Bike Races, A Birthday, and a Bear Who Crossed the Road

Ryan and I have had a busy couple of weeks and weekends since we got back into our Denver groove.

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.

Once again, kinda like the wild horses, it was one of those moments that happened so quickly that you can't really think to react. This is just another google image search for a visual for you but it looks oddly similar.

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."

U.S. Route 550 at the Uncompahgre Gorge

"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."

Now, I knew exactly what this meant. He wanted US to DRIVE to the other side of that mountain to see. At first, I was very hesitant and made myself clear. No thanks. After a little bit, I started realizing that he wasn't going to be satisfied until he found out if we could get back to where we came from by driving those trails. So I gave up and told him let's just try it and see, hoping that it would be a short and safe drive and then it would be over.
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!

Sand Dunes and Wild Horses

Last weekend, Ryan and I made the journey to Mosca, CO to the Great Sand Dune National Park. Several people had suggested that we go and see the giant sand dunes nested in the mountains there.

love this cloud. 

artsy pic

The Dunes were enormous and seemed so out of place in front of such picturesque mountains. As the legend goes/Wikipedia says:

"The dunes were formed from sand and soil deposits of the Rio Grande and its tributaries, flowing through the San Luis Valley. Over the ages, westerly winds picked up sand particles from the river flood plain. As the wind lost power before crossing the Sangre de Cristo Range, the sand was deposited on the east edge of the valley. This process continues, and the dunes are slowly growing. The wind changes the shape of the dunes daily."

Pretty interesting. God is so creative.

On Friday afternoon, we set out to climb to the highest part of the dunes. As soon as our feet hit the sand, we realized it was probably not going to be the easiest hike of our lives. There were spots in the sand where our feet would sink to our ankles with each step, while other portions were packed and easier to climb. It was a long haul up to the top. The highest dune is about 750 ft high and we are pretty sure the one we climbed was 650. 

Mountains behind the dunes.

The sun coming through the clouds onto the valley was beautiful.

please note the amount of sand that blew into Ry's hair at the top. 

He's pretty happy about it. 

Coming down off the dunes was easily the most fun part of the process. It was really fun to sprint down the side of the dunes barefoot. It was almost 6p.m. when we came down so the sand was almost cool, whereas they say it can get as hot as 140 degrees in the middle of the day.

I realize I look like a crazy person here, but please note how far down my left ankle is in the sand.

We camped out with a great view of the dunes from our campsite on Friday night. On Saturday, we decided we may never climb the dunes again unless we had sleds to ride back down on.

With this in mind and the rest of the weekend left, we decided to see what we thought about New Mexico.  Ryan researched Taos, NM on his phone and decided that might be our best bet distance-wise with some things we could do.

New Mexico was full of pueblo buildings and the attractions we saw were a bit anti-climatic, but we only have Taos to go by. We did eat some delicious authentic New Mexican food on saturday including  sopapillas and honey. That was easily our best meal all weekend. Our other NM highlight was seeing this:

This is the view from the Rio Grand Gorge Bridge. I was freaking out a little from how high it was and from how the bridge shook when cars drove over. I kept about 2 feet between me and the railing at all times. Eek. It was a long way down. About 650 feet to be exact. 

Even though we did not find the adventure in Taos that we were hoping for,we did see WILD HORSES running along the highway on our way back to Denver on Sunday! We had seen the sign on our way to Taos, but assumed there was no way we would actually see wild horses running around. It was amazing! A whole herd of them, precious babies included, ran across the highway and then ran through the field beside us. They were gorgeous and we were so shocked that we did not get any pictures. If you are wondering what this looked like, I googled wild horses in CO and this is pretty much exactly what we saw. I loved how they kicked up so much dust.

This weekend we are traveling to Breckenridge and Golden to watch the bike race that is coming through Colorado right now. If you know about Ryan's love for the Tour de France, this makes perfect sense.

In other news, I started subbing this week and I am scheduled to sub every day this week, with many days in the coming weeks already booked! I prayed to get a couple days in this week since school just started and God answered exceedingly, abundantly more than I asked! I am so very thankful. 

Thanks for reading! 

Timeline

I'm a failure at blogging...

I have accepted this fact. I think about blogging often and what I want to say, but I rarely seem to get here with that information.

Since I have about 4 months worth of info to get through, I figured I would do kind of a picture timeline catch-up from the spring/summer.

As most of you know, Ryan and I spent the summer in Nashville where Ryan did an internship at a law firm downtown. I spent my summer helping CCC (the preschool where I used to work) move from one building to a much nicer one down the road.  I had so much fun spending time with all of the ladies at CCC and it was a perfect way to work through the summer. Not to mention, I really enjoyed getting to spend time with this little chunker. Meet Paisley Lane Weakley. I miss her terribly.

We had a great summer and this blog post is really only skimming the surface of all the fun we had with friends and family.

We will begin in:

May  

 

On May 21st, Mom and Dad flew to Denver to spend a couple of days with us before we made the journey back to Nashville. We took them many places, but none were as memorable as our day at the National Park. This was taken at Bear Lake. The lake and the trails around it had about a 6 foot base of snow around them so that made for a slippery trek around.



I adore these people.

This guy is alright too.



So Dad was stepping back to take a picture for us and found himself buried waist high in some loose snow. I'm surprised as hard as we were laughing that I was able to even take a picture. It was pretty hysterical.



These are the foot/leg prints dad left in the snow.

 

Another indicator of how high the snow actually was in May.



 Moving on...

On the evening of May 22, a couple of days before we headed back to Nashville, Dallas got back from a school trip to China. He texted Ryan and told him to get on ichat....little did we know it was to tell us that he had just PROPOSED TO LANDIS! What a wonderful surprise! Since Dallas teases me incessantly, I didn't really believe it at first. After we realized that they were telling the truth, I went into full surprise/joy/tears mode. This picture is only slightly embarrassing...



  

Here is the happy engaged couple!





Here they are showing the ring to Bill and Jill. Please note Bill's wild hair.

That brings us to July?....Somehow I can't find any pictures of anything from June. June was a very fun and busy month though! I'm sure someone has pictures, but I don't have any on my computer so I will note some fun things I remember:

Simmons Family trip to Atlanta over Memorial Day

Babysitting Andrew Parnell - what a cutie pie!

Oh! Here is something I do have a picture of:

Some of the Simmons crew got to go hang out with this guy one day!

Keith was doing a run-through of his upcoming tour for "friends and family" and we got to go! There were only about 200 or so people there so we stood in the very front. It was pretty fabulous.

July

Ryan and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary with a weekend trip to Denver.

Beautiful Breckenridge! Ryan and I spent one day walking around Breckenridge during our Anniversary weekend. It was such a gorgeous day and the scenery was pretty amazing as well.

My first concert at Red Rocks was a memorable experience. It is so beautiful there and if you look closely, you can see it is storming in the distance over downtown Denver.  The Avett Brothers were pretty awesome as well.



Another cool view from our seats at Red Rocks.

This is an ice cream place that Ryan and I stumbled upon in downtown Denver while we were walking around. I thought it was so charming and fun.

New York City Trip

Long story short, Landis and I were trying to get tickets to Regis and Kelly and sent many letters and postcards requesting them. We had kinda given up hope that we would get any tickets until Landis got a letter in the mail on July 12 saying we had two tickets to the August 1 show! We immediately planned a quick overnight trip to NYC! We made a list of all the things we wanted to do and see in our brief trip and made sure to make a stop for dessert at Serendipity. It did not disappoint.

This is us in line waiting to get into the show. We were able to walk over to the studio from our hotel early that morning, Starbucks in hand of course!

Here she is in all her glory....I believe this is when she was telling a hilarious story about being mistaken for Heidi Klum in a donut shop.

Josh Groban was her co-host since Regis was out. He was pretty dreamy and even sang to the crowd during a commercial. It was pretty incredible.

 We almost got yelled at for taking this picture because they were trying to clear everyone out and we were trying to stay to meet Kelly and Josh.

After 2 hours of waiting after the show and lurking Kelly's driver until he picked her up.....WE GOT TO MEET KELLY! She was headed to spin class, how perfect! She was so nice and friendly.  She must've known how much we love her!

We were running short on time after waiting so long to meet Kelly, so we took a bike tour of Central Park to make note of all the spots to visit in the future. Our guide was a jokester but he told us all about all of the stars who live in New York and showed us all of the famous movie spots.

The fountain behind us is famous for many reasons, but it seems fitting to mention that this is the fountain that Santa's sleigh hits on the way into Central Park in the movie Elf.

After our whilrlwingd trip to NYC, Landis and I headed to the airport to catch two flights to get us to the Simmons in Kiawah, SC. We ended up delayed there for about 5 hours longer than expected and more Laguardia chaos than we bargained for, but we made friends with a pilot and a couple of families along the way. It was quite an adventure.



I was pretty happy to see this guy.



The Simmons Ladies with our yummy root beer floats and milkshakes.

One of my favorite parts about the Kiawah trip was daily bike rides with these jokers. The Captin is as fast as the wind on a bike!

If you couldn't tell, it was REALLY hot.

We were so blessed to get such a busy and fun summer with so many people we love! We are settled back into our apartment in Denver and Ryan started classes this week. We are not wasting any time getting back to our Colorado Adventures. This weekend we are headed to camp at Great Sand Dunes National Park. Should be fun!