For Labor Day weekend, we traveled to Telluride, Montrose, drove the Million Dollar Highway, and ventured up to Crested Butte. It was quite a busy weekend! But before I report about that trip, I want to tell you about the one before it.
On August 22, The U.S. Pro Cycling Challenge started it's first stage in Colorado Springs. It traveled through several beautiful Colorado cities and towns during the 7 stages of the race. The 6th stage was coming through Breckenridge on Saturday so we decided to go up early that morning and get a spot to stand to watch the racers come through. We ran into Joel and Lauren Steidl on Tuesday night before at a concert at Red Rocks and found out they planned to go as well. Our friend Lindsay Bombard (pictured below) happens to love the Tour de France like Ryan does and so she was happy to come ride up with us. Jordan Wilson and Paige Griffith also came over from Fort Collins and met us to ride to Breckenridge.
When we got there, we ended up in the same parking lot as Joel and Lauren which was fun because we ended up spending the day all together! The cops in our parking lot ended up telling us it was too crazy at the top of the mountain to take our cars so we had a 2 mile walk up Swan Mountain to get to the spot where we wanted to walk. We had all brought food so we filled our purses, backpacks, and small coolers with what wasn't too heavy and started on the journey up.
This is one of the views we had on the way up.
It was crazy at the top! There were tons of people in costumes, some more bizzare than others. Towards the very top they had big speakers out with music blaring and dancing in the street. It was quite a scene!
We stood a little ways down from to have our own space out of the madness. This is our group shot.
Now, some of these shots that Ryan took of the actual racers made me laugh when I first saw them because it looked like he photoshopped the characters into the pictures. This is just an example of the crazy people that were all over the place. I'm sure the racers appreciate the support!
On Sunday, we ventured to Golden, CO to see beginning the last stage of the race. We got to see the racers begin the final stage from their starting point in downtown Golden and had hopes of racing ourselves back to Denver to see the finish. The traffic was so bad that we got at one of the race's cross streets and got to watch the racers come by again.
That was cool, but we were a little bummed to not get to see the finish in downtown Denver. We were able to watch it on TV back at the apartment, though.
That next Monday I celebrated my 25th birthday, again....ok fine, I turned 26, but I didn't like it. I would just prefer to stay 25.
I was showered with lots of birthday love from friends and family that day and I appreciated it so much. I got some fun mail and I came home to a box of Gigi's Cupcakes and a very sweet card.
Ryan has classes until 7:30 on Mondays and Wednesdays so this was so nice to come home to since I was home alone for a while. We had a delicious dinner at Pappadeux and I felt very blessed to get to celebrate my 2nd birthday as Ashleigh Simmons.
Now for Telluride.
Telluride, CO is about 6.5 hours away for us so we have been trying to find a good time to go. Labor day seemed like the perfect time. We left on Thursday afternoon and drove 4 hours and camped right outside of Gunnison. These pictures are from the bottom of Black Canyon at Black Canyon National Park.
On Friday, we drove into Telluride and spent the afternoon walking around the charming town while the Telluride Film Festival was being set up. Downtown Telluride sits in a valley with gorgeous mountains all around. We weren't able to take a good picture of everything because the streets were filled with all of the different film festival areas so I stole this picture from Google Images.
What a fun place! There were so many people coming in for the film festival. Ryan and I plotted on how we could come up with a lanyard to get into some of the bigger shows, but we never came up with anything. We camped that night at a nearby area. On Saturday morning we got up and decided that we needed a delicious breakfast to start our day. We looked up different breakfast options on our phones and decided on Maggies Bakery and Cafe. It was a simple looking place with the menu written on a giant white board and you got the sense that one of the few women working was probably the Maggie. As I looked around, I almost gasped at who I saw right behind us eating with her daughters. I grabbed Ryan's arm and he quietly said "I know." Now, I don't usually get too star-struck but it was Jennifer Garner. I'm by no means her biggest fan, but I had just watched Juno and Ghost of Girlfriends Past recently on tv so it seemed more out of place than usual. She seemed so natural with her daughters and didn't act like she was any different than anyone. She made sure to mention how good their food was when they left. It was really cool.
When we got to our car and sat down to make a gameplan for the rest of the day, the White Witch from Narnia, Tilda Swinton, walked right by our car! Ha, I immediately knew she was someone and then the White Witch came into my mind. Ryan was mad I didn't roll down the window and ask her for some Turkish Delights.
Later that afternoon, we hiked up to Bear Creek Falls. It was a gorgeous hike up to the falls and the air was nice and cool. 
After our hike, we decided to get on the road towards Montrose so we could stay in a hotel and Ryan could pick up some internet to watch Tennessee's season opener on his computer. Obviously you see where our priorities lie.
As we were driving on the beautiful two lane highway at about 60mph, Ryan kinda yelled and slammed on the breaks. I looked to the left and saw the giant BROWN BEAR that was running down the hill to the left and straight toward the road in front of us. As the bear noticed the cars, he kinda hesitated right before the road and we were able to move forward as he ran right behind our car and into the woods on the othe side.
After our bear scare, we finished our trip to Montrose (me scanning the road the entire time for more wildlife) to race into our hotel so Ryan could get set-up for the game.
On Sunday we decided to drive the Million Dollar Highway. I didn't know what his was before this day either. It is:
"U.S. Route 550 is a spur of U.S. Highway 50 that runs from Bernalillo, New Mexico to Montrose, Colorado in the western United States. The section from Silverton to Ouray is frequently called the Million Dollar Highway."
"Though the entire stretch has been called the Million Dollar Highway, it is really the twelve miles (19 km) south of Ouray through the Uncompahgre Gorge to the summit of Red Mountain Pass which gains the highway its name. This stretch through the gorge is challenging and potentially hazardous to drive; it is characterized by steep cliffs, narrow lanes, and a lack of guardrails; the ascent of Red Mountain Pass is marked with a number of hairpin "S" curves used to gain elevation, and again, narrow lanes for traffic—many cut directly into the sides of mountains."
Enough said. If you read Ryan's one and only post from over a year ago about our adventure from Aspen to Crested Butte, this story gets strangely familiar.
After we got into Ouray and walked around for a little bit, Ryan decided he wanted to go to a ghost town he had heard about. Here are some pictures from the ghost town.
As we were walking around the ghost towns, we were seeing different 4x4 vehicles driving on small dirt roads through the mountains around us. We didn't have cell service so we couldn't tell exactly where we were, but Ryan kept saying "I wonder what is on the other side of that mountain." 2 hours later and after many parts of the road looking like this:
we finally found where our trail met back with 550. Literally over some mountains. Oh brother. He promises that he will never do that again and that I am not allowed to let him even think about it. We will see how that goes.
After we got "out of the woods", we decided to head to Crested Butte for the night to camp. We knew we wouldn't have that much time to spend, but it is a place that we love so it was fun even to spend a couple hours. We ate a good breakfast Monday morning and then hit the road back to Denver.
Our last few weekends have been more low-key with more naps and A LOT more football. I don't mind though. It is a nice reminder of coming into the fall season.
Tomorrow, I get to pick up Dave and Teresa from the airport for a long weekend! I am looking so forward to their visit.
I hope to be back soon with pictures from our time with them!
Oh man...we drove that dang road from Silverton to Ouray in the dark this summer. It was terrible. We had no idea that it was a crazy road...just looked like anything else on the map! We'll never do that again!
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