the malls in the area I realized something, most of the sales people treat me like I want the biggest diamond for my money and that I don't know what I want. Also there are a hell of a lot of nasty looking rings at the big (kay, Halzberg, zales ect) chain stores. So I opted for a local shop, thinking two things, yay help the local economy and yay I'll get treated better. Sure enough, both happened. I found the ring I wanted at Christoper's Fine Jewelers in Champaign and was like wow cool AND you can do custom work, fantastic. So I picked out something I like, (after all its my ring for Laura to wear) and the guy said that will be... and I went HOLY SHIT! I wasn't ready for that part despite my savings.
A month or so later I came to my senses and said, that isn't so bad, and called them up, sent a check and had the work started. About a week after that I realized I have officially overstayed my welcome as Laura's BF and sensed she is officially antsy about moving forward with our relationship. The following 5 weeks couldn't have moved slower in that sense.
About two weeks after that we were looking at rings in a catalog or online or something, and Laura points to a ring I very similar to what I have already paid over half on and said, I'm not too sure I like these. FUUUUUUCK Fuck fuck fuck. Is what I said, at that point I decided, F that I bet she will like just about anything (within reason) as long as I'm the one giving it to her. I really like it, and I'm sure it will grow on her. The one part I'm a little wishy washy about is if she will like the emerald cut or not. I like the shape but they aren't sparkly diamonds like most are.
On Friday I got a call from the jeweler, The ring is ready! Still not sure how I'm going to ask her. Or how I'm going to pick it up for that matter.
I want to ask her in a place that we can never ever be again, to make the moment unique, but those are hard to come by. I thought about doing it in an airplane but I'm afraid the TSA will out the ring since its metal, I'm not sure I want some fat lady inspecting a ring pulled from my belongings with Laura's eyes lighting up. So nix that. I don't know we will see, but before the end of the month, I should be beginning my engagement to marry Laura Davis.
(9/8/09) I've had the ring for over a week now! Hahaha! Little does she know... Well the plan for the Airplane is officially out, since I don't know the next time I'll be on one. Right now I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to smuggle this thing into a tiny car in my luggage that Laura could potentially be digging around through or in my clothes or our camping gear. But I've decided it needs to be able to be accessed quickly in case I see that I can propose on top of a giant ball of twine or something. I have a couple of pants that have a stash pocket that might work, but I want to bring the box around just in case the ring doesn't fit or she doesn't want to wear it for what ever reason. I think when I get home from work tomorrow I'll try and figure that out before she gets home.
OH! I forgot, I'm so clever, I picked the ring up on the first, I worked through my lunch and drove to Champaign to pick it up. I got to the store with like 10 minutes to loiter around and chit chat and drove back to Oakwood. I thought that Laura would have beat me home, which would have raised problems since I didn't hide the ring before I drove home, but conveniently she had to work late that night. Nice, lucky me.
I spent the first couple of days really upset with what I got thinking everything was too small and weird looking from the side (which I still think) but after a couple of days in anguish over purchasing something for so much that I didn't like, I snuck another look at it again expecting to nothing but hate and I realized, wow! I like this a lot! Sure the side looks goofy but I've decided that is ok, I just hope Laura likes it. After all the top view looks gorgeous. A pretty ring for a pretty lady! Maybe my next post will actually get published and I will say I did it!
(9-9-9) I got the ring out today and its in my pants that have the PERFECT stash pocket. I walked all around with it within touching distance of Laura tonight to get used to carrying it so I'm not all "weird" before I pop the question! The ring is growing on me. Still not sure about how I'm going to get the box there, that will be a challenge to hide now that we are packed. Wish me luck! I'm excited for our trip!
(9-20-09) Back from Colorado! We're Engaged!
How did you do it? Well the road trip didn't give me any giant balls of strings to ask her on top of but it did give me a mountain! ok Mushy nerd spot ahead but half of this blog is for me the other half you so read it and like it...First off Driving through Nebraska & Kansas Sucks to drive though there is a reason they are called flyover states. We spent the first part of our trip with Pals Rich and Ali Keller, and then we headed off to Rocky Mountain National Park. When we got there we pitched our tent and Laura said lets go for a hike before we get all of our stuff set up and I was like hey, that sounds great! I stashed the ring box in my ground mat and I wasn't ready to unroll that and have a box give away the surprise I had worked so hard at keeping for the last year. The weather wasn't really the greatest and so we hiked most of the trail under our rain coats. I had conveniently been wearing my shorts with ring stashed in them that day for just such a hike. After talking to the ranger and hearing him say it was probably a little too late to leave for a summit I lost a little bit of heart but since we are two young, mildly in shape people we decided to go for a hike anyway. We found a trail that was going to be a warm up for our big hike the next day, Longs peak (a 7.5 mile hike one way with over 5k feet in elevation gain) it was a 4.4 mile trek one way to the Summit of Flattop mountain. No Problem...right?
Holy shit were we wrong. We got about a quarter of the way up when we ran into a guy who had just come down from the summit and said yeah it just keeps going up. We had the choice of going to a pretty lake about the same distance or the mountain's Summit. I was like, well I can ask her at a secluded mountain lake that will be ok. But when Laura decided to head left and up to the Summit I went YES! good choice. So far things were going like I had wanted them to, and I didn't have to be pushy at all.
Little did I know we were only a Quarter of the way up at that point. After another hour of hiking we ran into some lady and I jokingly said we are halfway there right?! haha...She said not quite... I was like huh? Oh, haha she is just joking with me too. Silly mountain people. Turns out she was right.
After hiking the rest of the mountain and more and more frequent stops (hiking at altitude is tough stuff) I may as well have had a whip and gun to get Laura to the top. (in all fairness I was exhausted but I knew what was waiting for us at the top and I didn't need as much motivation) I only promised her it would be worth it once so that she wouldn't get any ideas.
About 100 yards from the summit the clouds and rain cleared and the most brilliant and vibrant rainbow materialized behind us and with one end on the trail we had just walked on! We encountered another couple who was on their way down who took our photo and we hiked the rest in awe.
Before then I had a pretty good idea of what I was going to say but the rain clearing and the rainbow and the glory of reaching the top changed all of that. I got a little teary eyed thinking of what I was going to say as I pulled the ring out to ask her. but after a few more paces I 'manned up' just in time for Laura to turn around and give me a big hug and say We made it!
"Its moments like these that I am excited to share with you for the rest of our lives, Will you spend the rest of your life with me?"
After I flashed her the ring Laura screamed and I nearly pooped myself it was so unexpected. After I thought she had cried long enough I decided to ask her if that was a yes, and she agreed it was.
After hanging out with her for the rest of the week I was just about ready to call her Gollum because she looks at the ring so often, but thats AOK because it makes me feel good that I got her something she liked, and most importantly (in the end) Something that I liked and thought would look good on her.
And that is the story of the ring and the beginning of our engagement to marry...

Hows my little world traveler?

For some reason many of the people I know in our new neck of the woods think that Laura and I are world travelers. I think its because we leave the state more than once a year. I wish I could say I leave the country that often, but I guess I have to take baby steps.

This weekend Laura and I had a rockin good time at her Brother's family's new diggs just south of the ATL in Peachtree city, which has no peach trees. It justsohappens to be the 8th best place to live in the country according to the internet Whoddthunk it?

Anyway, they do live in a pretty cool town, and if you're a walker the golf carts can be annoying, but if you're a fat southerner, I'm sure the walkers are annoying. But I'm not sure if the guy who walked his dog while driving the golf cart can think anything other than actually lifting his arm to hold his steering wheel could be more annoying.

Aside from ogling golf carts and swanky abodes we did happen to enjoy ourselves. It was nice to see Scott and Brandee's house, ;) and we definitely got a good taste of the outdoors. I would also like to commend little Alia for raising my standards of baby hate because she hardly made a peep. But I would like to mention all of her hard work at impressing me was quickly wiped out with the baby who sat next to us on the plane ride home. After what seemed like an eternity of crying (probably more like 20 minutes(which seems like the coming of the 4 horsemen)) I have once again reaffirmed myself babies that are not anywhere in my planned future. Dear lord I was considering murder before our plane even left the ground. Thank goodness for The Used('s ?) new album I was able to mask the screaming a bit with another kind of screaming.

I've decided I need to realize my personal legend, I think I'm currently polishing crystal. Someday maybe I will be inspired to write a blog about some of the things/event that have inspired me in the past. I'm chalking the Alchemist (book i just finished) up as one of those things today. A must read for people who have an idea for a direction in life but just need a guiding hand to help with some motivation.

My next post will be about my road trip to Colorado with Laura! I'm pretty excited for it! I'm sure Laura is too but she, like me, doesn't know whats going on yet. Should be Supergreat!!