We met up with some friends yesterday in the unknown town of Raymond. We had lunch at the Stanley Hotel with Russ (dad's friend from law school) and Liz and their friends (Isaac and Susan who have a vacation home in Raymond). I sacrilegiously ate a BBQ pulled Elk sandwich, very similar to beef. Then we hung out for a while in Estes Park, walking around the shops in downtown. After that, we had a great bbq at the cabin with some neighbors. The town has an estimated 40 year-round residents, we dined with 3 of them...approximately 8% of the town population! The cabin is located in a national forest so everything is weird. If a well and septic system hadn't been installed long ago, it's too late now. The home was beautiful and the backyard even more impressive, it had a river. Just before dinner Russ and I crossed a bridge, it looked like it would give at any moment, to hike up a cliff. I'm not the best at estimating hights, but we both guessed we climbed 500-1000ft in about 15 minutes, starting at 8,000ft. The view was amazing, we could recognize the home and that people were waving at us, but we had no idea who was who.

The craft show was a bust. Given the booth fee, we lost money on the day.
Very disappointing. On the bright side, it was a beautiful day and we were between the "Lyons Golden Gang" (or "Lyons Olden Gang"-as pictured) and a guy selling $30 video game consoles. We got a video clip of a kid using his tongue very energetically, obviously helping his playing. Unfortunately, I cannot figure out to get the blog to display it large enough to see the hilarious tongue action.

Julie has a craft show this weekend in Lyons. Stikpins is now in 2 Boulder boutiques and another just south of Denver.
We met with an attorney yesterday and she answered a lot of questions. We hope to have everything filed and operational in the next month.

So, it turns out, wherever we were yesterday appears to not be Breckenridge. We assumed that finding the tour on the Breckenridge website would mean that, we were mistaken. I don't know exactly where we were other than 15 miles from the freeway, past a scary bridge and in a beautiful valley. We didn't get to see Breckenridge, but at least we were able to drive through a tunnel about a mile long and Vail. Vail was stupidly scenic, no wonder it's so well known.

The tour: Started out with a bunch of legal crap; if you break it we break you, if you're stupid you'll die...that sort of thing. Then we had lunch, it was quite tasty. Our guide forgot our bandannas. We thought that sort of fashion accessory was not appropriate so we didn't bother going back for them. We didn't realize just how much dirt would stick to our faces and how much bugs hurt at just 20mph...we went as fast as 55!
We had an awesome time! Julie thought I'd hit the ejection button on several occasions, she got some good hang time off the seat. We forged rivers, climbed rocks, got to about 12k feet, saw a marmot and ancient marmot pee (our guide, Mr. Discovery Channel Animal Planet guy-said that their pee changes the color of lichen. Who new!?...or cared) , we also saw lots of birds, bugs, snow, and our life flash before us.
Who needs a stereo with Julie on (or not so on) the back seat? She was laying down all kinds of appropriate sound tracks for the journey. "Oh $h!+, tree, rock, turn, gonna die, ditch, AHHH, slow down, GREG!" If only we had video with sound to go along with the pics and words...priceless.
After returning safely, attempting to wash off and slow our heart rate, I bought a cookie the size of my head and then we went home-the long way.

Our guide recommended we take trail ridge road back home; of course, he couldn't tell us how to get there. Once we had cell signal, we called RMNP (the road passes through) and asked how to get there. Well, lets just say that it was my turn to make the music. Crawling slowly around blind turns, elk and deer randomly jumping across the road and a cliff of extremely deadly proportions on at least one side of the road which reached 12,100ft was not my most fun driving experience. Although it did remind me of back home, the good ol' treacherous 55.

See pics below.

Pictures (in order):
1-Sitting at about 12k feet on lichen (and marmot pee)
2-Moments before the elk took my head off through the car window
3-Trail Ridge Road, near the peak
4-Somewhere on TRR, lots of snow in late June...Top of TRR rarley gets above 50F in Summer
5-Filth
6-Filth
7-The guide told us to, seemed fun
8-Jealous?
9-That would be an extremely rocky area covered with running water that the guide had us use as a (I use this word loosely) 'trail'
10-Just before departure, pre-filth
11-Behind lodge (ATV home base), geese chillin, trout jumpin goodness

ATV's are awesome!

Change of plans, no Vail

We heard that Breckenridge is bigger and better. So I searched to see what there is to do there...turns out plenty. Fishing, hiking, rock climbing, horseback, blah blah blah...and ATV's. So we have the ATV tour booked. We'll be sharing one, it's 1130-330 with lunch and a short 'crash course' before we depart-not sure exactly how long the tour is. Should be fun, Julie's never been on one and she's 'more of a passenger' so she'll be on the back taking pictures. The place we're going to doesn't even have an address. The directions were basically...take the exit and go 15 miles until you see the big cabin. Should be interesting.

Sweet!

I met with the photographer today. He was super nice and helpful! He gave me way more info than I expected from a potential competitor in just an hour; plus, he bought me lunch (although he did stand me up last week). Everything he said encourages me to move ahead and start on my own. I think I may have even made friends, it will be nice to know more people here. No further plans with him besides possibly getting together over the weekend (he said he gets bored and lonely while editing pictures all day, so he calls friends to come over and hang out). He suggested a couple web groups dedicated to pro-photography (one is in denver). I may be able to find jobs and pointers and whatnot there. He also gave me his secret marketing strategy...free and very productive...sounds good to me! So, I will be focusing on that for a while. Setting up an appointment with the attorney to get the LLC filed is next. Then designing my site, layout, theme, biz cards and all that fun stuff. Then a spending spree-computer software, hardware and camera gear. Then...I need to decide to rent the expensive gear for a while or buy right away. I could easily spend $5k+ on lenses alone (at least their resale value is rediculously high).

Assuming I can get some rest in the next couple days (although I don't feel sick, after 8hrs of rest I still feel lousy) we may go to Vail on Friday. The crazy weather is supposed to clear, it's only 2hrs away and we would like to see it before all of the snow is gone. That's right, snow in mid June! Driving down the main N/S highway you can clearly see lots of the white stuff in the Rockies, just past the foothills. It will also be a good opportunity to find some good driving roads. Julie and & I will be taking a motorcycle class soon! We have already done dirt, this time is street. It's in a parking lot, about 20hrs of instruction and includes a driving and written test. If we pass we can get our licenses with nothing more than $40 to the state licensing people...not the DMV, they're strange here. Please no hate mail regarding this. We know it's dangerous. We're smart and careful and taking a class. I will buy a bike if we like it and feel comfortable; otherwise, it will have been just a fun (hopefully) experiment. If we do go to Vail, there will be pictures posted (hopefully over the weekend). If anyone has been and has advise or suggestions on what to do there in the summer, please let us know!

Sorry to disappoint our perverted fans...Julie's migraine prevented us from seeing the naked bikers. They all covered their genitals to keep from getting arrested anyways...so I guess we didn't miss much. We had a few hours of nice weather today. We walked to the park and launch some model rockets! Yipee! 5 successful launches and all were recovered.

Our Full Monty, coming to a youtube near you

I'm finally on the mend, just finished my antibiotics today. I have a meeting with a wedding photographer in Boulder (he has no work for me but is willing to just chat about the biz and what not) on Tuesday.

We will be in Boulder Saturday because it is the annual "World Naked Bike Ride." Julie and I have been toning up in anticipation. I saw a video on youtube and I new I just had to do it. What better way to promote awareness for our dependence on fossil fuels. "Burn fat not oil. More ass less gass!"

Sorry for the visual. We couldn't be kidding more.

More of the same weather....2 inches rain/hr....tornadoes, thunder. We haven't been doing much of anything so it's nice to be able to avoid the insanity happening outside.

A cowboy sold us $100 worth of Omaha (mail order) filet mignon for $20. He was delivering to our neighbor and approached us in the driveway...he didn't even know the price of the stuff until after he sold it to us!

Last night we went to a chamber of commerce seminar put on by a local attorney. It covered some basic business start-up issues (legal, insurance, and tax). We each get a free hour with the attorney for attending...sweet! There were only a few people there...2 of which I'm surprised were able to find the place, given their intelligence (as indicated by the questions that they asked). It's scary to think that they will be operating their own business...and are trying to do it on their own.

Taylor just learned how to sit on her own, she also just pulled herself up into a stand. Alex is getting more and more defiant...just in time for her 2nd b-day. I guess it's terrible 2 time.

Weather!!!

A couple days ago there was some crazy thunder very close to home. We cracked the window, watching for the flash and counting to the thunder-it was approximately a mile away. Today we went out to the walk-in clinic (I have yet another cold-this one diagnosed as tonsillitis) and target; while out, we heard the tornado sirens! When we got home Chris said there was a tornado in a town 20-30 minutes from here. The skies are incredibly dark and there is more thunder. Luckily the severe weather warning for our town has just been lifted.

Coors

After, the famed, Casa Bonita, the guys went to the Coors brewery in Golden and the girls went to the Molly Brown house in downtown Denver. The town of Golden did not smell like hops as I was promised, but that's a good thing in my book. Inside the brewery there was plenty of smelling to be done; it wasn't the most pleasing of aromas. The tour was somewhat boring. It is self guided with programmable radios that give some info along the way. Nearly everything was behind glass and the viewing was limited...the two pictures are really the only things seen on the tour. It was a disappointment. We did get free beer. I haven't had beer for a while-I don't feel like I was missing much. I would have rather done my 3rd Celestial Seasonings tour. But, I had to do it. Golden was beautiful, I hope to find some other reason to go back.

CASA BONITA!!!!

We were informed about this awesome place by Southpark. It seemed too good to be true....but here is the proof! It is the most exciting restaurant in the world!!! (their words, not ours)