As I eluded to in my last post, it’s now three days after the day I was writing about and I’ve been home for several days. Life just moves too fast sometimes.

On Sunday we woke to more snow falling and though it was beautiful, I was kinda over it and ready to get back to Nebraska and real summer temps. I’ve made a little note to my future self to not travel back to Grandby Ranch in June. When we go again it will be in July or August.

Sunday was our travel home day and the intent was to make stops to visit both my sister and brother before heading for the airport and that’s exactly what we did.

My sister moved to Denver this past week so it was literally her second day in her new apartment which was lovely. She’s already on a weekend camp/hike with one of her besties and I’m positive she will be super happy in her new home. That makes me happy.

My brother has lived in Broomfield for about 20 years (I asked when we were at his house in the afternoon) and his oldest child who just graduated this past May was born there. He’s also an avid hiker and goes out a lot, in all kinds of weather. If it’s not hiking, it’s snow-shoeing. They will probably spend the rest of their lives in Colorado.

Jim and I agreed that Colorado is cool but have ruled it out for ever moving there. Visiting with all these folks has made us think about where else we might like to live though, and that’s fun to daydream about. For us it’s much more likely to be Oregon, probably somewhere near the coast. I’m partial to the Lincoln City area. I’ve driven the stretch of road from Manzenita to northern Cali about 3 times now and just love it. But this post isn’t about Oregon, it’s about Colorado.

I’m inclined to wrap this up with some things I want to remember before the vividness of the trip fades into a daydream…

All my initial plans to visit folks arriving Tuesday were squashed by sitting on a plane for 4 hours (2.5 longer than expected). We actually sat on the plane on the ground in Omaha longer than we were in the air. I ended up spending the night in Denver instead of driving the mountain pass that night.

The view from the apartment on Larimer Street.

We had one nice day of weather and took advantage of that by being outside for the majority of the day. A couple of hikes with the dogs and the kids. We rode the ski-lift up and hiked back down.

We came upon a small herd of deer on one hike and tried to quietly approach to get pics but that area is littered with mountain bike trails and a biker came zooming through and they all scattered across our path.

I also saw a fox (twice) and a big horn sheep on the trip. I’ve not seen either before out in the wild.

I really enjoyed the drive to and from Denver and got to travel it several times, once with bright sunny weather and once with snow. Both incredibly beautiful!

On Wednesday I did some journaling from the back deck of my friend’s house and their daughter who is 7 wanted to join me. She was excited to get markers and paper and then crayons and a book to use as a hard surface to write on. I gave her a few suggestions to get started and she ended up writing a brief letter to a friend and drew a picture. It was sweet. What was even sweeter was that later in the day she said it was her favorite part of the day, “writing with Aunt Shyla”. 😊

During our stay the card game of choice was some Monopoly Spin-off game, Monopoly Duel, which I had never played before. I had a great run of beginners luck and won like 8 of 10 games I played, though I feel like I had found a great strategy for the game. I’m considering buying it for the kids and I. Who doesn’t love winning. 😜

Despite all I have written this far, the trip was not all fun and games. Our room was in the basement right under the kitchen and not only was it frigid with the drop in temps.. if there was anyone in the kitchen and dining area it was impossible to sleep with the foot noise. We had a couple of very short nights and even considered trying to get a hotel room in town for the last night.

It was also a bummer to not get to do the things we wanted in Winter Park including riding the gondola up the mountain and the alpine slide. But whatevs.

I got to meet the two new pups, Wally and Winston. Always Reliably excited to see new people coming in the door and always up for a walk. When they crashed, they crashed hard and have not yet figured out they have outgrown sitting on laps. 🐶❤️🙃

Last, and certainly not least, I had bites of cheeseburgers from three different establishments. I don’t have much to say about that except I discovered I’m not a fan of goat-cheese on a burger. Ewwwww. Reviews of those places will not be coming to a blog near you anytime soon as the details (besides the goat cheese) have already been let-go.

That, my friends, concludes the latest SugarCookie Colorado Adventure. My next trip will actually be back in Nebraska City for my MFA residency, which opens up a whole other host of topics. I’ve got about 2 and a half more weeks until then. Just enough time to solidify my thoughts on what I want to get from my 3rd term. We’ll see.

Glad to be Home,

~Miss SugarCookie