Colorado

Remember when I had a life...and a blog. I'm beginning to get back a small part of that now that it's summer. Nevermind the fact that I'm already doing prep work for next year, I have a little more freedom.

I'll do a reflection on the school year at a later time. It's still pretty fresh but FIRST I want to share about our trip to Colorado. If you follow me on insta (mountainmeghan) then you likely felt like you were on this trip with us. But in case you didn't get enough allow me to give you some highlights and pics here on yet another social media outlet.

This was my first time flying and the flight west was amazing! So easy, arrived 30 minutes early and lugged our Osprey packs and luggage around Denver for a few hours while we waited on our room to be ready. We stayed downtown and enjoyed walking along the 16th Street Mall. We were told we had the "swagger of humanitarians" by a friendly street vendor. When I asked her what that looked like she said that we were wearing earth-tones and were smiling as if enjoying vacation but still pondering the injustices of the world. She was pretty dead on actually so we listened to her for 45 minutes.

Denver was a city. Convenient. Wonderful brunch. Lots of people doing their own thing. We attempted public transportation and bragged on ourselves as we got on the bus saying "We are so good at this." Then had to pay a stranger $20 because we didn't have change for our bus fare and after 15 minutes on said bus another well-meaning stranger told us we were on the wrong bus. Despite being a "city" Denver was incredibly friendly. In the end we paid $40 to realize we should just stay downtown and walk to destinations. Lesson learned.

While in Denver we also went to Red Rocks amphitheater which is apparently a rite of passage if you visit Colorado. We would have seen any old band there just to say we went but once we caught wind that Old Crow Medicine Show was going to be there we bumped our trip up from July to June. The venue was breathtaking and OCMS never disappoints. Drew clearly scared our neighbors when they played Carry Me Back to Virginia.

We spent the next day driving into the mountains (we rented a car after our bus fiasco) where we rented sleeping bags to camp in Rocky Mountain National Park that night. We took our Enos and set up camp for the night. We made pork chops and s'mores and lounged and read. Unfortunately it rained and we slept in the car but it was still a great experience.

The next day (my birthday) we had planned for an 11 mile hike along the Lumpy Ridge trail. We chose this trail because it allowed for so many different views, it is supposed to be the best to see all of the landscape of the National Park: mountains, meadows, rocks and a lake that is only from snow melt. Pretty freaking awesome. Sure it rained and I thought I was having a heart attack because my left arm and hand went numb but again totally worth it.

That night we met our friends Sarah and Ben for my birthday dinner in Boulder. I ate my weight in crab legs and we enjoyed catching up with them. Drew and Sarah had planned for us to go to an escape room which was really cool even though we didn't solve the mystery.

We stayed in Boulder for the remainder of our trip relaxing in our awesome Airbnb, or Enos, or eating really yummy food. Admittedly, this trip was to kind of feel out the city of Boulder as a possible move for us in the future and we did love the entire vibe of it. We did a little kayaking and a tour at Celestial Seasonings for our last day.

Our trip home was not quite as smooth, cancelled flights, mechanical issues and an overnight stay in Newark made us more than ready to get home.

The landscape in Colorado was breathtaking everywhere you turned. We WILL go back and hopefully take our family and dogs. But....it's not home. We were so happy to be back in "our" mountains and immersed once again in our small town. It's been so nice to be home and start my summer.

She lives

I am surviving life as a first year teacher. I am always busy, overwhelmed, exhausted, and in love. I have the sweetest students and if it weren't for my room having no a/c I would have no complaints. I think my students think I have an overly shimmery upper lip because it is always sweating. I have 10th-12th graders and they are lovely. They make me laugh every single day, all day. I cannot explain how much I love my job and the super helpful coworkers. I'm still figuring out how I feel about living where I work but I do know that I love Floyd County High School. How I feel about living in Floyd is yet to be determined.

This is a review game I did a couple of weeks ago

If I do anything besides school work it is this: 

Picking, freezing, picking, canning. We have LOADS of zucchini in the fridge: shredded, slices, spears, casseroles. And all of those cans are either tomatoes, spaghetti sauce, salsa, apple butter or apple sauce. I am very proud of us for jumping right in with the preservation (or prepping as our friends Sarah and Ben say). I promise we're not preppers. We just like to grow things and because we aren't a family of 12 we can't eat it as quickly as it comes in so we are prepping (in a sense) but just for winter not for an apocalypse.  

The only thing outside of canning and teaching we have done is travel home for Labor day weekend. My sister's wedding shower was on Saturday and Drew spent the weekend camping with my uncle and other family members who came and went (like myself). The shower was lovely and the hiking and camping were just what I needed on my weekend off. 

Drew is hiking this weekend and I'm trying to get ahead on some lesson planning for next week. Football has started so that will fill all free moments of our weekends. Fantasy football, college football, FCHS football, thank God it's fall. Here's hoping this heat ends soon so I can't stop frightening my students with a glowing face.

I will love with urgency and not with haste

This weekend we traveled through the flatlands in West Virginny and Ohio, slept on the ground, got a contact high and were almost eaten alive by bed bugs but it was totally worth it, because we got to see

Mumford & Sons and Old Crow Medicine Show.

We arrived Friday night and the Gentlemen of the Road had taken over the adorable city of Troy. The town square was closed off where there were 2 stages and lots of food and beverage.

The "shuttle" from our car to the campground was a bit of false advertising because in all reality it was a hay ride from a tractor. But it kept with the theme so I  bought in. I also bought into the camping, I was going to make the best of it despite the fact that neither of our air mattresses would work and we were next to loud frat boys whose sole desire was to keep us up all night. Dear frat boys with visors....ever heard of quiet hours because according to my pamphlet they're supposed to start at 12!!....how old do I sound right now????

Saturday we had a nice pancake breakfast from at the town rec center. Then we purchased our gear and were free to enjoy all the lovely town of Troy had to offer. troy is the stars hollow of ohio for all you Gilmore girl fans, it was almost too perfect

 

For everyone in my hometown my sister compared the festival to "like Heritage Days times 1,000." Drew and I spent the better part of the day in a used book store shocker. As the day wore on we became increasingly aware of how tired we were and how we really did not want to sleep on the ground next to our insensitive neighbors.

 

 

So in the 90 degree heat we packed up camp and rode the hay back to the car and sat in the a/c for a while before hay-riding back for the concert.

 

 

 



 

 

 



At the risk of sounding dramatic I will just say that Mumford was a spiritual experience for me. I cried twice and Drew made the comment on the way home that he felt like he was at church a couple of times. It was church for me and their voices are amazing. And I must tell you the f-word does not sound dirty with a British accent, in fact I quite like it.


Mumford was so humble and funny. There is no lyric they sing that does not stir my soul and their voices make me weak at the knees. Watching them collaborate with OCMS on Wagon Wheel warmed my heart and I cannot speak highly enough of them. 

Our getting home story is one for another day but just know that I would pay twice what I paid to see OCMS or Mumford any day. And probably even sleep in bed bugs in a smoking room on the floor. I don't care if I never see anyone else, I now know that they are both amazing live and I feel so lucky I got to have church with Marcus and the boys.

 

 

 

 



Until we meet again Mumford.....I'll be waiting.

 

Memorial Weekend Festivities

So this weekend my family came up to camp with us on the river at New River Junction.

It is a lovely little place where we tube and fish in the summer. Some of us fished (I'm not included in that us) but it was a bit frigid to tube. P.S. I'm not sure who that particular person fishing is but some of our crowd did too).

Hey there are some fishermen I recognize! My dad and his brother Tim.

It was 30-40 degrees the first couple of nights, but we survived to see Sunday which was, overall, a lovely day.

 

Usually in the evenings, though, we looked like this:

 

 

 

 

We played cornhole which I have no pictures of because Rachel and I were too busy kicking ass. But we ate really good. When we camp with this bunch Drew and I eat better than we do at home.

Yes, that is deer meat. And yes it tasted even more amazing than it looks. My mouth is watering just remembering it.

Sunbathed...in our sweats.

I read this book. It is awesome. Go read it. Preferably while in the woods.

And stayed close to this at all times.

I think this is the only sighting I had of my husband all weekend. He was too busy fighting off hypothermia from being in the river to make many appearances.

The dogs had a blast and I suspect they will be resting all week to recover.

Salty thought the cornhole board looked like a good place to sun-bathe.

Sleepy boy.

 

 

Oh, also there are train tracks along both sides of the river so at night we felt as though we got a free train ride but they were just passing by, fast and loud. (which is sorta like fast and furious but honestly watching a train pass by is more entertaining).

We got home early this morning and I was a little sad washing the smoky smell out of my hair. I love being on the river and outside. Even when it's a bit chilly. I'm looking forward to many similar weekends camping since Drew and I inherited a tent from my parents this weekend (they upgraded to a pop-up last year). So any interested outdoorspeople bring your tent, fishing pole and a good book and let's set up camp!