Jace and I headed down to Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs over the weekend. Our favorite gay, Dan, tagged along, too. We did a lovely 2 mile-ish hike and took in some beautiful vistas! Even after being here for over a year, I’m amazed by how different the scenery is out here. Denver has gotten a lot of rain (by CO standards) lately so everything is nice and green! Flowers are blooming, the trees have leaves again, so to see how barren and desert-like it is a little over an hour away was surprising. And those red rocks are just stunning. We definitely don’t have anything like it in SC!
We capped our afternoon with a trip to Cracker Barrel. There aren’t any in city limits, so it had been over a year since Jace and I had been to one. It was Dan’s first time ever, so we were excited to show him such a Southern tradition. Growing up my sister and I sought out Cracker Barrels on road trips like we were trying to win a game! We’d beg for every toy in the store, play too many rounds of checkers, and we’d always leave with at least 10 sticks of candy. I think my Southern drawl came out at lunch; Dan seemed frightened. No worries, though! We’re back in the big city, and my voice has returned to normal! : )
I love that we get to travel on the weekends and take day trips to such unique places. I look forward to exploring more of our beautiful state!
Addison has now seen what I’ve been telling her for months: Colorado is a breathtakingly beautiful state.
We’ve just recovered (we actually returned a few days ago) from our four day road trip from Denver to Durango to Ouray and back to Denver, and as I look at the photos we took, I’m struck by a sad reality: photos never do justice to what you witness with your eyes.
And yet, Addison and I still took photos. Hundreds over them over four days. Because we get so excited about sharing our experiences with family and friends who read this blog. In fact, it’s because of all of you that Addison forced us to stop at nearly every scenic overlook throughout our travels. She wanted to share the sights and the beauty with you.
So that’s why you saw photos throughout our travels (taken with and posted by our phones) and why the next several will show you some of the photos from our actual camera. :) We hope you enjoy them.
But before we get started with the photos, let me orient you to where we traveled. We started in Denver and followed the red route to Durango, taking a small detour to Great Sand Dunes National Park.
On day 2, we did no traveling at all as we were working the Four Corners Pride Festival (the actual reason / excuse for this little road trip excursion).
On day 3, we followed the blue route, driving two hours on the Million Dollar Highway (so named because it cost a million dollars a mile to construct) to Ouray, a town just northeast of Durango.
On day 4, we left Ouray and traveled back to Denver, taking an alternate route than the one we took on day 1, traveling north and then east and passing through popular ski areas such as Vail.
All in all, it was an amazing trip, as you’ll see by the photos. And one I’d gladly do again if family and friends would like to travel west to see us. :)
Jess and I had an amazing day yesterday. We’ve been in Colorado for a little over a month now, and we hadn’t made it up to the mountains yet. We decided that Saturday would be a perfect day for that to happen. So, we checked the weather, looked at a few maps, and hit the road! We started off with brunch in Boulder, CO. (Actually, we started our day off in Commerce City selling our old iPhones, but that’s not exciting.) We parked our car and walked along the pedestrian mall on Pearl Street. It was sunny and in the low 70s with a light breeze. Perfect weather! We ate at the Boulder Cafe, outside, of course! I got some sort of eggs Benedict and Jess got the world’s best french toast. After brunch we strolled down the pedestrian mall, in and out of wonderful galleries and cute shops. Then we hopped in the car and headed to Best Buy to buy a new camera. (We needed one; we managed to lose ours in the move.) We got a really great deal, and it takes amazing pictures. The reason we went ahead and bought a new camera, is our next destination was Rocky Mountain National Park. We drove up to Estes Park, CO and entered the park from there. We stopped at multiple places and were treated to the most incredible views from all sorts of elevations. At our last stop, the summit, we were over 11,700 feet high. That’s more than 2 miles above sea level! It was absolutely breathtaking. At the summit, there was snow on the ground. In October. In fact, the road we were on is probably going to be closed tomorrow because of anticipated snowfall tonight. It’ll be closed all winter. Besides the amazing views and gorgeous weather, there was something else awesome going on. It’s elk mating season right now, so we saw them everywhere. Mamas, daddies, wanna-be daddies, and babies, too! It was incredible. They’re huge! At one point we stopped at a field and I got to watch them for a bit. There were 20+ elk in one area, and it was so interesting to see the dynamics of the group. The alpa male kept chasing off younger males; it was like Africa. Simply wonderful. As the sun went down, we headed down the mountain, grabbed some fast food for dinner, and headed back to Denver. We really had an amazing time, and made some wonderful memories! I can’t wait until we get to do it again. -Addison
East Coast Vacation
Addison and I have just returned from another week of vacation. I know, you’d think we have tons of money since we’ve recently traveled to California and Atlanta, and we’ve just returned from another trip. But that’s not the case. We don’t have money. We have credit cards.
Anyway, the wife and I took a week off to drive Anne (Addison’s mother) up to New York City. You see, after spending the summer in famously hot Columbia, Anne is starting her last year of seminary in NYC, and she had accumulated so much cra…I mean, stuff…while staying down South that she really need an SUV (or two) to help her get it all back up north. Addison and I being the helpful people that we are volunteered to drive her and her stuff all the way up to Manhattan. So we took a week off, and we went.
The trip started out with a bang. We left early Saturday morning, and we were cruising through North Carolina when my Explorer warned us that there was a problem with the “charging system” (read alternator / battery / something necessary). We got on the phone with a family friend who works on Fords, and he encouraged us to get some help. So we found a dealer, and $600 (and three hours) later, we were back on the road.
Our travel day was very rainy, and the traffic was fucking horrible so we didn’t make it all the way to NYC on Saturday. We stopped in Virginia just outside of DC, stayed the night, and finished the trip on Sunday morning.
Sunday evening was one of the highlights of the trip. Addison and I went to see Next to Normal, a Broadway musical about an American family that is incredibly beautiful, emotional, and full of amazingly talented actors and singers. I can’t say enough good things about it. It made me feel every emotion under the sun. It moved me.
On Monday, we were off to Boston, and at the risk of losing my job because my bosses read this, I’ll tell you that I went for a job interview. I interviewed for a Director of Marketing job with the Family Equality Council, a national GLBT organization that focuses on family issues. This job would be a dream come true because ever since I started volunteering with SC Equality, I have become incredibly passionate about working with a GLBT organization and fighting for GLBT rights. I believe activism is my life’s calling, and getting this job would be me answering the call. Of course, it’s early in the process so who knows what will happen…
Addison and I had a great time while in Boston. It’s an awesome city. Really historic. Really pretty (beautiful harbor area, just amazing). Really good, simple public transportation. And full equality. There’s just something about full equality that feels good. And trolleys. We took a trolley tour and loved it. After spending a night there (and yes, we know that isn’t much), we think we could live there. It would be tough to be far from family, but it’s a great city.
We returned to NYC after our brief stint in Boston, and on Wednesday, we headed to Montclair (the city in New Jersey that I lived in for 14 months). God, it was great to be back. Montclair is an adorable little town with great restaurants. We had awesome Indian food (man, I’ve missed it) and ate at a couple of “old favorites.” But being in Montclair wasn’t the best part (though I certainly enjoyed showing Addison my old “stomping ground). Seeing my friend Elissa was the best part. Elissa was my best friend in NJ and one of the greatest friends I’ve ever had. We were both TAs in our grad programs, and we ended up spending lots of time together. We bonded instantly, and she’s truly one of my favorite people in the world. I was SO very happy to see her and to have Addison meet her. We had a great time together catching up. I just wish I could see her more!
Our remaining days in NYC (Thursday and Friday) were simple. We hung out a lot with Anne, helping her get her new apartment set up and visiting the church where she works. We went to a design museum (can’t remember the name right now), ate yummy food, rode the Staten Island ferry, met up with some of Addison’s old friends (one of which took us to a couple of gay bars), walked through (and got lost in) Central Park, and basically just hung out around Chelsea and Manhattan.
Both Addison and I have taken many trips to NYC so we’ve done the “touristy” stuff; thus, instead of jumping from attraction to attraction, we tried to soak up NYC life because, of course, we were evaluating it as a possible “place for us.” But, like Atlanta, NYC didn’t feel right, especially after having experienced lovely Boston which did feel like a place we could call home. Manhattan is just too overwhelming and way too busy for me. I’m not a fast-paced girl, and although the diversity and vibrancy of the city is appealing, the speed stresses me out. So to get me to NYC, you’d have to put me in Brooklyn or the Jersey suburbs because Manhattan makes my head spin. But I’d much prefer San Francisco or Boston…or…probably lots of other places.
Now we’re back in Columbia. In our house that we hate not because it isn’t cute but because it is in a neighborhood where houses get broken into and because it is in Columbia where we just don’t feel like we belong. Here we are, wishing we were somewhere else.
-Jess
ATL
Addison and I went to Atlanta last weekend (July 24-27), and to be honest, we were on a fact-finding mission, not just a vacation. We wanted to see if we liked Hotlanta as a potential place to live because it is the closest big city to all of our family. Plus, it’s known for being a gay-friendly city in the South. As we explore our moving options, the topic that gets debated the most is proximity to our peeps. We want to be somewhere we feel accepted and embraced, but we’re just not sure we want to move really far away (like to…say…San Francisco). So before moving across the world, we decided to look into the only city in the South known to accept gay folk like us. Unfortunately, Atlanta just isn’t right for us. It’s a feeling you get, you know? When I arrived in San Francisco, I had this amazing feeling; it felt like a place that could be home. Atlanta didn’t feel that way. It felt full of traffic and hot and inaccessible. San Francisco felt historic, beautiful, and embracing—with fantastic weather and great public transportation. Atlanta just didn’t give me this feeling of “home.” I was profoundly aware that I just couldn’t see myself living here. Um…I fear I’m going to be “stuck” comparing everywhere to San Francisco because it is such an amazing place. Atlanta failed the test. I wonder how upcoming cities will fair. Unfortunately, there isn’t much to report about our actual vacation. We didn’t do all that much exciting stuff because we really didn’t enjoy the city. We hit all the tourist spots like the aquarium and Coke museum, but they were so full of people that it was hard to have fun. The highlight of our weekend (how sad is this) was the trip we made to Ikea. It was Addison’s first time so naturally, she was impressed. So…with Atlanta off the list and a semi-wasted weekend vacation behind us…our quest for “our city” continues… -Jess
