Boo!

Chloe, The Skeleton Bride

Just because it was sunny, calm and mid-60s in Boulder...

... doesn't mean the same conditions exist just 40 minutes away (but 5,000 feet higher.)


A friend of mine and I snuck in a quick hike today up near Brainard Lake.  We were expecting things to be a little cooler than here in Boulder, but we weren't expecting it to be over 20 degrees cooler (and much windier) and most of the trail to be snow covered.  Thankfully, someone "broke trail" for us and packed down the snow some, for if they hadn't there easily would have been times where we would have been walking through 6 inches of snow. 

Here are some pix.

Fall, "Fizz" and The Fonz.

We used this weekend to visit our friends the Hankins in Illinois.  They're a family we met in 2004 -- we were both taking our nearly-1.5-year-old daughters over to France to catch some stages of Le Tour.  Anywho, we've kept in touch with them over the years and have had the occasional meet-ups too.  They've been to Colorado a couple of times, so the time for us to visit them in Illinois was well past-due.  There was a lot of general catching up, and hanging out and relaxing which I won't go into, but I did want to bring up 3 things that help with the alliteration of this post's title.

 - One of the first things Peggy and I noticed is how much we don't have the Fall colors coming from the maples and oaks here in Colorado... don't get me wrong, the aspens here are pretty spectacular, but there is a something nice about seeing the browns and reds and oranges.  And considering how many trees were on our around their lot, there was plenty of time for us to enjoy autumn's show.

 - On Saturday, they took us up to New Glarus, WI to check out the similarly named brewery that resides there, as well as the Swiss-based town itself.  Both were very enjoyable in their own right (and for their very different reasons.)

- On Sunday, because we were flying out of Milwaukee, they took us up several hours early to go explore that city.  While there were many cool things we saw -- the "safe house" restaurant with its secret doors and codes, the Discovery Museum, and Miller Field -- I think the highlight (at least for Peggy and I) was getting to see The Bronze Fonz.

Some pix from the weekend are found here.

LOTS of Good Deeds

Chloe and her classmates were rewarded with a "Crazy Hair Day" for filling up their "Good Deed Bead" jar.  (The teacher lets them put a bead or two in a jar for doing something nice, and once that jar fills up, they get a reward of some kind... crazy hair day, pajama day, etc.) 

Anywho, yours truly was responsible for helping put some craziness in Chloe's hair this morning.  I had her lay on the bed on her back with her head hanging over the edge, and tried to hairspray the dickens out of her hair.  Below is a picture of her with an admittedly unhealthy amount of hairspray applied, and below that is a picture of "the look" I was going for.

In a Rut

Because we missed it last year due to our time in the UK, we made sure we made it up to the elk rut in Rocky Mountain National Park this year.  Unfortunately, the weather wasn't as cooperative as two years ago, and some rain showers came along, darkened the skies and chased us into our car earlier than we had hoped and expected. We were able to get in a short hike with the friends that joined us, and did get to see – and hear – some of the male elk bugling, but Mother Nature did limit our time at the show. 

The elk rut wasn't the only show in town, though, as this weekend was probably "peak" for some leaf peeping... there were many aspen groves turning a brilliant gold in color. Their color was muted somewhat by the overcast skies, but the colors were still quite striking when contrasted against the evergreens that often surrounded them.

Some photos from our little excursion can be found here.