Summer of 2014 - From the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic - Part One: Colorado

We started the summer off by packing up our life in Texas and Neil trucked it back to North Carolina to put it in a storage unit for the summer.  Most normal people who had no jobs and were moving to a new place would book it to that new place to find jobs, but we decided to take the long, scenic route on our drive from Texas to North Carolina by swinging by the Pacific Ocean on the way.

After a quick stop to Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, we headed to Colorado to spend several weeks.  First, we went to Great Sand Dunes National Park to camp and to see how they compared to White Sands.  Great Sand Dunes is much more majestic and it really felt like you were in Namibia because the dunes went on forever.  But, the sand wasn't great for sledding, so White Sands wins for that category.  Then, we headed to the West Side of Pikes Peak to camp in our favorite site that we found back in 2012.  We just took it easy for 3 days and decompressed after our year in Austin.  One day, I got up before sunrise and hiked up Pikes Peak.  It took me about 5 hours and it was crazy difficult because of the altitude, snow, freezing temps, crazy wind, and boulders I had to climb over, but it was an amazing experience.  Neil, the kids and Bailey drove to the top and picked me up.

 

 

 

Then, we headed over to Durango to spend a week with my family.  My parents rented a house and my sister and her family came as well.  We got to do all sorts of fun things including ride the train to Silverton, go biking in Telluride, soak in the hot springs of Ouray, climb through the Anazasi cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde, visit the awesome rec center in town, and go white water rafting.