Thursday, July 30, 2009

Where Oh Where Have I Been?

Chasing myself....or at least it feels that way.

In June, I accompanied DH on a trip to a technical engineering conference near Salt Lake City UT. We took a few days vacation on the way there. The first day out, we drove across KS. It was beautifully green.
Near Limon, CO, we drove through a hailstorm like none I've ever seen before. Thank goodness the hail was small and did no damage to our car! When the hail ended.....it looked like about an inch of snow on the ground. We went as far as Manitou Springs, CO that first night.
See that mountain with snow in the center of the photo. Well, that's Pike's Peak. After we had dinner, we went to Garden of the Gods. We had a nice evening walk there and enjoyed the beautiful scenery. I snapped a picture of some of the wildlife we saw that evening. See the deer just behind the fence. The next morning we went through Alma, CO across Hossier Pass and into Breckenridge, CO. Scenery at the pass was just beautiful.We had lunch in Breckenridge and then headed on north to Grand Lake, CO. I visited a quilt shop there and bought a few goodies. The next morning we got up early and drove into Rocky Mountain National Park. I've been there several times over the years, but always later in the season. There was still lots of snow.
Since we were early in the morning, we got to see lots of elk near the entrance on the west side of the park. We also saw 4 moose.One thing we noticed throughout Colorado was all the dying trees. Literature we got at the park entrance said this was because of a serious infestation of the Pine Beetle. See the dead trees....well there are thousands and thousands of them.

Before noon, we were on our way north through Steamboat Springs. We were headed for Salt Lake City UT. The northwest corner of CO is very arid, but we were pleasantly surprised to see so much green there this year. I snapped this at the Colorado/Utah border.We actually stayed in a hotel in Ogden UT. Two days during that week while DH was in meetings, I drove the 25 miles into downtown Salt Lake and went to the Family History Library. That place is amazing. I enjoy doing family research and was able to find some info on my Texas family there. DH and I also had a day to do some sight seeing. We drove up through Logan UT to Bear Lake on the Utah/Idaho border. It's a beautiful lake and about half of it is in each state. There was a nice visitors center on a pass overlooking the lake so we stopped and snapped a picture.We took a different route on our way home. We drove across southern Wyoming & Nebraska In Wyoming,we saw beautiful sights like these.


After we got home.....life really got crazy. We have had some decisions to make. Decisions? You might ask what kind of decisions. Well, decisions that are going to really change life for both of us......in a good way. My husband has been selected to head up a program that his company is doing in Australia. This assignment is going to require us to move to Australia for 2 years. All this is happening so quickly. We will be going soon for a 2 week visit to look at housing. Then we return home until all the government paperwork is complete. As soon as that is done, we head down to live. I may not be posting much for a while because I am cleaning, sorting, and preparing for the adventure of a lifetime.