Trip to Belize

Karla and I decided back in June to go on a beach vacation sometime in September.  It was between Costa Rica and Belize, and since it was going to be a short trip, and relaxation was the goal, Belize won out.  Ambergris Caye is an island that we had to take a puddle jumper to from Belize City, but we had heard good things about the place.  Karla found the hotel we stayed at on trip advsior, called X'tan Ha.  It was a great deal, and right on the beach.

We left early Saturday, and got to the town of San Pedro around 4pm, which was odd since Belize was on mountain time as well, although it is pretty much due south of alabama.  We stopped in town to get some provisions such as eggs, bread, peanut butter...and rum.

The next day we got up early, kayaked to Mexico Rocks, and snorkeled.  We saw mostly small colorful fish, stingrays, and a nurse shark.  The rest of the day was relaxing, but we did try paddle boarding, which Karla
did very well at.  We met some fun other couples as well, from mostly the states, but also one from Canada, although Gerad was from Ireland, and a Liverpool fan to boot, so I got along swimmingly with him.

On Monday we had a "chill day". Nothing huge planned. We slept in, read for a while, and then took some bikes for a 3 mile bike ride down the beach to visit some friends of my parents who have a house in Belize. After visiting for a few hours, we decided to head back to the resort before it got dark. The ride back was an adventure because it was raining, Karla's chain kept slipping off her bike (so we'd stop and put it back on every 10 minutes), and it was rush hour on the beach. Lots of workers on bikes heading home! We went with another couple to a neighboring resort, Portofino, for dinner. It was pretty snazzy as they send a boat to pick you up and bring you home. Of course, we had seafood and all agreed it was the best meal we'd had so far.

For our last full day in Belize, we decided to take a snorkeling tour. It was small tour - two couples from our resort, our driver Kevin, and our guide Mario. Our first stop was Hol Chan Marine reserve. We spent a good hour snorkeling seeing lots of fish, some beautiful reefs, a crab or two, and, my favorite part, some sea turtles!

Next on the tour was Shark/Ray alley. And it lived up to its name! As soon as Kevin attached the boat to the buoy, Mario threw out some food and up came the nurse sharks and a ton of fish. We all jumped in so we could get a close look at all of the animals (although I think Karla pushed me in before her to make sure it was safe). Once the animals ate all the food, then it was just us snorkeling around looking at them. Mario caught a shark and a sting ray for us to touch.

After we got enough of swimming with the sharks and rays, we headed to Coral Gardens. On the way, Mario had us stop at a few lobster traps he had set so we could bring lobster back with us and have lobster ceviche when we got back to the resort. When we got to Coral Gardens, we all jumped in and quickly determined that the current was too strong that day. We were snorkeling for about a minute and the current had already taken us 30 yards from the boat! So we all quickly swam back to the boat.

We were supposed to also go to Caye Caulker, which was about a 30 minute boat ride further from the resort, for relaxing and lunch, but it had been raining for a while so the 6 of us voted to head back to the resort. We stopped at a bar on the way back for a drink and lunch. Mario and Kevin also took us to Mexico Rocks to get more snorkeling in since we skipped Caye Caulker. After getting back to the resort, we all took 30 minutes to shower and warm up (it was a little chilly on the way back in the rain), and then went to the bar to eat our fresh lobster ceviche, which was amazing.

That night was just hanging out at the bar, having a dinner on-site, and drinking with everyone. We had bought a bottle of rum when we landed, so we had to make sure we drank most of it! We gave the rest (maybe 1/4 of the bottle) to the newlyweds staying next to us since they were there for another few days. Can't let rum go to waste!

Our trip home was pretty uneventful. Our flight from Belize City was delayed a bit, but luckily so was our flight from Miami to Denver. Overall, we had a great trip and would definitely go back to both Belize and to X'Tan Ha!

Football & Mt Evans

Football is here!  After watching Payton Manning throw his 7 touchdowns on Thursday, We thought it would be fun to watch the Iowa game at 10:30am on saturday and then the Baylor game at 1:30. Except we told Ryan we would climb Mt Evans with him.  So instead we got up early on Saturday and drove to Summit Lake on the Mt Evans Road to start to summit.

This was a fairly short hike, since Summit Lake is already around 12,800 feet.  We took the long way up and the short way down.  On our way up we could see Chicago Lakes, which we hiked to the summer before, and realized we weren't too far away from the summit last year.  We also saw a mountain goat and their kid, which couldn't have been more than a few months old.  Pretty cool.

We could also see Bierstadt and the sawtooth from the other side, which was a unique perspective.  It took us about 2.5 hours to hike to the summit.  It was probably the clearest we've seen at the top of a 14er.  We could see Grays/Torreys, Bierstad, and even Long's Peak off in the distance.  I'm sure we could also see Quandary, but couldn't quite pick it out.

The way down was much shorter.  We went straight down the side of the mountain, on rocks and scree most of the way.  It was about 40 minutes back to the car!

We did make it back for the Baylor game, another thumping of Buffalo.  Sic em!

Sunday we watched the first NFL Sunday, as the Bears and Packers were both televised here.  And most importantly, Matt's fantasy team beat Karla's...no big deal.  ;)

Labor day weekend

This last weekend Karla and I spent the 3 day weekend in the city.  I can't remember the last time that happened.

We had a few goals:  get Karla skis, and go on a nice local hike.  We Also were dog sitting Junior, so we had to take that into account.

SNIAGRAB(bargains spelled backwards) is Sports Authority's ski blitz sale every year.  Basically you get last years models at crazy prices.  We got in line at 6:30am on Saturday and with that we got each a $25 gift card.  Karla's boots, skis, poles & helmet were about $550 out the door, and we got a $125 gift card to use later(retail was probably around $1400).  Very much worth getting up early!

After that we made our way to LODOs to watch Baylor destroy Wofford, and enjoyed some Shiner.  Taking it easy saturday night, we decided to hike at White Ranch Open Space on Sunday.  Its in Golden, and we've never been there.  It was a nice 6 mile hike, which before moving to Colorado we wouldn't have thought 6 miles was a nice chill hike!

A grill out at some friends on Monday and that was pretty much thee weekend.  Very relaxing time.