While in Colorado visiting Madison for Thanksgiving, I made a quit trip to Garden of the Gods with Taylor and Clayton. As we walked back to the car we caught sight of this rock climber making his way up one of the rock towers. It’s not something you see in Iowa…ever. It was a gorgeous sunny day and I thought it an interesting shot with the minuscule spec of the climbers green jacket against the vast natural colors of the trees, rocks and sky.
ROAD TRIP!!!
Wendy, Suzanna, and I headed west this past Wednesday morning. We picked up Taylor in Des Moines. Clayton and his younger brother, Spence, followed us on I-80 westbound and we made the long trek to Colorado. Clayton jumped in the car with us at Fort Morgan while Spencer headed to Fort Collins to meet up with their brother, Ty. We arrived in Denver in the early evening and dropped Suzanna off at sister, Becky’s, house. Wendy, Taylor, Clayton, and I headed south to Colorado Springs and arrived around 8:00 p.m. Madison was working at P.F. Chang’s that night so after checking into the hotel we dropped in for a later dinner. It was so good to see Madison and to meet her friend, Aubrey, who is a hostess at Chang’s. We were wiped out after a long day of travel and sacked out early.
Wendy and I spent Thanksgiving morning getting a little work done in the hotel room while Taylor helped Madison make Thanksgiving dinner at her friend, Mike’s, house. We grabbed Clayton and headed to Mike’s about 11:00 a.m. It was a relaxing Thanksgiving dinner as we watched football, chatted, and admired the feast being prepared. Mike prepared what was, hand’s down, the BEST Thanksgiving turkey any of us had ever eaten. It was an incredible feast along with a buffalo cranberry stew that Madison made. Wow! We ate well. So well, in fact, that we decided to let things settle and make dessert our evening meal. Wendy’s peanut butter chocolate cheesecake and dark chocolate cupcakes with salted caramel frosting were more than enough to satisfy us. We watched football, Anchorman, and chatted the evening away. It was late by the time we made our way back to the hotel.
Friday morning dawned. We enjoyed incredibly wonderful weather the entire weekend. Madison and Wendy headed for a coffee date. Taylor, Clayton and I decided we had to get out into the sunshine. So we headed Garden of the Gods and enjoyed a leisurely hike. We headed to Denver mid-day, picked up Suzanna, and headed to Broomfield to enjoy a late lunch at Buca Di Beppo’s with Clayton’s family. Every Buca’s has a “Pope Room” which is adorned with various papal pictures and includes a giant table with lazy susan adorned by a bust of the pope. We all had an amazing meal and a lot of laughter as we feasted for the second straight day. Clayton’s family (along with Taylor) headed to the Denver Nuggets’ game, Mike and Madison headed back to the Springs, and Wendy, Suzanna and I headed back to Becky and Court’s house.
Friday evening was spent at Becky and Courtney’s house. We all felt fat and lazy as we lounged and enjoyed catching up with Wendy’s sister and her husband. Clayton had to head back to Des Moines with his family to work, but Taylor joined us for the remainder of the weekend.
On Saturday we all headed to the Denver Art Museum and enjoyed a exhibition of French artwork and paintings of nature by the Impressionists. Madison drove up from Colorado Springs and joined us mid-afternoon. We dined together at Cap City pub and talked about the artwork we enjoyed before Madison headed back to the springs and the rest of us headed back to Court and Becky’s.
It was an early start this morning (5:00 a.m. MST) but we made good time and arrive home late in the afternoon. It was a WONDERFUL Thanksgiving weekend and we returned home with a full Rocky Mountain High.