Home Leave Holiday

I had a busy vacation last week. I flew in to Denver on Wednesday, June 28th to see Lisa. We started out by seeing a concert that night at Red Rocks. It really is the best place I've ever seen a concert. That weekend we decided to go to Moab for some camping. Moab is special to us because that's where we went for our third date. This time was just as fun as the first. We went to the Canyonlands National Park. Lisa, being the daredevil she is, wanted to drive down Shafer Trail Road. It's an easy four wheel drive trail that cuts through the canyon floor and comes out 31 miles away at Moab. The first time we went to Canyonlands we also went to Dead Horse Point State Park. There's an overlook and you could see this road at the bottom. I remember wondering at the time how you could get down there and where it went. It was great to see the overlook from the opposite side this time. We camped in a beautiful place along the Colorado River. After a full day of four wheeling and touring Arches National Park we headed into Moab for dinner at Pasta Jay's, a nice restaurant with a deck. Since we had been doing two days of primitive camping (ie, no showers) we thought it was a good idea to stay away from people as much as possible and to be outside. On the way home to Denver we stopped at Colorado National Monument. We've passed by before without stopping. I'm glad we took the time on this trip to check it out, it's a beautiful place. It got Lisa and I talking about how lucky we are to have these opportunities to travel and never want to take it for granted.

With just one day to shower and sleep in a bed, we were off to Leadville to camp over the 4th of July. We met Lisa's family at the Half Moon Bay campgrounds. It's a beautiful spot that most people don't know about. Lisa's brother Chris cooked up a great meal of salmon, chicken, corn and potatoes. That night it was freezing but Lisa is always prepared with the camping gear so we were nice and toasty. It was a pleasant change from the ninety plus degrees in Moab. There's a lot to be said for camping at 10,000 feet. Later that day we took a train ride from Leadville along the old mining tracks towards Climax mines. Lisa had just been reading a book about the history of the molybdenum mines there so we had an interesting perspective during the trip. Lisa loves trains and was so excited she was bouncing in her seat. The trip was 2 and a half hours and pretty nice for the most part. There were some stretches of riding through the forest with not much in the way of scenery.

Later that night we enjoyed the fireworks in Frisco. They weren't as good as the ones we've seen in Avon in years past but we weren't as close this time. It was still a good time though.

Finally, on Friday night, Lisa's sister Jennifer had a pre-wedding dinner for us. She went completely overboard and threw a great party. She's very sweet like that. At the party it really started to hit me that by the end of this month we'll be married. I can't wait.

So home leave was a smashing success and I really have the batteries recharged even more so than usual.