Colorado

Colorado - Mt. Evans & Boulder

we, as people, make time for what is important to us. if it is something we truly want, we will find a way to make it come to fruition. a question i'm often asked is "how do you get to travel all the time, i would love to be able to do that." the truth is i have a standard nine to five job. everything you see on here is done within those confines. weekends, holidays and vacation time are when all of my traveling is done. an aim of mine with america y'all has always been to show folks that all you need is a weekend to get out there and experience something new. 

this past weekend was no different, when my friends mentioned wanting to get out of austin i quickly shouted "denver!" a crazy notion and a very long drive, but miss sarah rose and the mountains were already calling my name again.

i feel as though i learned at a fairly young age that our time here is limited, and we only have this very short period to make it count for something. this fire can lend itself to some wild ideas, but at the end of the day i can handle that, i could not handle living with a "what if".

i've never brought this up here before, or even much in my personal life for that matter, but at the age of sixteen my father passed away. i tend not to mention it because it elicits sympathy from people. words of sorrow, and although they are very thoughtful, they are not needed. that single event shaped my life in such a positive way that at this point, as callous as it sounds, i don't think i would have it any other way.

it's pushed me to become who i am today, hopping in a car with a couple of friends and driving thirty hours just to be in a place for forty eight, diving head first into friendships and relationships because that is what my heart is telling me to do, and striving to see and do as much as i can while i still can. 

a friend mentioned wanting to go write on one of those "before i die i want to.." chalkboards yesterday, and i struggled all day trying to come up with something i wanted, or even a place i wanted to go. but as i watched her scrawl words in the dark i think she captured what i want to do before i die perfectly, "live genuinely" "live lovingly" "live passionately"  

Colorado

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"He was born in the summer of his twenty seventh year, coming home to a place he'd never been before. He left yesterday behind him, you might say he was born again,

you might say he found a key for every door."

a few days before heading to colorado i started humming rocky mountain high, it had been years since i actually listened to the song so i put it on.... goosebumps. the lyrics are eerily similar to the state i'm in, right down to this being my twenty seventh year. after a brief trip last month, colorado was once again calling my name.

it seems as though i always find what i'm looking for because i am in fact never looking for anything at all. i met miss sarah rose on a rainy fourth of july in the minuscule ghost town of silver plume, a month later i'm back in denver to spend a long weekend with her. 

i could get into the natural beauty that we surrounded ourselves with during my short visit; rainy hikes to granite cliffs overlooking a picturesque swimming hole, a glass like reservoir with quaint hill side homes as a backdrop, and of course the majestic rocky mountains. a sight like nothing i had ever seen before, seas of pine with alluring snow capped peaks jetting into the wide open blue sky. but the scenery was not the purpose of this trip, it was to spend time with someone who i felt an instant connection with. 

i read a quote a few weeks back that hit me hard, "Guard your time fiercely. Be generous with it, but be intentional about it." i have admittedly been spreading myself a bit thin over the past few months, jumping at any chance i could to get out. but a change of tide has washed over me recently, my time is now focused and given to those who are truly important to me, and this trip was no exception. 

by sheer happenstance we both ended up in that tiny mining town on the fourth of july, sitting fire side in the damp mountain air. i never could have imagined what would become of that chance encounter, but sarah said it best herself in a note she handed me at the airport that ended with "i'm lucky to have someone to miss."

 

Great Sand Dunes National Park & Misc. CO

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last saturday night i say to my friend ryan (@brotherstories) 
"we should go on a trip next weekend."
"yea we should, where do you want to go?"
"i don't care lets just drive as far as we can."
"want to go to colorado?"
"hell yes"
and that was it, we had no plan on where we wanted to go or what we wanted to see. we had a day that we had to be back by, but we ended up blowing that off anyways. we just loaded up the car and drove.

a whirlwind trip, four days, two thousand miles, new friends and familiar faces, a night atop a glacier under the stars, beer, whiskey and good tunes. i've never had a vacation like the one i had this past weekend. we crammed a weeks worth of fun into three days, all while running on a few hours of sleep a night.  

we saw some amazing sights, the great sand dunes, red rocks amphitheater, st. marys glacier, chautauqua park and the beautiful cities of denver and boulder. but what made the trip were the people we met and shared our days and nights with. stories from the heart about love and life, to ridiculous arguments about trash bag ponchos, they all made for the most memorable weekend.

on the long drive home i turned to my friend and asked him if he ever felt like everything in life was just perfect, like you're almost searching for something to go wrong or be worried about because everything just feels right. i've felt this before, although it's been a while. a little over a year ago when i was finally getting better after a very serious illness i wrote this, "i have always been what you would call a glass half full kind of person, now that glass is always full and i couldn't ask for anything else. life is good, life is fun, life is easy." i feel that again and i couldn't help but sit in the passengers seat and shake my head in disbelief, everything in my life just seems to be in a perfect balance. 

National Park Road Trip - Day Seven

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 day seven; black canyon of the gunnison and mesa verde national parks.

we arrived in colorado right after sun down the night before and would already be in new mexico before sunset of day seven. spending less than twenty four hours in such a beautiful state almost seems criminal, but so it goes. the day started in the misty morning dew as we packed up the tent we had hastily set up a mere eight hours ago in the woods of the black canyon of the gunnison national park. 

we spent the morning hiking the rim trails of the canyon, an endless sea of green in front of us as far as the eye could see. a sight that reminded us of our childhood in the woods and mountains of new hampshire. and something that we haven't seen in two years as we've been fully immersed in exploring the dry and arid landscape of texas and the southwest.

driving out of the park was like entering a postcard. surrounded by rolling hills lush with pine trees, snow capped peaks can be seen in the distance and running parallel with our path is a roaring river fueled by the spring sun hitting those peaks that we are headed towards. 

we drive up and down through the hills, the uncompahgre national forest on our right and the san juan national forest on our left. the hours fly by as we take turns behind the wheel so we both get a chance to get lost in the allure of the mountains

before we know it we are already pulling into mesa verde national park. after a brief chat with a ranger we decide which tour we are going to take and make our way over to the ancient cliff dwellings.

by four o'clock we are already back on the road. with the car pointed south we head towards new mexico.