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Another Big Bite

Another Big Bite

Category Archives: Out of Doors

Congress Blows Goats. So Let’s Go on Vacation! (Part 1)

08 Tuesday Oct 2013

Posted by anotherbigbite in On the Road Again, Out of Doors, The "Joy" of Parenting

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Tags

black canyon, camping, colorado, family, government shutdown, gunnison, monarch pass, nature, ouray, outdoors, park, road trip, rv, rving, Travel, traveling with kids, vacation

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Like nearly a million other people, we found ourselves with some extra time off last week.  Never one to pass up the opportunity to hit the road, we decided to get out of Dodge again.

After toying with (and sadly abandoning) the idea to truck out to Arizona to see my dad, we decided to stay a little closer to home and check out Ouray, Colorado.  Ouray is the ice climbing capital of the world, apparently.  Since it is past Labor Day, and nowhere near ice climbing season, we figured it would be a good time to visit.  And whoo-hoo, we were not disappointed at all.

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We took our time getting things together on THursday, and consequently only made it two hours to Buena Vista.  Since we had such a great time when we went there a few months ago, we decided to check out the same “free” campsite we had found.  Not surprisingly, there wasn’t a soul around for miles and we backed in around midnight.  When we woke up the next morning, the rain I thought I had heard was actually snow…  Finn was mighty pleased and was thrilled to be back at the same campsite.  Writing your name in the snow with your own pee may have had something to do with his excitement.

After breakfast at the Brown Dog Coffee Company in Buena Vista (seriously the best raspberry scone I had ever had), we pressed on to Gunnison.  We passed this amazing display of playground awesomeness; holy crap!  How could we not stop?  Three story tube slide?  Don’t mind if I do.

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The slide was awesome; and even Nathan and I were grinning ear-to-ear and racing back up to the top for more.  It was FAST… Alice could have done it all day, but one trip for Finn was enough.  He had his eyes on the rock wall.  And loved going down the swirly slide…. Which knocked him on his ass more than a few times.

Wipeout in 3.... 2..... 1....

Wipeout in 3…. 2….. 1….

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After a disappointing lunch at Pizza Hut (shock; I know) and hitting three separate Walmarts in 24 hours, we finally managed to inch our way up Monarch Pass.  A temporary road sign alerted us to the icy conditions ahead.  No more than three minutes later, we were driving through a decent snow…  And when we saw a bunch of cars and a crew of people milling about the pull out just shy of the pass, I thought of one thing.

Shit.  We didn’t bring chains.  It is barely even October.

Nathan must have been thinking the same thing; he pulled over to get the latest from the folks coming the opposite direction.  They all looked pretty grumpy and were furiously brushing off the snow from their vehicles.  When we got a little closer, and I started rolling down my window to talk to the nearest guy, I got that feeling that something was a little off…

All the cars were blacked out; Mercedes and tank-like trucks were surrounded by a clan of guys decked out in tactical gear; fatigues, guns, knives, bullet-proof vests.  Holy shit.  What had we just rolled up on?

“Uh… Is it really bad?  You guys needed chains?”  I sorta muttered to this guy who was obviously NOT in the military but had enough weapons to make it through the third round of the zombie apocalypse.  I start to notice the truck behind him is armoured and clearly ready to plow through a shower of bullets, machetes or anyone else, alive or dead, that stands in its path.

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“Nah..  Just a little slippery,” he tells us with a ridiculous level of nonchalance considering all the heat he is packing.

Nathan chimes in (in his “I’m an official bad-ass, and I know something is amiss” voice), “Are you a cop?  That pattern on your uniform is the new Special Forces stuff.”

A few more seconds into the conversation, and we’re told that they are in Monarch Pass filming The Fast and the Furious 7 (Whaaaaat?  THE SEVENTH MOVIE?  I must be living under a rock, and not following Vin Diesel’s career as closely as I could be.).  The snow has made it impossible to film.  After Nathan and I breathe a sigh of relief,  Nae asks him about the knife holstered in the front of his vest.

“Nah, man.  Just rubber, he bends the handle in half and I am amazed at how real it looks.  And how bizarre it is that this guy just “bent” his knife in half.  “Guns, knives, all of it is just rubber.”

“Are those trucks the real deal, too?” I ask.

“Nah, they’re empty.  No heaters, no radios, just shells.  Sucks, man.”  He smiles.

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When he asks where we’re headed, and we tell him we’re really not sure, he wishes us well, and tells us it isn’t too slippery up ahead, but we’re gonna get pretty dirty.  Of course, they’re worried about getting dirty.  We didn’t care.  He wishes us well and gives us a very cliché thumbs-up.  We wish him luck for the movie and drive off.  Over the next half hour, we pass three or four sets of identical black cars in triplicate – bigger trucks, and THE Vin Diesel car (or so I think, I’ve stopped caring about Fast and the Furious since I’ve had kids).

“If I cared about Facebook, I would totally put this up there,” Nae tells me.  I totally agree.

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Alice drifted off to sleep, and we got to see evidence of Congress’ work ethic.  Every pull-off for the recreation areas, and Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, was shuttered up.

Fuck you very much, Congress.  Three cheers for our Nation’s leaders.

We stopped by the Dillon Pinnacles…

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And the Blue Mesa Dam.

And took in the sights of the Black Canyon.  From the road.  Since that is the closest we could get.

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By late afternoon, we pulled into Ouray and were taken aback at how picturesque it was…  It was like living in a movie.  Only not The Fast and the Furious.

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We took a quick tour around town and decided we would come back the next morning when everything was open.

Stay tuned for more!

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Playing Tourist… Again.

26 Monday Aug 2013

Posted by anotherbigbite in Monday Morning Water Cooler, Out of Doors

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colorado springs, family, feeding elephants, seven falls, Travel, zoo

Nathan’s mom (the kids’ Mima) came to town for a visit last week. Once again, we played proud momma and poppa to our new city of C. Springs, showing it off and basking in our new-found pride. (Isn’t she beautiful? Absolutely perfect! And she even sleeps through the night!) We played tourist again. And I said “Isn’t this awesome?!?” way too many times.

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There are two things that are a must-do for us when someone comes to visit. First – Garden of the Gods. Second; Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. They are a good “bang for your buck” since one is free and we are members to the zoo, and they are both quintessential Colorado Springs experiences.

Finn is always excited when Mima comes to town; I’m sure it doesn’t hurt that she always brings a suitcase of presents every time she visits. Mima also has more patience for Finn’s antics than anyone else. And he makes every effort to see how far he can push it until the happy-go-lucky visit implodes. I always lose my cool well before Mima even winces. So Finn pushes harder, culminating in a shit-storm big enough to get Nathan involved. Thankfully, we evaded any major drama with him this time around, almost to the point where he was tolerable to be around.

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While waiting for Nathan to get off work on Wednesday, we headed to Target and spent over an hour perusing all the new toys. Christmas toys are up, folks… Children, get your roll of paper and pencils ready. We examined every toy in the store and rocked out Chick-fil-a for dinner. Then came Garden of the Gods. I love it there. I think you’d be hard pressed to find a soul who doesn’t. We hiked a little, let the kids run wild and headed out to Manitou Springs for ice cream.

Hitting Manitou Springs on Wednesday was a great idea… On Thursday, we were hit with another epic storm, meaning more flooding and destruction in Manitou. I love it there, but adding mudslides to the crazy tourist season in the summer and getting up and down the hills in the winter makes me glad that we live far enough away where none of that affects us.

Finny had his second day of school on Thursday (more on that later – the jury is still out); meaning we were stuck hanging around the house for most of the day since preschool is smack-dab in the middle of the day. After everyone had been schooled, Mima treated us to dinner and a visit to Seven Falls. We had never been. Remember that awesome storm on Thursday night? Yeah, we arrived just as it started… Visiting a place that has just shy of 400 steps… In the rain… Not the greatest activity ever. It ended up being totally fine, though. They stamped our tickets – a real “rain check” if ever there was one – and we called it a day.

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Finn was looking forward most to Friday. Zoo day! We took Mima through all the regular zoo attractions; giraffe-feeding, lion-gazing and giant-sandwich-eating, but this time, we got to do something new. They let you feed the elephants, too.

Good lord, I almost cried when I found out.

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Sadly, the experience was a little less magical than feeding the giraffes, since space is limited and everyone waits in line to feed the same elephant. I made the mistake of snapping the carrot in half so each of the kids could have a turn, and was promptly scolded… “It is a per-person charge, ma’am. Ugh. You can’t break them in half.” (Cue the epic eye roll directed at me.) Whatever. Mima forked over another fiver so Alice could be terrified of the beast without her brother standing beside her.

Having zoo-ed ourselves out, the kids and Mima napped when we got home. We took Mima to Garbanzos for dinner, one of the best fast-food joints out here (because we like to keep it classy), and tried Seven Falls again.

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This time, the weather was be-a-utiful and we had no problem getting the full experience. We climbed the 180+ steps to the overlook of the falls.

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Mima is none-too-fond of heights, but she was a trooper and braved her way to the top of the steps running adjacent to the falls. We all arrived safely at the top. The four of us, Mima, and Alice’s Pony. It is a little plastic My Little Pony that goes everywhere with her. She clutches it at night when she sleeps. Though all six of us made it up in one piece, only five came down together. Sure enough, after an exhausting day, Alice decided the wisest course of action was to pitch Pony right into the falls after I refused to take her out of the carrier.

I have watched too much Toy Story; all I could think about was that poor little Pony loosing her Alice… It sat in an eddy at the top of the falls, bobbing sadly in one spot. Nathan booked down the 200 steps to wait for it at the bottom, but we couldn’t get it to move. We headed down, defeated and forlorn, but the security guard gave us a little hope. This apparently happens all the time, and Nathan and a custodian high-tailed it back to the top with pool skimmers attached to long poles. Sadly, in the time it took us to climb down and Nathan to climb up, Pony had tumbled. And was lost forever.

This one's for you, Pony.

This one’s for you, Pony.

Moment of silence, please?

Good thing Target is littered with Ponys. We stopped and picked up a new one on the way home – just as Alice was starting to panic about impending bedtime.

Mima left early the next morning, before the kids had woken up, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Successful visit in the bag!! I kept waiting for a major Finny-Meltdown, but it never happened.

There is always next time.

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The National Forest World Tour

20 Tuesday Aug 2013

Posted by anotherbigbite in On the Road Again, Out of Doors, The "Joy" of Parenting

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Tags

buena vista, camping, camping with kids, colorado, family, nature, outdoors, parenting, pike national forest, san isabel national forest, Travel, traveling with kids

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A three day weekend is a terrible thing to waste. With the grand State of Colorado at our doorstep, we don’t have any excuse not to get out there and experience it every chance we get.

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Is going to the mountains ever going to get old?

Friday morning brought us to Buena Vista, Colorado. It is an adorable small town on the edge of San Isabel National Forest, and it lives up to its namesake.

Unbenounced to me, it is perfectly legal – even acceptable, to pull off the road in one of Colorado’s National Forests and just live there for two weeks. While there are more than any state’s fair share of regular campgrounds scattered throughout the Colorado wilderness, they fill up fast in the warmer months. Even if we wanted to pay $16 to park the trailer overnight, there wasn’t a single spot available to rent around Buena Vista. I felt a little bit like a hillbilly when we pulled off the state road and built a fire in the middle of nowhere, but by the end of the night, we were surrounded by four other groups of hillbillies.

Not that I was keeping score, but only one of the cars wasn’t equally nice as ours… I’m an asshole for giving two shakes what other people were driving, but it felt nice that I wasn’t hemmed in by homeless squatters in beat-up Chevy Novas. A Nova’s rust-blistered, pea-green paint and I go way back; we had a Nova back in the 80s. It was affectionately known as The Beater. The Beater had separate shoulder belts – which made it exceptionally exciting for a seven-year-old to plant their bottom smack dab in the middle of the backseat and crisscross the two belts from one side of the car to the other. I have zero memories of my mother lowering her standards far enough to ride in it, let alone drive it. If I came across my dad driving the same car (and wearing the same shorty-short brown athletic shorts, striped alligator polo and plastic aviator shades) in the wilderness last weekend, I may have felt the same way as my mom did about that car.

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We hung out most of the day while the kids did little more than roll around in the dirt. We tucked Finny in on the sofa in the trailer when he petered out, and upon investigating a loud thump, we discovered he had rolled off the cushion and into the dog bed. He was still asleep. We relocated a very anxious Waltie and set about making dinner.

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I’ve learned over the last fifteen years to stay out of Nathan’s way when he’s bent over a fire. He was the chef this whole weekend, which was fabulous, but it also meant that the kids and I be located elsewhere while he cooked. I was happy to oblige.

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After dinner, we roasted marshmallows, tucked in the kids and plowed through the remainder of the marshmallows ourselves. Nathan laughed at me while I wondered aloud what sort of animal sounded like it was playing the bongos in the woods (it was the stream behind us). We collapsed into bed and slept until eight the next morning.

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Nae made us pancakes for breakfast and we meandered into the woods in search of raspberries. We found tons of them; and after snacking on a few, we explored the creek bed. A toad startled the daylights out of Finn – Alice wanted nothing more than to pet it and love it and name it Natalie.

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OH GOD. The Dad Shirt is never going to die. I was wrong.

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After trying (in vain) to teach Alice how to use a pair of trekking poles, we packed up the camp and headed into town for lunch. We drove by K’s Old Fashioned Burgers and immediately knew it was one of those places; it was packed. The line wound around the building and as we walked up, the announcement over the loud-speaker made my heart skip a beat.

“Matthew McConahey, your order is ready.”

Wha, whaaa? My common sense kicked in as I realized they used celebrities’ names instead of numbers for the orders. Audrey Hepburn, Vanilla Ice and Sophia Loren picked up their orders just in time for the teeny bopper behind the counter to call for Bruce WILLIAMS. I can’t possibly be getting that old, can I? I live in a world where teenagers don’t recognize the real name of John McClaine?

Oh, Mr. Willis, I apologize to you on behalf of America’s youth.

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They announced Martha Stewart’s order and I grabbed my food and booked to a free picnic table beside the adjacent playground. Finn and Alice ate and ran, then noshed and climbed all the way through Denzel Washington’s dessert. We took the dogs for a walk and rolled out of town. Next stop: Pike National Forest.

We managed to score a site at the Blue Mountain campground. After taking a relaxing break lounging in the trailer and watching half of Rise of the Guardians, we started a fire and roasted some weenies for dinner.

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Once our food had settled, we laced up our boots and took a sunset hike up the Hardrock Trail. Finn navigated using his “treasure map” and we arrived at the summit just in time to miss that sunset… But it was beautiful anyway. Upon returning to camp, the kids were exhausted and zonked out.

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Nae ran into town while I was getting the kids down and picked up ice cream and wine. Nothing speaks of our high breeding like a King Cone and plastic, single serving bottles of White Zinfandel. We relaxed in the hammock and stared at the stars. It should have been ridiculously romantic, but was mostly filled with musings concerning mistaking rumbling bowels for a vibrating phone in your back pocket and our shortfalls as parents. What can I say? This is my life.

After another round of pancakes, we sucked up the hour drive back to showers and clean sheets… Alice took an epic nap spanning the entire afternoon and Finny vegged in front of the boob tube.

Since no weekend is complete without at lest one trip to Home Depot, we bought a replacement faucet for the leaky one in the trailer (which didn’t fit) and another drop cloth to reupholster the cushions in. Even after all the excitement, Nathan and I were awake until the wee hours of the morning working on our projects that spent the weekend being neglected.

But now we’re back home; where it doesn’t matter that we can see the mountains from the deck or we live two hours from Buena Vista… Whether it is here or Ohio, laundry still needs to be done, meals still need to be cooked and little noses still run. My phone still rings with tidings from Chicago… Or… That could have been the hotdogs from this weekend.

Ah, home is where reality sets back in.

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‘Merica.

06 Saturday Jul 2013

Posted by anotherbigbite in Out of Doors, Party Hearty, The "Joy" of Parenting, The Good Ole Days

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4th of july, colorado springs, Colorado Springs Philharmonic, concert, fireworks, independence day, kids, parenting

There are few things more American than blowing shit up, for no other reason than to watch it explode.  That, and dancing like a bit of an idiot.  Throw in a watermelon, a cake decked out with various berries resembling good old Stars and Stripes and some sparklers and you’ve got yourself Independence Day.

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Unless you live in Colorado Springs, where we have had a few wildfires…  Then you don’t get the sparklers.  Don’t worry, you’ll live.

This is the one and only day I miss Chicago – my brothers would buy boatloads of illegal fireworks just over the border in Indiana.  My parents would have the entire neighborhood over.  We would eat copious amounts of my mother’s fabulous potato salad, sit on the lawn; getting munched by mosquitoes while watching the fireworks.  Every one of us (smokers or not) were armed with lit cigarettes to light the fuses of small explosives.  We would throw M80’s down the sewers, crank up “Friends in Low Places” and “Black Betty” on the car stereos and burn our fingers with the wicks of bottle rockets.  The next morning, we would drag our bodies out to the cul-de-sac to sweep up hundreds of dollars of spent pyrotechnics and go back to bed.

Perfection.

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photo 2 (1)We had no idea what to expect of C.Springs when it came to the 4th of July.  We were not disappointed.  The Colorado Springs Philharmonic was set to play a free concert on the lawn of Memorial Park and to accompany the fireworks display.  Pack up the folding lawn chairs and water bottles, ’cause this girl is game for that.

After noshing on kettle corn for dinner, the kids had a blast on the giant inflatable slides and moon bounces.  We found a spot on the lawn and cracked a pair of glow stick wands.  I was fully prepared for the kids to be bored to death with the concert.  Nope.  It must be human nature to want to get out of your seat and dance when the Philharmonic breaks out the Big Band classics.  I couldn’t even get a clear shot of the kids; they would not sit still.  I opted for video instead.

Yes.  My son is a bit of a lunatic.  And has no patience for letting Alice get any screen time.  Too much kettle corn, perhaps?

The two of them bounced around for an hour.  By the time the fireworks started halfway through the 1812 Overture, they were sitting peacefully on our laps.  The next song was the Star Wars theme…  Ohmygod.  The crowd roused to a level of geekness I never thought possible.  But, by the end of Star Wars, both kids were O.U.T.  Like a light.

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“You know, after Disney World, this looks a little bit like Mike and Rick lighting off mortars in the street,” Nae commented.

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And then they got a little better…

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And even better…

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And by the finale, we were both stunned at how GIANT the fireworks were.  Amazing.

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I’ll tell you what wasn’t amazing, though.  Getting stuck in a parking lot for over an hour until a sweet, little old lady decided to direct traffic.  It was worse than leaving an Aerosmith concert.

All in all, I was mighty impressed, Colorado Springs.  Good job making up for the lack of sparklers, smoke bombs and roman candles.  I didn’t even miss the blistered fingers of Chicago.  Snaps to you.

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Nothin’ New to See Here, People…

03 Monday Jun 2013

Posted by anotherbigbite in Monday Morning Water Cooler, Out of Doors, The Good Ole Days

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colorado springs, friends, Garden of the Gods, giraffes, old friends, zoo

Just more pictures of giraffes.  And Garden of the Gods.

And this lovely lady:

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Last week, we had our first official visitor; Gwen, my dear, dear friend from high school and Alice’s godmother.  Since I posted about feeding giraffes, she made sure we knew THAT is what we should do when she came to visit.

I had no problem indulging myself her.

Despite the fact that I never quite got around to cleaning the house properly, she still loves me.  I am the antithesis of Gwen’s BFF back in Chicago, who really is the perfect mother while keeping her house spotless…  While I’ve never actually met her, she seriously seems amazing, and genuinely put together (and is a total knockout in every photo I’ve ever seen of her on Facebook).  Meanwhile, I haven’t mopped the floor in a week and a half, Finn spent a large chunk of our time at the house from Wednesday to Friday parked in front of some kind of screen or another – and my eyebrows?  Haven’t been landscaped in over a month.  There has to be balance in the world, right?

Gwen asked when I got to the point where I wasn’t constantly wiping the kids’ faces…  Should I feel horrible that I cannot recall a point where I ever DID wipe them clean?

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photo 4 (2)So, after a fantastical journey to the zoo (again), we took a much-needed breather.  This, Gwen, is what you traveled thousands of miles for:

photo 4 (3)G and I went took in The Great Gatsby; and subsequently got in a delightful, yet heated argument about Paul Newman vs. Robert Redford on the way home…  The movie was surprisingly pretty good; and even though I’m not the world’s biggest fangirl of Leonardo DiCaprio, oh…  That look when he finally sees Daisy for the first time in five years?  Ugh, it gets ya right in the feels.

We also took her to Garden of the Gods – which never fails to disappoint.

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On Friday night, when her sister (who lives a few hours from here) came to pick her up, I didn’t even get that feeling that you normally get when house guests leave… You know the feeling; where you simply cannot wait to run around in your underwear again?

I guess we’re past all that, her and I.  And I adore her for it.  Despite the fact that she honestly believes that Paul Newman was better looking than this guy:

 

Love you, G.  Miss you already.  But Redford beats Newman by a mile. XOXO

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