Jason Mraz and the Cubs

We had some mid-week fun this week.  First up was a Jason Mraz concert at Red Rocks on Tuesday night.  It is a great place to see a concert!  We got there early and sat in the car eating a sandwich for dinner hoping that the rain would go away.  Unfortunately, it didn't stop, but concerts at Red Rocks are rain or shine so we put on our rain coats and headed to the amphitheater.  Christina Perri was the opening act, and she did a good job, but we were really there for Jason Mraz.  He ended up putting on a great show - played for 2 hours in the rain!  It never poured, but was always at least drizzling.  Here are some pics from the show...we were in Row 31 so had pretty good seats.

Next up on Wednesday was what we've been waiting all baseball season for - the Cubs playing in Denver!  Unfortunately, both teams are horrible, but we still went to support our beloved Cubbies.  We actually did something we never do...leave early.  However, in our defense, we got done singing the 7th inning stretch and then were told we needed to evacuate to a lower level of the stadium due to lightning in the area.  Since the Cubs were losing 6-0, we decided to take that as a sign to go home.  The Cubs are in town for a weekend series next year (yes, we've already looked it up), so hopefully we'll see a better game in 2013!

Fall Colors with Lowell and Judy

Lowell and Judy were in for a visit this weekend.  They flew in on Thursday morning and went on a U.S. Mint tour with Karla in the afternoon.  While the tour was interesting, there wasn't enough time to read everything so we might have to go again!  Karla and Matt had to work on Friday, so Lowell and Judy had the day to themselves and explored downtown on their own.  Friday night we all went to LoDo's (a bar down the street) to cheer on Baylor with the Denver Baylor alumni club.  After the big Baylor win, we went on the rooftop to watch the fireworks being shot off from Coors Field.

On Saturday we went for a drive in the mountains.  First heading up Squaw Pass heading toward Chief Mountain and Mt. Evans.  The trees were just turning colors, so we got treated some great views, even if it was a bit hazy.

After driving over the pass, we walked around Echo Lake which is the trailhead for Mt. Evans.  Matt and I will hike Mt. Evans eventually...maybe next summer?

We then did a little more driving in the mountains and ended up in Idaho Springs for lunch.  Tommyknockers in Idaho Springs is quickly becoming a favorite lunch spot - nothing like a craft brew after hanging in the mountains!!  We headed to Golden to go to the Coors brewery, but it was an hour wait, so we decided to make that a to-do on Lowell and Judy's next visit.  Saturday night was dinner out with some friends and then sitting outside, enjoying the nice weather and making s'mores in Naomi and Ryan's back yard.

A fun, relaxing weekend for all.  We'll probably do some hiking next weekend since Karla got some inserts for her hiking boots she needs to try out.  The boots randomly gave her blisters last weekend and that's not good, so am trying to solve the problem without having to buy and break-in new boots.

Chicago lakes, Kili training and power camping

Kristin and Jeff came in town to get some training for Kilimanjaro in January.  24 hours after they flew in from Chicago at an elevation of about 600 ft, they had made it to the summit of their first 14er, Grays.  Both were quite tired but decided to meet us out for camping at Guanella pass, in hopes to climb Bierstadt on Saturday.  We got the tents set up and the fire going, but Jeff's headache that he had since the Grays climb got a lot worse, and he ended up sleeping in the car for a few hours.  After determining that he wasn't going to get better, the other 3 made the decision to head back to Denver.  This meant that we were breaking down camp in the dark.  But not before we cooked over the campfire, made smores and looked at the stars and Milky Way under the new moon.  After our speed camping activities, it was back to Denver for a good night's sleep in real beds.

Saturday morning we decided to hike to Chicago lakes, about a 9.5 mile round trip hike that only had 1,500 feet of elevation change, which was a nice low key hike after a 14er.  This was a gorgeous hike that started at Echo Lake, the trail head to hike Mt Evans.  The fall leaves changing and first signs of snow on the peaks made it a really nice hike.

We made it back to denver to watch Baylor and have a nice evening in the hot tub.  Brunch at Snooze Sunday morning and we then saw our fellow Kilo adventurers off.  Now its a lazy football Sunday afternoon.  The end of another great weekend!

Labor Day in Angel Fire

We met up with Matt's parents in Angel Fire for the weekend.  After being able to leave Denver at 4pm on Friday, we hoped to miss at least some of the crazy weekend traffic.  We didn't and it took us 2.5 hours just to get to Colorado Springs.  Ugh.  We made it to Angel Fire around 11pm - a 6 hour trip.

On Saturday, we hiked Mt Wheeler with Matt's dad, Ken.  Wheeler is the highest point in New Mexico at around 13,100 feet.  Matt and Ken had been to the summit years before, but couldn't remember which way they went so we picked a trailhead at Red River and went with it.  Matt thought that it'd be a 12-ish mile hike...boy, was he wrong.

About 5 miles into our hike, we came upon Lost Lake.  We were going to do some fishing, but decided to summit first.

We kept walking and after 2-ish miles hit an aptly named Horseshoe Lake.

From here, we could see the top of Wheeler so we took a short break and kept hiking.  Instead of going along the ridge, the trail went along the backside of the peak to the other side and then up to the summit.  After about 5 hours of hiking, we finally made it to the summit!  Matt had his GPS tracking on his phone and informed us that we had just hiked about 10 miles...and still had to go all the way back

Matt was a little off on his estimate of length of the hike.  About 9 hours and around 20 miles, we completed the hike.  Ken and Karla were a little tired.  Okay, Karla might have complained the last mile.  But it ended up being a great story!

Saturday night we hung out at the house with Ken, Nancy and two of their friends who were spending the night on the way to Colorado.  On Sunday morning, all eight of us took the ski lift up to the top of the mountain to do a little walking, take in the views and watch the crazy mountain bikers tackle the first downhill of a hard trail.  Ken, Matt and Karla didn't have a lot of energy that day, so there was a lot of lounging around and Carbles games.  We went fishing for a bit in the evening.  Ken and Matt had to duck every time Karla cast out; she's still working on that technique.

Overall, it was a great, relaxing weekend in New Mexico!  We do love being closer to the house - a five (or six) hour drive is a lot better than having to fly in from Chicago and then drive.