Denver Botanic Gardens

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Denver Botanic Gardens is massive and unbelievably lush and beautiful!  My friend Gina and I were on a week-long trip in Colorado and our first day out and about in Denver, we rented bicycles and rode a couple of miles to Cheesman Park.  We were told how lovely the Denver Botanic Gardens are while asking a lady directions to downtown Denver, so we made our way over and started taking photographs.  Within a few minutes we both were wondering why there was no charge or fee to enter the gardens.  We thought perhaps since it was Monday.  Later after leaving, I researched and discovered there is a $12.50 charge per adult.  Oh well…I’ll chalk it up to good karma!

Anyway, love this building’s reflection in the pond…

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This particular lily pad appeared quite artistic to me…

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Oktoberfest Fun in Breckenridge

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Breckenridge, Colorado sure knows how to celebrate Oktoberfest!  In Cincinnati, where I’m from, Oktoberfest is serious business–given the large percentage of German heritage residents.  Just a week ago, my friend Gina and I walked a few blocks down from Beaver Run Resort, where we were staying, to the festivities.  We arrived rather early at 10:30am and by 11:00am had a dark beer in our hands.

We stopped for a few photo ops…

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I was surprised at how large of an event it is in Breckenridge.  Even with occasional misty rain, it became quite crowded later in the day (double the people shown below).

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Breckenridge, Colorado has it All!

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For my week-long trip to Colorado, I had a detailed itinerary prepared, but after the terrible flooding across Colorado, having a positive and flexible attitude was essential.  If you’ve been following along, you’ll remember we spent one night in Estes Park before evacuating to Grand Lake, where we spent one night.  On Friday we hit the road to Breckenridge and here’s some of the beautiful scenery we passed on the way…

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Hot Sulphur Springs Resort via Grand Lake, Colorado

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Saying goodbye to Grand Lake in Colorado was difficult!  My friend Gina and I only stayed one night at the Grand Lake Lodge and decided to drive to Breckenridge for their Octoberfest.  We started our week long adventure in Estes Park but had to escape the flooding.  There was some fog out when I walked outside to look at gorgeous Grand Lake before leaving, which just created more atmosphere!

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Meeting New Friends in Grand Lake, Colorado

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After hiking down the big hill from Grand Lake Lodge, my friend Gina and I walked through the quaint town of Grand Lake, Colorado.

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It reminded me somewhat of the town of Silverton, Colorado.  Lots of colorful shops and restaurants with the western look!

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Hiking from Grand Lake Lodge

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Grand Lake Lodge in Grand Lake, Colorado has an absolutely stunning view of the lake.  After checking in on Thursday, my girlfriend Gina and I decided to take a hike down the hillside to the town to check it out.   Here’s the beginning of the trail and that’s Gina up ahead…

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We were delighted it wasn’t raining having left the flooding in Estes Park earlier that morning!  The path forks off to the left but is not well-marked.

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Grand Lake, Colorado is the best kept secret in Colorado!

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If you’ve been following my trip in Colorado, then you’ll remember my friend Gina and I narrowly escaped the flooding in Estes Park by driving over Trail Ridge Road in the Rocky Mountain National Park to Grand Lake, Colorado.  Originally we had reservations through Airbnb at a home in Boulder following two nights in Estes Park.  I contacted the owner and requested a refund.  He wanted to wait and see if the weather improved before issuing the refund.  Anyway, we stopped a few times to take photographs and arrived in Grand Lake a couple of hours later.  We didn’t have a firm plan of where we would end up for the night, but fortunately the weather was much better at Grand Lake.  I saw a sign that said Grand Lake Lodge, historic landmark, so we stopped to check it out.  After some haggling with the General Manager over price, we rented a small cabin that was quite rustic.  The view from our cabin was unbelievable!

Looking to the left…

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And to the right…

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Escape from Estes Park via Trail Ridge Road

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When I awoke Thursday morning at 3:30am, I got out of bed, rather than lie there trying to get back to sleep and looked through photographs I had taken the previous day.  At day break, I looked out the window at the Thompson River raging next to the resort we stayed at.  As you can see from a photo I took minutes before we escaped, the river had taken over the pool and hot tub.  After calling the front desk a couple of times with my concerns with the rising water, they called our room and said we were in pre-evacuation mode…be ready.  My friend Gina and I made the decision to “get the heck out of there”, rather than wait until it was too late to leave!  So we packed the car in the rain and drove to the road/bridge pictured in the photo below.  By this point there was a yellow “do not cross” tape blocking the way and I asked the resort manager (who was sitting in a golf cart by the  bridge) if we could cross at our own risk.  He said “no” and told us where the only other road out of the resort was located.  I drove over there and headed to Trail Ridge Road into the Rocky Mountain National Park.  One section of a road had a couple of inches of water running across a 12 foot wide section.  I made the decision to drive across it.

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Trail Ridge Road was beautiful!  It took less than an hour and one-half to get to Grand Lake, where we stayed for the evening.  We stopped a few times for photo opportunities.  The wind blew our umbrella into the upside down position, which made for a cute photo.  And the rainbow just added that bit of magic!

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Finding Art in the Denver Airport and having fun in spite of being stranded due to flash flooding in the sunshine State of Colorado

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After checking the weather forecast for Denver and Estes Park, Colorado a couple of days ago, I mentally prepared myself for the near constant rain that we would encounter the first few days of our trip to Colorado.  I brought my workout clothes and researched other activities in the Rocky Mountain National Park area to replace hiking.  We arrived yesterday and I had a few hours to kill at the Denver Airport waiting for my girlfriend Gina’s flight to arrive.  Here are some photos from the Airport…

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High School Graduation Photo Shoot

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High School Graduation photo shoots are a much-anticipated event for seniors across the United States!  I was excited when my second cousin…Maddie asked me to be her photographer!  As you can see, she’s a beautiful young lady!  She’s intelligent, athletic, and knows what she likes.  After taking photographs Tuesday evening, we arranged for her to come by my house on Wednesday and look through the 300 photographs and decide which were her favorites.  She brought her friend Ellie along, who is also beautiful, bright and a delight to be around!  Ellie recently had her photos taken by a photographer and spent over 10 times the amount Maddie is spending with me and didn’t like a couple of them very well.  She feels that if she had been able to look through the photographs and pick out the ones that she liked her expression in, she would have been more pleased.  Sometimes, just a subtle difference in the shape of the mouth, the look in the eyes, or the angle of the body can change their feeling of the photograph.  I think Maddie really enjoyed being able to have a bigger role in picking out the photographs.  As a bonus…we were able to spend some quality time together…I made dinner…they shot guns for the first time with my husband at our backyard shooting range and even took a tractor ride!

I liked all of the photos, but she had some favorites that weren’t mine and vice versa.  This one we both liked…

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One Week Itinerary for Colorado

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I love to prepare travel itineraries and I spent at least 20 hours over the past week perfecting an itinerary for a one week trip to Colorado I’m going on next month with a girlfriend.

This is a photo from two years ago of a trip to Durango and Silverton, Colorado.  This time I’ll be exploring Estes Park, Rocky Mountain National Park, Boulder, Denver, Golden, Evergreen, and Idaho Springs.  I booked lodging through Airbnb for two of the locations and used Vacation Rental By Owner for the third location.  I’ve packed quite a bit in for the week…but with good planning utilizing a variety of online travel sites to include Trip Advisor, Yelp, and google maps, I’m confident we’ll be able to see it all without feeling rushed.  I’m flexible, so if we want to switch something up once we’re there, we can.  If you’ve been to any of these places or have any other recommendations, please share!  I have prices listed to give people an idea of how much things cost in the event someone wants to use any of the itinerary.  By choosing rentals that have a kitchen, we can cut down on the cost of food.

I can’t wait to hike and take some photographs!

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Declutter your life!

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If you’re like most people, you probably put off organizing your home — your closets, your drawers, your garage, etc.  I’d like to encourage you to start this weekend.  It may be overwhelming and you don’t know where to begin.  I say, start with one closet, or one drawer.  When you organize your home, your mind becomes uncluttered and you make room for new and exciting opportunities to come in!  I usually need to tackle my clothing closet at least twice a year and in the last week, I’ve gone through my junk drawer and my office closet.

These photos aren’t related to the post…but I wanted to share them with you.  They’re somewhat abstract…

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Cleaning up your online existence is even more therapeutic!  If you’re like me, your e-mails start to build up.  You’ll keep e-mails thinking you’ll read them later, and before you know it, you’ve got 100 of them!  I also keep folders of important e-mails, so that’s another area to keep in line.  Don’t forget about organizing your bookmarks.  If you’re a photographer, your photographs begin to accumulate and you literally will have thousands and thousands.  It took me a couple of days to whittle mine down!

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I was going to delete this photo, but I changed the color, contrast, exposure, and voila…I like it now!

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A friend is going to pay me next week to help her organize.  I’ve helped her a lot through the years at no cost, but it’s time for me to make some $!  Don’t procrastinate any longer…take control of your life!

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The Party Place

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Yesterday’s post was about my Aunt Colleen’s 70th birthday and I promised I would put up photos from the house it was held at in Cincinnati, Ohio (aka “The Party Place”).  It’s such an eclectic house, I just had to share it!

Here’s a portion of the kitchen and their fake butler…

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The living room has a comfy retro decor with bright colors.  Notice the Siamese cat on the sofa…

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The entry way butler is serving a cat on a platter to you.  This butler looks a bit snooty…

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70 is the new 60!

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We’ve all heard that expression, 50 is the new 40, 40 is the new 30, etc., well my Aunt Colleen shows that 70 can be the new 60!  I attended her birthday party Saturday evening and my present to her was an enlarged photo of a small scanned photo of my late mother when she was in her 20’s.  When my mother passed away a couple of years ago, I remember my Aunt expressing an interest in this particular photo.  I asked that she open my gift first because I had another party to go to.  This photo is a little blurry, but there wasn’t another one of us.  I know it touched her because I took a couple of photos of her while she was opening it and it looked like she was going to cry.  Anyway, the party was so much fun.  It was held at my Cousin’s friend’s house, which was amazing and I’ll post photos of the house tomorrow.

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This is my Cousin’s wife Courtne with two of their children and my other Cousin’s daughter…

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A Piece of his Heart

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There’s a fairly new surgery called the Wolf Mini-Maze that has a 90% cure rate for Atrial Fibrillation (A-Fib) and my husband had the procedure done a few days ago in Indianapolis, Indiana at the Community Heart and Vascular Hospital by Dr. Randall Wolf.  Here’s a photo of him holding a piece of his heart.  Many people have a procedure called Ablation to help with the irregular heartbeat, but typically they have to return every 5 years for another ablation.  If you’d like to read about the procedure, here’s a link.  What’s really interesting is Randy works for Atricure, the Company that developed the instruments used for the surgery, in conjunction with Dr. Wolf.  He makes the prototypes.  How cool is that!

Randy’s looking quite happy in this photo because he’s on pain medication…

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The hospital has an agreement with a number of local hotels offering patient’s families a discounted rate for their room.  I stayed at the Candlewood Suites located just a mile away and loved it.  Anyway, after the surgery Dr. Wolf handed me the small container with Randy’s left atrial appendage that’s removed during the surgery and said, “Here’s a piece of his heart”.  I took a photo of it in the hotel room and put it on Facebook for friends and family to have a look.  I thought it was pretty funny.  One of my friends said “Glad he’s doing well, but YUK!”  This photo makes it look really big and had another friend worried that they removed so much of his heart.

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