Besides the Search

We spend 90% of our time at our apartment, but the other 10% we try to get out and discover what we can find to do that is free in Colorado.

One of our first weekends here, we went to one of the Art districts in Denver and participated in a free scavenger hunt, we knew we wouldn't win, so we brought the dogs along and just played to have fun. We listened to live music and walked around the local art fair. To our surprise we DID win - free massages. I have never had a massage before and found it to be painful, but Brian enjoyed his.
Here Brian is hanging out on the lawn of the free concert. It looks like we are all by ourselves in the park, but it was packed, we just happened to be in the corner of the park and got just the right camera angle for the picture.

We went to Vail for Brian's birthday weekend with Mike and Paige. It was fun to walk around the quaint little tourist towns and visit with Paige and Mike. We also had a birthday dinner at a cute restaurant in Vail, we sat on the patio and ate the best trout - YUM!

Another weekend we decided to go hiking. We had planned the hike and downloaded some Geocaches to our GPS and off we went. We were almost there and found out that the road that lead up the mountain was closed due to construction. I guess the road had washed out earlier in the year and they were fixing it. We quickly picked another hike, but weren't able to find where it was supposed to start and end. After wandering around in the woods for a while we decided to just explore the mountain in our car. We happened to come upon this trail to go up to Gray's Peak. This is what our hiking guide books call a "Fourteener" because it is above 14,000 feet. I could only hike about a mile in to the hike and then begged Brian to turn around.

Brian seemed to do fine, but I actually had a lot of problems adjusting to the high altitude. I had an ear infection a couple weeks before we got here. Although it had cleared up, my ear was really hurting me. I went to the doctors and they told me my ear seemed fine. I was also getting headaches and migraines. I don't normally get headaches. I tried to run for exercise and would die at about the 1 mile mark. It took me a good month to finally adjust. No more head aches and my ear is fine now. I'm not back to my 4 miles yet, but close - 3 miles. Almost there.

We would love to live in the city of Boulder, so one day we decided to go exploring. They were having a Farmers Market, so we wandered that for a while and then we followed some of the trails around the University.
We have also been going to the local library a lot. Las Vegas had the BEST library system and Vermont's library system was pretty much non-existent. So the first time we went to the library I checked out 20 items! I got a little crazy, but we probably go to the library twice a week. We check out a lot of movies, books and cds.

We also like to go to the local thrift stores and look for "Treasures". We find all sorts of fun things for only a buck or two. For my side of the family, my mom had the idea that we only get each other gifts from the thrift store for Christmas. This will take some time to find that many treasures, but it will be fun, cheaper and eco-friendly. I miss the Chelsea Station thrift shop in VT, we found some really good things there, but ARC is my new favorite thrift store here in Colorado.

We live across the street from a nice little park and take the dogs on a lot of walks. We have also been trying new recipes. Mostly vegetarian, we are trying to eat healthier and the price of vegetables are nice on our budget.

~ Nicole

** I couldn't help but share that it snowed the other day here. It has melted now and almost warmed back up to 60 degrees, but Brian was like a little kid on Christmas when we woke up and saw snow outside.