In God's Country

We spent some time in Estes Park this past weekend with the Ridderhoffs, Barnharts, and Grandpa and Marcella. It was fun to have Grandpa see Evelyn while she was still so young. He seems to be doing really well.
Grandpa took the time when we had cell reception to call Uncle Bob and wish him a happy birthday. Bob made sure to tell me that I am now drving a minivan and that real men drive trucks. I feel that I need to point out that the CX-9 was SUV of the year. SUVs are not minivans.

mild excitement

It seems pretty rare that I do anything that I deem post-worthy, but I decided that regardless of your political stance, this was at least somewhat exciting. Neither my roommate nor I had class or work this moning, so we decided to wake up extra early to stand in line downtown on a chilly october morning to see a piece of history. It was my first political rally and really interesting people watching! And Obama walked on stage to a U2 song, so Anna and I were happy. Here are some pics I took with my little camera (the threat of rain and inability to change views convinced me to keep the good one at home) as well as a couple that a photo/videostaff person from GV who had a press pass took...

Some pictures from this weekend...













Have a good week.

Almost, but not quite

Today I had to give myself a big pat on the back for the forethought I had in my classroom. In the morning, I was setting up the laboratory (which basically means I took all the power strips from home and borrowed supplies from Calvin) and I put out the thermometers so the students could measure the increase in temperature in a container of land and water. I was counting the thermometers to make sure I had enough when I began to look closer at a few. I have in my classroom some mercury filled thermometers. I thought to myself, "Self, what are the chances that an 8th grade student would drop a glass thermometer filled with mercury?" Then I answered, "Very likely." So, I removed the mercury filled thermometers an stored them in the closet. Why was that such a great thing? Because two students dropped and shattered glass thermometers on the floor today. We could have had a real bad problem to deal with. If it would have been anything like what happened a couple of years ago, I would have been all over the media, but then I would not have been hired by anyone in west Michigan...... sorry Ben, You almost had a new Colorado family.

Confused

Hey everyone, I don't get this blog sometimes. I just posted our anniversary trip and it ended up getting posted below Mom & Dad's CO hiking trip pictures. I think it's because I had started the post before they posted those pictures, but hadn't had time to finish it until today. So it's like the blog used that date as the posting date instead. Anyways, our Pictured Rocks pictures are finally up, you just need to scroll down a little bit!

I chased the kids around with a camera today. We got some pretty cute ones ;-)...

Looks Like We Made It

Her we are at our cozy protected campsite which would become our home base for the rest of the trip. Turns out we spent at at least part of every day at this campsite. The whole time we were in the wilderness we saw three people; two from a distance and one who nodded at us as we hiked past.


...and our journey into the dunes begins with crossing the creek.
And this is our site on the dunes. We were allowed to camp anywhere in the dunes as long as it was west of the tallest dune. That means we had to climb a few hundred feet up some very steep sand hills with backpacks. We were content to pitch our tent as close to the edge of our allowable camping area as possible. Climbing the dunes with packs was not our favorite part of the trip.

Don't we look hopeful here?

Kinda windy at the top...

Maybe the wind will calm down toward sundown.
But it keeps getting worse....

We decided to climb back down to avoid being sandblasted.

Back down to the safe camp and our favorite watering hole....

The next day we tried a different hike. Looks quite peaceful doesn't it.

Until the storms rolled in with lots of lightning, thunder, rain, hail.....

Here is a shot of the dunes after the rain.

Next day we took the road back to our "home camp," thinking it would be easier than walking through sand. This is me crossing on the road. It came to my knees at one point. Looked like it would be fun to drive a four-wheel vehicle through.

We tried again to drag ourselves up the dunes....

Set up camp in the same spot minus the gale force winds....

Climbed up....

Still windy at the top....

The view atop a 500 foot sand dune....

Finally a chance to photograph the sand without eating it.

Got some good light to play with....

This is yesterday morning at sunrise. Shadows on the other side....

We woke up this morning to this sight....

All in all it was an excellent adventure. We did several more things we've never done before (sandblasted by 60 mile an hour winds, hiking in a hail storm, camping in the dunes with awesome view of the stars... our first hike in the mountains) It was great, and we will gladly tell you more later.
Love, Mom and Dad....