Sisters Cruise - Day 1

Misha landed 3.5 hours later in Miami. It was about 5:30 am local time. Kristen and Amy landed a short time later. Kristen had found a cafe at a nearby beach where the girls could leave their luggage as they hung out at the beach until they were able to board around 11:30 am.

They had a bit of breakfast and then enjoyed the sun and beach.

They were happy to board the boat and all was ready for them to leave port around 3:30 pm.

Amy had a nap. She said the nap was great but that Misha and Kristen had left a scary movie on that she woke up to. It was "The Wizard of Oz"!

It was fun to be able to text each other 1000's of miles apart. We face-timed with the girls before they left port.

They had a fun surprise for us. Misha made flat Mom and flat Dad to bring along on their cruise. Chris and I had a good chuckle over that.

Dolomites Trip - Day 3

I took melatonin and slept until 6:40 am. That's a win.

After the included breakfast at the hotel, we planned to hike today. Our gondola time was pre-purchased for 9:30 am. The hotel staff suggested that we could change it and go earlier or later as we wanted

The gondola lift was a short 7-minute walk from our hotel.

We arrived around 8:40 am and sadly found that they only allow you to go 15 minutes before your scheduled time. So Chris and I walked around a bit and then just waited until 9:15 am. We weren't the only ones trying to get up the mountain earlier. Maybe if we had been able to get an earlier start we would have seen more of the mountain and had less rain to contend with.

The ride up the mountain to Seceda took about 20 minutes with a switch from an 8-seater gondola to one that would hold probably 20 people. This was the most expensive gondola of our trip. It was about 80 € per person for the round trip. 

They say it is busy at peak times and good to buy your tickets in advance, but I think you could still get tickets by walking up to the ticket booth prior to your ride. We certainly could have. The weather wasn't optimal, however, there were still a lot of people at the top of the mountain.

When we arrived, the rain had not yet started, but that only lasted about 20 mintues.

It was so much colder at the top of the mountain with the wind whipping around. We immediately put on our puffy vests and then our rain jackets. They kept us fairly warm for the morning. I had gloves back in my suitcase and was wishing I had brought them. This is the gondola station at the top of the second gondola ride.

We climbed up to the viewpoint along the Seceda Ridge. It may look as though Chris and I are the only ones on the mountain, but they were out of frame as much as possible.

Rear view of the gondola stop.

Seceda Ridge.

It was raining in earnest now as we started on the hike along the ridge. Chris wasn't too happy once we entered a national park and the trail was pure mud and I wanted to turn around. We did anyway. We continued making our way down on a concrete brick pathway that was slippery at times.

Lots of tour groups.

I was grateful for a pit stop at a Rifugio—a small cafe on the mountainside. (There were many of them throughout all of the Dolomites.)

We began our long hike back UP to the gondola station. It seemed never ending. 

I thought this pic of a Chinese group of tourists was pretty fun with all of the colorful rain ponchos.

We finally reached the gondola and were back at the hotel by 11:30 am. I think on a beautiful day we could have spent hours exploring more of the trails. 

The next best thing? We both had naps. We wandered the old town with our umbrellas but were thrilled with an hour and a half reprieve from the rain. 

We tried dinner at a newer restaurant called E-Quattro. Pizza only with the exception of a green salad and a Caprese salad. I tried to make our waitress understand that I didn't want the tomato sauce on a pizza, just olive oil. Finally she said, you want a white pizza? Yes. Now I know what to order.

It was a lot of food, so we walked around a little more after dinner.

Sisters Cruise - Flights to Miami

Friday, August 21

While Chris and I were in Italy, the girls had their own adventure on a Carnival cruise out of Miami, Florida. 

Kristen had done much of the leg work in picking the cruise, finding flights, and dong much of the research. (And her sisters were happy to let her be the cruise director!)

Their cruise to the Bahamas was scheduled to depart on Saturday, August 22 midafternoon. Misha flew out of Denver and Amy and Kristen out of SLC. They all flew on redeye flights that left around midnight. Amy had status on Delta, so she was upgraded; sadly Kristen remained in coach. None of them slept much at all.

Dolomites Trip - Day 2

We had breakfast service on the plane and then arrived at Munich a little later than planned because of the delay in Dulles. It was raining in Munich and all ground crew work outside was on hold. So, we waited some more.

Because of the new EES processing, Chris and I made our way to Immigration as quickly as possibly. All non-EU (European Union) travelers had to have their picture, passport, and fingerprints processed before going through Immigration. 

Once through, we claimed our bags which were just circling at baggage claim and made a quick stop at the restrooms to freshen up. My schedule was off, but it seemed like a good time to take my morning vitamins.

We found our rental car from Hertz. It was a Mercedes, but Chris has since proclaimed it "gutless". 

The rain began soon after we left the airport and continued as we left Germany, drove through Austria, and made it to Italy. In fact, it started raining even more as we left the freeway and began our ascent up the side of the mountainside to our first hotel in Ortisei.

Good thing Chris and I both watched the welcome video for our hotel, Garni Snaltnerhof (Garni means bed and breakfast). Parking was a lot easier to find knowing what to look for. It was a tight squeeze in the underground parking, but we made it.

We carried our luggage to the check-in desk at the hotel where we were greeted by Peter. He gave us the choice of our originally booked room or a larger family size room. We took the larger room. "You Americans like-a them bigga." It had a king size bed, pull-out couch in the same area and connected to another room with bunks and a kitchen table and an extra powder bath. We used all of the space except for the bunks.

Our room key was a large medallion that we kept hanging on the board at check-in when we were out and about.

It was late and pouring when we arrived; we opted to eat at the restaurant connected to the restaurant—Vedl Mulin. It must have been halal (food permissible. under Islamic law); we noticed many middle easterners eating there in the ensuing days. It was also the first European restaurant where they asked if we wanted to tip. No.

After finishing our dinner, we walked around the small town of Ortesei. It was pouring rain, so I tried to take pics with my cellphone as I tucked the umbrella handle under my chin. 

In the winter months, Ortisei is a very popular area for skiing. At the end of August, it was still busy as a lot of Italians take their vacations then as well. We found all nationalities during our visit.

Dolomites Trip - Day 1

Was Chris happy to start his vacation? You bet. He was even supposed to have a 10:00 am marketing call on Wednesday morning from home and decided to cancel it. Instead, we decided to get an early start and drop something off at Home Depot on our way to the airport.

We parked at the Parking Spot, made quick time to the airport, and spent some time at the lounge having a quick lunch before our first flight to Dulles. We had a two hour wait and then our next boarding to Munich. It was delayed because there was a canceled flight to Frankfurt, and the staff were trying to accommodate as many as possible of the people from that flight on our flight. 

We flew an A380 double decker plane. Since we didn't leave until after 10:30 pm, Chris and I both skipped the meal service and tried our best to sleep as much as possible. I was surprised when I woke up to find it was already 5:45 am. Chris slept even longer.

Beautiful Foggy Morning

I went for a walk in the neighborhood this morning. The trees were surrounded in fog and the sun's rays were just perfectly shining through.

 

Happy 29th Anniversary to Us!

It is so cliche to say, "It just seems like yesterday..." but honestly it does. That is, with 29 years of life and girls and experiences in between. But if our girls ever think, "You don't remember what it was like!" Believe me, it just seems like the other day for us.

To celebrate, we are off for two weeks in Italy to hike the Dolomites this month. I will have plenty of posts and pictures when we get back.

1997

10,592 days later!

Being married to Christopher has been the best!

Hiking the Catamount Trail

Let's just say, if you are planning to hike the Catamount Trail you need to know that there is 400 feet of elevation gain just to get to the trailhead. The trail is in Green Mountain Falls and the residents there have "no parking" signage all over the place for hikers. We hiked up Hondo Street to get to the Trailhead.

Chris and I parked in the downtown area and then set off for a pretty steep climb just to start our next steep climb! Our first section, including the pre-climb, had us hiking 1000 feet of elevation gain in the first mile and a half. Whew.

The waterfalls were not running very strong.

View over Green Mountain Falls

Top of the climb

We finally reached the top of the hike and then followed the trail down into a meadow that led to the South Catamount Reservoir. The weather was humid from all of the rain the past couple of days but temps were moderate. Still we were dripping.

As we hiked, dark clouds moved in and that made the hike much more pleasant. Chris brought his bear spray because two hikers had spotted a mountain lion in the area in the past couple months. We didn't see too much wildlife.

We finally reached the reservoir. It sits under the Crags that we had hiked with Misha a couple of weeks ago.

Pikes Peak in the clouds on the left.

Beautiful meadow.

South Catamount Reservoir. The Crags are the mountains on the far end.

We walked along a service from the edge of the meadow to the reservoir.

Steve's Bridge in the meadow.

We turned around and began our way back through the meadow. Instead of stopping for lunch at the top of the hike at noon, we left the top and hiked back down to the car in about an hour. There were picnic tables near the car, so we sat there and ate our lunch. Fortunately, the rain waited until we were finished hiking and eating lunch to begin pouring.

Amy's New Table

Amy used her tools and skills and put together a new end table for her living room.

Misha's First Week in Boulder

Misha has absolutely loved her new apartment and life in Boulder. Her commute to work is less than 10 minutes now compared the 45+ minute drive she used to have.

She even met a few people in the complex, attended the ice cream party on Friday night, and got the rest of her unpacking down.

She purchased a bench for her entry, a couch, a new bed (she'll bring the old box springs home), and a Roomba. She has been without a dishwasher and microwave for the past three years and absolutely loves them both. Plus she has laundry in her apartment now and valet garbage service.

Fortunately the guy she bought the couch from helped her load it and some random guy leaved the wellness center (across the street from Misha's apartment) helped her unload it.

It is great to see Misha so happy with her new place.

Kristen Moving

Kristen's countdown day finally arrived for being able to move out of Branbury and away from her crazy roommate, Cassie.

Kristen began packing up her stuff and moving it to Amy's (temporarily) in stages. She had to be out of her apartment by 9 am on the 14th. Cassie was packing up her stuff and her rabbit(s) and cleaning all night long keeping the rest of the apartment awake. 

Kristen wasn't too happy but at least it was the last day in the apartment with her! Amy gave Kristen this t-shirt to commemorate her time with Cassie.

Kristen will stay with Amy this week. The girls leave for a cruise in Florida on Friday afternoon (August 21). When they get home, Kristen will move into her new apartment in Provo. Fingers crossed she loves her new roommates.

New Glasses for Amy

Amy had an eye check up and found that she needs glasses for driving at night and watching tv. She face-timed with me while she was trying them so I could give her my opinion.

I think these are the ones she chose.

Misha Moving

Misha's application was accepted at the Weathervane Apts in Boulder. She even got to pick her keys up a couple of days early so that she could get moved in early and so that Chris and I could help her.

It was over 90° in Denver when Chris and arrived to help pack up her apartment. Misha had to go to Boulder to pick her apartment keys and get a moving truck from U-Haul.

Chris and I walked to the McDonald's on Colfax to get Misha some lunch. The area was pretty sketch. Chris and I were both glad that Misha was finally moving out of this area of Denver.

Misha arrived and we all got busy loading the moving van, hauling boxes and furniture down three flights of stairs. Fortunately there was a parking spot right in front of her building. It took us over an hour to get things packed up in the van and the back of the Pilot.

Chris drove the van to Boulder and Misha rode with me. The views as we got closer to Boulder were just spectacular. We found parking in front of Misha's new 1st floor apartment and began unloading the van. For most of the stuff, Chris and I brought the boxes to Misha's enclosed deck and she grabbed the boxes from us. So much easier.

Once the van was loaded, Chris backed the Pilot right up to the entrance to the apartment building and we were done in no time.

I helped Misha get her bed set up and made; we placed a few pieces of furniture so she had a place to sleep and eat before everything else was unpacked.

The moving truck needed to be returned by 7 pm, so we left the apartment around 6:30 pm. Misha filled the truck with gas and I looked for a place for dinner.

We ate a Mojo Tacos and Misha said, "I'd eat here again."

We hugged Misha goodbye and began the 1.5 hr drive home. Misha texted us a few minutes later saying, "home".

Chris' New Favorite Chair

Chris settles himself into this chair every evening to use his laptop or watch tv. The chair is quite comfy, and the swivel feature is nice on both the chair and the stool.

Hiking to Chautauqua Point

Chris found a hike for us this morning that was less than 15 minutes from our house. We drove to Palmer Lake and parked at the Limbaugh Canyon Trailhead. It was very informal and indistinct with no trailhead sign. But the parking lot was fairly full. Chris confirmed via his map that we were in the right place.

Trailhead

We hiked from the trailhead on Raspberry Mountain following the Monument Creek. Chris had his downloaded map handy which was necessary as there were so many trail off-shoots from the trail we were following. 

You'll need the map to help you figure out where to cross over to Chautauqua Mountain and Trail. From there the hiking got more steep. With a lot of scree on the trail, we had to be careful on some of the really steep sections.

We finally reached Balanced Rock. A couple of other hikers and e-bike riders were there as well. We continued on past Balanced Rock after a short break and it got really steep going down. We also learned that there are multiple trails you can take to reach Balanced Rock.

Apparently there was a longer way around as one of the hikers we had just met caught up to us as we started a steep climb up toward the point of Chautauqua. We continued with the ups and downs along the ridge as it wove through some boulder outcroppings. We had to squeeze between boulders to get to the point on the ridge and found as we reached the point that there wasn't much to see. 

The views along the way were much better as we overlooked the whole Monument and Palmer Lake valley.

Palmer Lake

Without much of a view, we backtracked and side-stepped our way down and then back up again, past the the boulders we had to squeeze through and found a shady spot there for a lunch break.

We took a different, much steeper descent back to the crossover point of the two mountains. This overlook on Raspberry Mountain shows Chautauqua Mountain where we had just hiked.

We arrived back at the Pilot after 4.5 hours. 7.15 miles, and 1,990 ft of elevation gain. It was nice that it was close, but I was not a fan of the steep climbs and descent and all the slippery scree underfoot.