A Trip Down South

Happy Easter everyone! This is where we have been this weekend. More pics will come later this week!

Grumpy Old Men

Yesterday we finally achieved one of our long-awaited goals! We went ICE FISHING!!! It took us over a month to find someone who does ice fishing commercially...apparently no one does except a handful of people in the state of Colorado! Thankfully we found a guide down in Gunnison, which is a small town right beside Crested Butte, and a 4 hour drive from Boulder.
We drove down Friday night after work, preparing ourselves for zero degree weather the next morning! Will and I had this idea that you just sit on the ice in fold out chairs with a fishing pole in the freezing cold...but our guide had other plans!

We fished at Blue Mesa Reservior outside of Gunnison...this is a view of the lake. It ended up being 16 degrees at 8am when we went out there and overcast. There was so much snow you couldn't tell where the mountains ended and the sky began.



We rode out on the ice on a 4-wheeler with all our equipment dragging behind...here is Will on the back of the 4-wheeler.



This is the first spot we fished...it was kind of slushly and made Will and I nervous at first, but we figured out it was safe. You can see our guide in the distance drilling holes.





Some other pictures...







We got to sit in a tent on the ice with a heater...which was really nice for us!





The holes we fished in...



This is a close up of the hole in our tent; you can kind of see the thickness of the ice. It was about 3 feet thick, so very safe to stand on...and the thing on the side is a fish finder. It helped us to know if there were fish swimming by and if our jig had hit the bottom. We were only fishing in water that was 8-10 feet deep.



This my first fish I caught...a rainbow trout...the guide is holding it here.



Now me holding the fish...it was trying to jump out of my hands and I was kind of grossed out...I definitly had to wear gloves to hold it!



The second rainbow trout I caught...



Will fishing in our warm tent...



The sun finally came out, and it was pretty nice outside..probably in the 20s...very bright with all the snow and ice around us...so we moved holes and fished outside the tent. Our guide was so nice, he let me drill the next hole!! It was awesome!





I think drilling my own hole brought me good luck...I caught my 3rd rainbow trout...



Poor Will didn't feel well all day (and still doesn't today) so he laid down on the ice for awhile...and didn't catch any fish :( He had one that he almost had in his hands, but jumped off the hook right as he got it to the top of the water...



After awhile, we went to try another fishing spot and didn't have much luck there either. I also got to drive the 4-wheeler across the lake, which was so much fun!!!!!
We found this buoy frozen in the lake and thought it was funny!



The scenery surrounding us fishing and on our drive home was just amazing...these pictures just don't show how beautiful it was. We've never seen that much snow...there were street signs buried all the way to the top in snow...mountains with so much untouched snow, and lots of wildlife around for us to see! We did see coyote footprints while we were fishing, kind of crazy!









We LOVED ice fishing, and are going to try and go again in April!!!

Another set of visitors...

This past weekend, we had Guillaume and Lindsey come stay with us. For those of you who do not know the story, Guillaume and Will went to WFS together and Lindsey and Allison went to Peace together. They met at our wedding and have been together ever since. Isn't that just too cute.....BBBLLLLLAAAAAHHHHHHH.......excuse me, I just threw up.

They came in late Thursday night which didn't leave us much time to do anything fun. We both had to work for the majority of the day on Friday, but luckily Allison was able to get home in time to go on a hike with Lindsey up on the mountains behind our house. Here are some views...





Saturday morning we got up early for a breakfast at 'The Buff', a local restaurant here in Boulder that is good for breakfast. We then headed to Golden, CO for a tour of the Coors Brewery.



We didn't do the full tour, just the 'Quick Tour', which consisted of the four of us sitting in their taste testing room at 10:30 AM and drinking small glasses of beer. I must say, a Coors Light at the brewery is much better than from the store.



At noon, we headed to the mountains where the main attraction of the day awaited:

FROZEN DEAD GUY DAYS!!!



The short story of this festival is as follows:

Several years ago, a man in Norway died. He wished to be cryogenically frozen and his grandson attempted to fulfill his wish. Instead of doing this the proper way, he packed his dead grandfather with dry ice and came to America (Nederland, CO) in hopes to start a cryogenic facility. The family remained there for several years until the grandson made some nasty comments on Public Radio about the INS, so the government deported him.

However, the still-frozen-on-dry-ice grandfather remained on the family's property in the back yard shed. The city found out about this and passed a law stating that no man or woman could be preserved in ice from that point on. The irony here is that the dead grandfather was 'grandfathered in' under this new law. The Chamber of Commerce has since then created this festival to celebrate - the frozen dead guy.

We arrived in Nederland a little after lunch time, just in time for -
THE COFFIN RACES!!







In case you cannot tell from the pictures, there are a ton of people who come to this festival. The pictures show the contestants in the coffin race - a race in which 6 'pall bearers' carry 1 'dead guy in a coffin' around an obstacle course to the finish line for time. Obviously, each team came up with their own theme for their team and decorated a homemade coffin to match. It was amusing to say the least.

After the races, we moved to the beer tent, where New Belgium brewery had a band, food, and beer for the crowd. We bought some personalized glasses for the festival and had a great time from then on.







Lindsey and Guillaume left Sunday afternoon after we lounged around the house all morning. We had a big night before and instantly went back to the college days of being worthless on a Sunday morning.

We are very excited about our trip this weekend. We head to a little town outside of Crested Butte to experience being "Grumpy Old Men" - movie buffs, this should help you figure out what we are doing.

More pics to come!!

It's a lovely day for a hike...

This past Saturday it was 73 degrees out here!! It was such a beautiful day; sunny, warm, not windy! So we decided to venture out for a hike (Al's idea) at a new place a couple streets away from our house. Will was still pouting from the NCSU game but eventually cheered up.

This was not even 1/2 mile into our hike and we were both out of breath...but you can see from the picture how crowded it was, and how if you just go up a little you can see the whole town of Boulder.



Just some views from our hike...







We had to cross over these rocks to get to the top...



Our trail got kind of icy at times (even though it was 73 degrees out there was still snow on the ground)...







This was our view coming down from our hike. You can see the mountain and trails that are right behind our house that we've hiked a couple of times...



So we had a wonderful time hiking! It was just so wonderful to be outside in shorts! And of course we woke up the next morning and it had snowed and was freezing outside! Haha...that's just Colorado weather for you. And we've had move snow today, but it's supposed to be back up to the 50s this weekend! Yea...we've got lots of fun adventures for the month of March...so we'll keep everyone updated. We're going to a really fun festival this weekend, so watch for pictures! :)

Mush, Mush!

So this past Sunday, our friends Erik and Sandy were still here and they wanted to go skiing in Vail for the day. Well, Will and I decided it wasn't worth the cost for us to ski for a day in Vail for what would probably be just an hour...so we went DOG SLEDDING!!!!!
It was awesome! Probably my favorite thing we've done so far out here. We got picked up in Vail and rode about 15 miles west to this private farm.
We got out of the van to 5 dog sleds full of dogs just barking and barking! It was so cool!



This is me making friends with the dogs that pulled us. They have anywhere between 10-12 dogs pulling each sled...and we had 11 dogs.



These are the dogs that pulled us and our musher...very friendly musher, told us all about the dog races in Alaska. We were the last sled to take off, and you can see in the background the other sled that has just taken off.



All the dogs were so excited and eager to run! Here is Will and me on the sled...we sat under blankets and our musher stood up behind us directing the dogs.



We went sledding for about 2 hours, and the scenery was absolutely breathtaking. We had amazing views around us with tons of untouched snow. Our musher stepped off the trail and into the snow, and it went all the way up to his waist!





You can see the snow storm coming over the mountains...







We stopped halfway for some hot chocolate and to give the dogs a break. Despite all the layers we are wearing, it was such a beautiful day and relatively warm! It was 33degrees with a light snow occasionally. For once we were out in the snow and I wasn't cold; I actually got hot in all my gear!



Will with 2 of the dogs who pulled us...



Our trip back down the mountain was really fun! We got to go really fast and the dogs loved it!



We were really sad when our ride ended...we hung around and watched them pack up all the dogs. Here is one dog hanging out of it's cage...they put 2 dogs in each of these small cages to transport them back to the farm they live on.



Overall we had such a great time! If anyone ever gets the chance, we definitely recommend dog sledding!! Erik and Sandy had a great time skiing too...they had perfect weather as well. We had a great day, except for our 4 hour drive home...it's only supposed to take 2 hours from Boulder to Vail, but we ran into traffic, an accident, and snow! We played lots of fun car games :)