30 Before 30: Buy myself an expensive piece of jewelry

Last Week, Taylor and I spent 5 days in Estes Park, Colorado with his parents.  They spend several months each summer out there and it is such a treat to get to go.  We had a great time and in the process, I was able to check a 30 Before 30 off my list!  Here's a recap.

View from Taylor's parents place:

We got there on Wednesday night and stopped for dinner at a Thai place in Boulder.  It was delicious, but I ate WAY too much!  Thursday to be honest, I can't really remember what we did besides play a little tennis (my newest obsession) on these courts.  Check out the BEAUTIFUL view!

 

Friday was Taylor's Mom's birthday, so we took a hike:

After the hike, we had to run in to town to mail something for Taylor's mom and on the way in, we noticed that the road back to their house was closed.  We asked a cop and he said there had been a fatal accident further up the road and that we would need to hang out in Estes Park for a while.  That didn't seem so bad, and we were past the point of turning back, so we headed in to town, went to the post office, and decided our next step would be to stop in at the Estes Park Brewery.  Now, Estes Park is not known for its craft beer, and in the 10 years that it's been there, no one in Taylor's family had gone, so our expectations were not high, and it's a good thing!  The beer was decent and they offer 4 free samples when you walk in, so we can't really complain, but unfortunately, the entire atmosphere of the place was just dank, and Taylor has decided in his next live, he will buy the Estes Park Brewery and will turn it into something more like the awesome craft beer places in Michigan!  Sounds fun!

Anyway, we dawdled a little more and then were able to sweet talk our way back up the road on account of the fact that we were only going about 2 miles when the accident was about 20 miles up the road.

Later that night, we went out to dinner at Lake Mary's Lodge, which was absolutely beautiful, delicious, and fun on account of the fact that there were several rehearsal dinners and even a wedding going on while we were there.

We came home and had cake and wine and Mary Elizabeth opened her presents: A rice cooker from Taylor's older brother Alex, a Camelback and an iron skillet from his dad, and some Toms shoes from us, which she proudly sported in an almost-matching-outfit to mine a couple nights later:

On Saturday, we got up early and took a tram ride up a mountain and did a little hiking, where i was greeted by a clearly-well-socialized ground squirrel:

Then we headed back to the house, where my good friend Laura and her husband came out to stay the night.  Taylor and Michael hiked the 14,000 foot mountain in Estes Park, Longs Peak, on Saturday night/Sunday morning, so they came out Saturday afternoon to get ready.  They brought their 1-year-old son Andrew, and we had a lot of fun playing with him.

We had a spaghetti dinner (gotta carbo load before the 15-mile hike!) and the boys turned in around 9pm because they had to get up at 2:30am (you read that right) in order to be on the trail by 4am.  Basically, when hiking Longs Peak, you have to get up by 10 or 11 so that you can get down by mid-afternoon and avoid the thunderstorms that swirl around the summit daily.

It turned out that 3 of Michael's friends had also decided to do the climb, so we swung by to pick them up on our way to the trailhead (I drove them, but did not climb).  They were a teensy weensy bit un-prepared in taht they were wearing shorts, had very little water, and seemed like they had been out partying the night before.  I wasn't sure they'd make it!  Here's a group photo before the start.

 After the hike started, I didn't really hear from them again for most of the day, but Taylor did take some good photos:

Apparently there was a detout to this beautiful lake:

 Marmot:

Unfortunately, they could not summit the mountain due to 1) the aforementioned unprepared hikers and 2) the fact that Taylor was sick!  Too bad, because it was a perfect day, but now we have an excuse to go back and hopefully I can join them!

While the boys were hiking Longs Peak, Laura and I went for a nice hike with Andrew at Lily Lake:



Sunday night we went to a delicious Nepalese place in Estes Park and then went shopping and bought Taylor a Longs Peak shirt.   We also came across this image on a T-shirt, which appears to show Nashville driving home a drunk cowboy:

 Seriously, that dog looks so much like Nash!

On Monday, we did our traditional drive up to the Alpine Visitor Center, which is in Rocky National Park at 12,000 feet.  It's a beautiful drive where you always see elk and sometimes even a moose!

We decided to take an old, dirt road instead of the usual Trail Ridge Road up the mountain.  It was very fun, but I was so scared the whole time that we would go tumbling (in our car) over a rocky outcropping.  Ridiculous, I know, but Taylor's parents car is a huge Ford Expedition and you can't see the ground outside the vehicle sometimes, so it's scary!

Here I am shooting a Nike commercial on the mountain:


And here's where we finally get to the 30 Before 30 part.  In the Alpine Visitor's Center, there's a gift shop full of touristy stuff, but then they also have this one section of nice jewelry either made in the park or by local Native Americans.  It's mostly silver, turquoise, etc.  I had been keeping my eye out for a turquoise necklace, and I know you can get them relatively cheap, but I figured if they had a nice one there, maybe I would spring for it.

So, I looked around and didn't really see anything, ignoring a more rag-tag cabinet off to the right. When I had looked at pretty much everything else, I walked over to the cabinet I had been ignoring.  The reason it looked so random was because it was full of pawned jewelry.  At first I didn't see anything I liked, but after a minute I zeroed in on a shorter turquoise necklace and asked to take it out.  As soon as I held it, I knew I wanted it.  You could tell it was high quality, and it had a magnetic closure, which makes it really easy to wear.  Here's a photo of the necklace and the info about pawn jewelry:

So that was it!  I wanted it!  I bought it!  It was "expensive" by my standards, though by no means exorbitant.  I really like it.  So much so taht I went outside and immediately modeled it for Taylor over the mountains:

Monday night was our last night in Estes Park.  We watched a beautiful sunset before packing up to leave.  Until next time!

A wonderful weekend "Up North"

If you live in Michigan, the phrase "up north" means a lot more than just "stuff in a northerly direction."  It is a lifestyle in the summer full of boats, lakes, rivers, campfires, beer, cards, and questionable personal hygiene.  Think Kid Rock's All Summer Long, but minus the confederate flag bikinis and Alabama/Werewolves of London rips, and you have "Up North".

Well, after almost a whole summer in Michigan, Taylor and I had still not managed to make it Up North.  Between him traveling Monday through Thursday and Nashville having puppy class every Saturday, we were booked through the end of July.  But on August 3, Taylor completed his internship (with a job offer, yay!) and we hit the road almost immediately, with pup in tow.

The first right of passage was Up North traffic.  Being a typical northeasterner, Taylor immediately likened it to "Jersey Shore Traffic."  Luckily, Michigan just can't muster the pure terror and sheer volume of traffic that the New York Metropolitan area can, so the traffic really only delayed us by 15-20 minutes (Ha!).

We made great time and arrived Up North at around 9:30pm just in time to meet my parents and our good friends Carole and Randy at Elk Rapids' Harbor Days.  I expected this to be a water-based festival of some sort, and was promised beer.  What we got was a hot, inland beer tent with Busch light only.  The saving grace was that the cover band, The Bronk Bros, was actually really good.  I was the DD, so I didn't drink much and we headed  to our cabin about 30 miles away around 11:30.  My parents and Carole and Randy actually headed back then, too, but they had taken the boat to the festival and actually ended up taking almost 3 hours to get back to the cabin.  So we had time to get settled with the dog and nod off to sleep before they came back around 2:30am.

After a short night sleep, we woke up early to the morning light causing Nashville noticing the caribou and deer hanging all around our cabin.  He began FREAKING OUT as he realized he was being watched by a variety of wild animals, but have no fear, mom was able to save him from the caribou by placing a blanket over his crate so he couldn't see them (magic!).

We got up and Taylor and I decided to go play tennis and take Nashville for a swim in Lake Charlevoix, which is right down the street from our cabin.  We found a nice isolated corner of the beach where Nash could chase the tennis ball in crystal clear water.  After that, we played tennis for about an hour until my parents called to have us come meet them all for breakfast.

After breakfast, Carole and Randy packed up to head out and mom, dad, Taylor and I headed out for a beautiful day on the lakes of Northern Michigan.  We put in in Lake Bellaire, then took the boat through the beautiful Grass River, which is a very shallow river with grass reeds and small houses dotting it.  You have to go very slow because it is so shallow, so it's very relaxing.

After the Grass River, we arrived in Torch Lake, which is one of the most beautiful freshwater lakes in Michigan.  It's water are crystal blue, primarily because it is so deep (250+ ft) and has a sandy, rather than a muddy, bottom.  Here's Taylor and I in the water: 

We spent some time on Torch Lake until the weather headed south, then we went back to where we put in via the Grass River.  I napped on the front of the boat the whole way back.  After we took the boat out, we headed to the town of Bellaire, where we were delighted to learn was the site of Short's Brewering Company's Brewpub.  We had some delicious beer and sandwiches before heading back to the cabin in East Jordan for a campfire (complete with S'mores!)!

On Sunday, my parents were heading back down to Ohio, so Taylor and I made plans to go to the Sleeping Bear Dunes and the Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore, a beautiful part of Northern Michigan that we had both heard a lot about but hadn't gotten to see.  Basically, there are acres and acres of beautiful sand dunes plunging into Lake Michigan and the water of the lake is shallow, warm, and crystal blue.  I was lucky enough to find a pet-friendly room at The Homestead, a beautiful "Freshwater Resort" on Sleeping Bear.

After helping my parents pack up at the cabin, we headed to sleeping bears and went straight to the visitor center.  Their top recommendations were the Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive and the Dune Climb, so we headed out to do both immediately.

The Scenic Drive had 10 or so pullouts and areas where you could see nice views of the dunes and surrounding areas.  Here are some highlights:

Nash and I overlooking Glen Lake, a beautiful blue lake:

We did a 1.5 mile hike on the Cottonwood Trail:

Nash and Taylor ran up a little dune, here they are victorious:

And tired...

The next stop was this place where a dune plunges 400 feet at a very steep degree into Lake Michigan:

Nash checking out the view:


Those little dots are people climbing back up, that's how big it is!

Family Photo Op!

Then we went to the dune climb.  It looks like just a little sand hill, but when you get up close, the .25 mile, 137 foot ascent is KILLER!  I only made it 1/3 of the way.  Taylor made it about halfway.

After all of our fun dune exploration, we we checked in at the hotel, which was so beautiful!  We made dinner reservations at the fancy Italian restaurant at the resort and decided to catch the sunset before going to dinner.  The resort sits on the east shore of Lake Michigan and therefore has beautiful sunset views.  We also had a bottle of the white wine we bought for our wedding and we drank it while watching the beautiful sight:

Pup at sunset:

Our fellow onlookers:

We had a fantastic dinner complete with wine and desert before heading back to our room.  The pup was quite tired:

The next morning, we got up bright and early and played tennis at the beautiful clay courts overlooking Lake Michigan:

After tennis, we took the pup to the beach so he could swim in Lake Michigan: 

It was his first experience with waves...

Finally, we cleaned up and grabbed lunch at the lakeside cafe, where I also snapped this great photo of the resort pool which overlooks the lake as well.

Lunch spot: