Fun Filled Week May 30, 2008

So life has been very very busy lately. It seems like it may finally be settling down but I know it will pick up again in less than a week as I will be leaving town for ten days to go home. I am excited! Anyhow the last week has been crazy. Tuesday we left town for our volunteer retreat in the Rocky Mountains. We were fortunate to only have to drive 3 hours whereas the other volunteers had to come in from as far as Seattle and Baltimore. We spent a great few days in the mountains participating in various fun activities including catching up with old friends, hiking, contra dancing, eating awesome food and so on. Below is my friend Ashley and me who is volunteering in Seattle and attended my same college. This is right before we got lost on our way back down to the retreat center. Oops.

Folowing camp we spent the weekend in Denver and Boulder enjoying various activities including a Coors Brewery tour (no me gusta Coors Beer), a Rockies game, more hiking, and the dreaded Bolder Boulder 10k that I have been “training” for the last couple of months. Unfortunately I was not as dedicated in training as I hoped I would be and thus I was not really looking forward to running 10 kilometers at a mile high. Thankfully it was a wet and cool day and the energy at the race was amazing. I also had a great running partner, Erin (second from right) who made it much easier. Our time ended up being about 73 minutes which is not great by racing standards but I was very pleased. You can see how tired I look after the race. It was really fun though and inspired me to be more dedicated to running. I think for my second race I will try a 5k though.

I Love Sand Dunes. May 19, 2008

Yay! I got a new camera as an early birthday present and was able to plug in my old memory card into this camera so my pictures on my broken camera were not lost! Sadly, I was not able to take pictures for several weeks so those would be photos will never be shared. Oh well. In celebration I am posting pictures of the Great Sand Dunes taken just moments before the old camera bit the dust, so to say.

The Sand Dunes literally leave me speechless every time I visit. Part of this is due to the fact that climbing them is very difficult and I can’t talk, but part is due to their extreme and ancient beauty. The Sand Dunes formed because our Valley has very sandy soil (because it used to be a giant lake), is very windy, and is surrounded by mountains. The sand is swept away in the wind and ends up right here, against the base of the Sangre de Christo Mountain range.
These are the tallest Sand Dunes in North America. They are so surreal you feel like you are in another part of the world, or even another planet. During the spring months the snow melt-off from the mountains leaves a little creek at the base of the Dunes that you have to pass through before reaching them. No one knows how old they are but there is evidence of humans in the Dunes dates more than 11,000 years ago.

We didn’t make it all the way to the top but I was pretty impressed with my parents’ endurance considering they had come from Missouri with an elevation of 740 feet to the valley with an elevation of about 7,500 feet.

Its hard to capture the size of these dunes in photos but here is one of my mom taking a picture from afar for a bit of reference. She isn’t even standing in front of the tallest dune. Anyhow, I am happy to be able to share these photos that were at one point stuck on the broken camera. I have learned my lesson and will never bring my camera to the dunes in the future so enjoy the pictures here. Thats all you get.

Many a Thing May 15, 2008

Oh its been sooooooooo long. In the words of Emmy “I won’t bore you with excuses”. Many a good thing happened in the last two weeks or so. My parents visited, we attended a fabulous May Day party, I’ve started my garden, we have had several softball games, and work is busy and wonderful as every. Oh and very exciting news…. My parents sent me a surprise early birthday present! A new camera! yay!!!! It is exactly like my old one that is sadly sitting on my desk with the lens still out, but a newer model. Very exciting. I will be sure to be posting photos now its going. Until then I will start updating the blog with other photos that have been accumulated, including May Day photos borrowed from my friend Lares at the safari press. So here are some for your enjoyment.

This one was taken using a polaroid camera.

It was a very windy day so it was a challange getting all of the ribbons staked and ready for people to take hold without the wind ripping it out of the ground or our hands. Not atypical weather for the Valley this time of year.

We all weaved in and out of each other forming the pretty design on the may pole.

Here we are dancing around the pole as the sun sets.

The pole when it was done. Very pretty if I do say so myself.