Broomfield, Colorado/ Rocky Mountain Nat'l Park

We left Taos on Sunday morning & arrived in Broomfield, CO. that afternoon at our friends Brent & Amy Adams' house... Ross & Brent went to college together in Colorado and Ross followed Brent out to Tahoe a couple of years later. He's definitely another one of Ross' brothers from another mother. Brent met his wife, Amy in Tahoe & all 3 of them were roommates. Ross was in Brent & Amy's wedding party a few years ago and they have since added their beautiful daughter Sierra (2 1/2) to the family...

Brent & Amy were kind enough to let us base out of their house for the whole week so that we could do day trips around the area. Broomfield is a suburb of both Denver & Boulder (smack dab in between them) so it was a perfect place to stay... not to mention the great time we had with their family!

Our first evening there, Brent & Amy were on their way to a BBQ, which they were nice enough to invite us to... some of the people there were also in their wedding party, so Ross was able to see some familiar faces. The next day we finally got to do some laundry & get ourselves ready for our next adventures. That evening, Brent & Amy (with babysitter in place) took us to an amazing meal in Boulder at a restaurant called, The Kitchen... it was so delicious!! They even had a Cab from Boeger Winery in good old Placerville, but they were all sold out! It was a great meal with great people!! It felt like I had known them forever (Ross practically has) but it was lovely to experience that feeling for myself. If they lived in Cali, we would definitely hang out all the time... not to mention that Sierra & I have so many "Balls" to attend with our jewelry and ballet dresses on!

Rocky Mountain National Park

On our way up to the park we drove through the gorgeous town of Estes Park

and saw roadside elk...

and for you Stephen King fans... the inspiration for the Overlook Hotel...

Once inside the park, we had to stop to enjoy the creeks... you've never seen water so clear and beautiful....

and SO COLD!!!!!!!

Longs Peak in the background (14,259 ft.)

Mountain meadow...

You can't keep this boy off of rocks!

We kept driving higher & higher until the trees began to disappear & the thunder clouds began rolling in...

We had a picnic on the Alpine Tundra...

More glaciers... this one was right outside one of the visitor centers. There was a lot of lightening & thunder going on & a ranger had to actually go outside & tell a bunch of Einsteins, with their cameras pointed toward the heavens, to come inside if they wanted to, you know, LIVE!


More elk... country elk, mind you, not all cityfied like them Estes Park ones...


More mountain meadows...


and more cold water...


Truly a spectacular place... I would love to go back one day & spend more time! I'm sure Rollins would agree..


We said goodbye to the park & took a beautiful drive on our way back to Denver...


Alpine slide in Winter Park, CO


Unfortunately, we saw a lot of damage due to Bark Beetles... there really isn't anything to be done about them & many forests are being destroyed...


We pulled into Denver later that evening & were welcomed by friends, Hascy & Jenny Tarbox. They both went to college with Ross as well, and had us over to their place for a BBQ. It was so great to see them both & to hear some stories from the past... such a great couple! Thanks for a wonderful evening! (A note for my Mamacita: you probably can't tell but I thought you might appreciate that directly above Hascy's head is a live shot of Lenny Kravitz taken by Tony... isn't Lenny related to Ving Rhames in some way??)


The next (and last, I promise!) installment of our trip is Colorado Springs... Garden of the Gods, Colorado College, Pikes Peak, and Manitou Springs... Hang in there folks! I promise it's all worth checking out!