Royal Gorge

The world's highest suspension bridge over Royal Gorge is where I went today on my day off. Its located outside of Canyon City, which is only about 40 miles from my apartment. Normally, I would put up photos first, but today decided to mix it up and went with videos. The wind was really powerful, and you lose my voice a bit.

Sunrise from my balcony

This morning I woke up incredibly early. I think I am still running on Eastern Standard Time. However, I did get to see the sunrise this morning and it was totally worth it. I took these photos from my balcony with the wind whipping. If you look closely in the last two photos you will see the dirt from the blowing wind, it's not fog. You can also see what my apartment complex looks like.

Garden of the Gods part 2

Garden of the Gods part 1

Its too hard to choose my favorites from this place. so I think I will make a more than one post. It truly is a beautiful site. I could tell the elevation difference immediately as I soon as I started walking around. It been a while since I lived at a higher elevation, and it was evident. I think it may become a regular haunt for me as its close, photogenic, and free. When the land was donated to become a park it was stipulated it had to be called Garden of the Gods, it would remain forever free to the public, no building would be built except to maintain the park, and there would be no intoxicating beverages sold in the park.

Colorado bound!

This is my Nuvi GPS navigation system. The one that drove me crazy two days ago with all of its squawking. Yesterday, it proved very helpful and I started to like it and trust it much more. It led me to some great places.

I was in the middle of nowhere Kansas when I see a sign for "Historic Cathedral of the Plains". I checked my map and saw it was not far from the road, and I needed to explore. Victoria, Kansas is where this extremely old, well built Cathedral stands. The sun was at a horrible place in the sky, but this photo makes it work.

Colby, Kansas. I ate lunch at Taco John's. I love this place. I hadn't eaten there since I lived in Laramie five years ago. My buddy, oddly named John, and I used to eat at the one on campus at least once a week, usually more. I got way too excited when I saw the sign. It didn't disappoint, so amazingly good for fast food. I personally think its way better than Taco Bell. Plus it brought back memories of a good friend.

Driving west on I70 in Colorado, I came over a hill and all of a sudden I saw jagged giant snow capped peaks. It was a beautiful site, and one that affected me deeply. It was like the mothership calling me home! I instantly got this euphoric feeling. I almost started tearing up I was so happy to be back in the Rockies! It was then when I knew I had made the right decision for me.

I had some extra time before getting to Pueblo, so I stopped by Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs. It was late afternoon and the sun was in the most perfect position for some beautiful red rocks. This photo is not your typical Garden of the Gods landscape shot, but is one of my favorites from the day. I will be posting more from Garden of the Gods soon.

I am in my apartment in Pueblo. It is very small, but very nice. It is only a few miles from Lake Pueblo State Park. I plan to explore there soon, once I get my car completely unloaded. All said a long but wonderful drive.

You can see photos of the apartment here.

something you don't see everyday

No photo today. I had planned to do a "something you don't see every day" for February 29th, since you don't see it every year. However, my plans changed when I woke up this morning. I went to bed last night with my suitcase, bookbag, and computer bag on the second bed in my hotel room. I woke up this morning with those things lined neatly up against a wall. I have no idea how this happened. I am not a sleep walker, certainly not a sleep OCD clean freak. I am pretty certain I did not leave my bed once I fell asleep. So I cannot explain it. I am little disturbed to say the least.
Well, I guess this fits into the "something you don't see everyday" category.

the day

It has been a long day, very long. I left my house at 8 am this morning. I drove for 12 hours today. I saw very interesting things today. I saw a grove of trees completely destroyed by the tornadoes in the South. There were probably hundreds of trees broken in half with sharp jagged edges shooting up from the trunk. The area must have been the site of a tornado touch down. I also saw a lot of hawks, at least I think they were hawks in Arkansas. Arkansas also showed me several dive bombing planes. Okay, they were crop dusters, but they swooped down over the highway really low, did a sharp u-turn and returned to the field. At first, I thought it was going to crash into the tractor trailer ahead of me. Then I saw 5 more while making my way across Arkansas.

I saw the most beautiful sunset ever today in Oklahoma city, and I didn't get a photo. I am so mad. The sun was covered by really fluffy streaky clouds all day, it would peak through now and then, but while setting, it dipped below the clouds. The sky was bright orange with purple and pink hues. The orange light was bouncing off the buildings in the city making them light up with orange fronts. Once the sun was down, it make the sky the coolest purple and pink with clouds that made such a unique pattern. However, it was a really busy roadway, so I couldn't stop.

I saw myself going a little crazy. I got a GPS system recently. It talks to you, telling you when to turn and which exit to take. Its really awesome. However, it does not have common sense. You can't tell it you changed your mind on the route you wish to take. So when you don't follow the assigned route, it says " do a u turn", or when that won't work it says, "recalculating" which means it determines another route because you messed up the original one. I heard it say "recalculating" at least 30 times when I changed my mind and it couldn't cope. I am convinced that it got annoyed and got snotty when saying "recalculating". So I decided that it was time to stop for the night. I landed in Blackwell, Oklahoma.

Dirty horses

Finally, photos of our horses! These photos include the lazy bums sunning themselves. They didn't even get up when I walked up to them! The first photo has Mona and Dozer, both rescues that we have kept. The second photo is Cruiser, who belongs to my brother and was a rescue nurse mare baby. The last photo includes Cruiser, Ember, the bay, and Charm the other paint who was also a rescue. Ember was planned and was born and raised on the farm, one of few that are not rescues. As you can tell, they enjoy the mud! Sometimes I think they are worse than hogs.

Tag, I'm It!

The rust on some old horse shoes. Living with horses allows me to get some great shots of horse accessories like the shoe. These were handmade by my brother and used on my mother's horse, Ember. I just like the pattern created in the rust.

I have been Tagged by Scrappy Sue. So now I need to lay out 7 random facts about me.

number 1. I hate shoes, all types all forms. I also hate socks. I love being barefoot. But when I have to wear shoes, I prefer flipflops even in winter.

number 2. I am by nature a very shy introverted person. Most people that know me, think I am i lying when I say this. However, it's true. I have to overcome my shyness everyday.

number 3. I spent 6 weeks in Italy, 5 of which in Sardinia working on an archaeological site. We dug up all kinds of artifacts. The last week was spent in Rome just walking around the city and site seeing. The trip to Italy was my first plane, train, taxi, boat, and scooter rides.

number 4. While I am on the digging topic, I spent 6 weeks of a summer digging up graves for relocation. I helped clean and measure the remains.

number 5. I have a dent in my leg from white water rafting. I fell out, hit a rock and now have a depression in my thigh.

number 6. My first roadtrip was the best. My friend, Amy, came out to Wyoming, and we drove around Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska. We slept in my jeep much of the time. We each took more than 10 rolls of film in a span of 3 weeks. The film processing was more expensive than the trip.

number 7. Every time I see a turtle on the road, I stop, scoop it up and bring it home with me. I think I started a new turtle herd on our old farm from all the ones I brought home. I have been doing this before I could drive. There is just something terrible about looking at dead turtles that have been run over. I also tend to scoop up stray dogs and cats too.

Now if understand this correctly, I get to tag others. Most of the people, whose blogs I have been following have already done this. I do not want to tag them again. hmm.....

The refugees

As I stated in my last post, we are harboring refugees of the tornadoes at our place. So I had to share some photos of all of the misplaced animals we have here.

This is Windstar Hank Kentucky Charlie, he was originally a foster horse here that went through several name changes before finding a home. Then his home was destroyed, so he is back.

The three donkeys are cute little critters.

This is a mule, but she happens to be mini-sized, and looks more like a pony.

Bella mid leap. She's a wild one!

baby Bella

Here in Tennesee, there were tornadoes that went through the area not too long ago. My mother's house and property was not hit, however several homes in the area were. A woman that fosters dogs and also has several horses lost everything. My mother now has the horses at our place. This is Bella, a baby donkey that has to be bottle fed because the mother rejected her. She is a spunky little monster. We let her out of the pen, and she ran wild. So I had to share, because who doesn't want to see a baby donkey running around.

The amazing toilet paper from GH

My coworkers decided to saran wrap and toilet paper my car my last day of work which was Saturday. It was rather funny and very hard to get into my car. They helped me take it all off, but there was a bow around the antenna that made it home with me. So I left it on there, it lasted a windy 11 hour drive through 5 states, rain, snow and sun.

puddles

Another post from my recent visit with Amy. I saw some leaves immersed in small puddles of water, so I decided to snap a few photos. I was pleasantly surprised with the outcome. We had a giant ice storm hit yesterday, and of course I worked. I actually pulled a double and worked from 7am to 11pm. I had a unique experience driving home from work that night. Check out my other blog to see what happened. I didn't have any photos to compliment the story!

sweet revenge

I was nice with this picture....I could have showed a whole other view!

How did we miss that?

While visiting my favorite person, Amy, we went to this little park that had some pretty neat views of the river. We were about to leave, when I looked over and saw this awesome tree. I wondered how we both missed seeing it when walking out to the viewing area. We were both drawn to this tree, and spent some time under and around it trying to find the best way to show off its uniqueness. I am going to try to convince Amy to post some of her photos as well. Be sure to check them out as well. Click here.

ASH and SAND, watch out world!

I am currently blogging from Ash's living room. We went a small riverside park near where she lives. There was a break in the sky just big enough for us to see the sunset through and the fog was coming up from the river making it a very majestic scene. I know the second picture is grainy, I has issues with the focus on my camera, I think the fog confused it a little. But I like it anyways, and decided it deserved a post. This will be the last ASH and SAND gathering for a while, until she comes to visit me in the great far west. They look much better in the smaller format.

WWII Memorial

" So here's to all the soldiers
Who have ever died in vain
The insane locked up in themselves
The homeless down on Main
To those who stand on empty shores
And spit against the wind
And those who wait forever
For ships that don't come in."



The WWII Memorial was very memorable and striking, the sun was in the perfect position to cast some great light and shadow on the memorial. As you can see, there were not too many people around, so we wandered all about and got some great shots.

Also, in DC, we went to the Holocaust Memorial Museum, no photos as cameras are not allowed. However, I highly recommend it, if ever in DC. No matter how many times you visit, you will find something that strikes you. My first visit, the shoe room really hit home for me. My second visit, it was the hair room that took hold of me.

I always leave wondering how this can happen, and continue to happen today. Someday there will be a Darfur Memorial Museum. I have to say that the US response to the Jewish and other "non-desirables" plight in Nazi Germany is very similar to its stance today in Darfur. Let's ignore it, and see if it will go away.

Enough politics for today. In other news, I had a doctor confirm today that I am really sick. Now am on some meds. I have never taken codeine before, it knocks me out. I think it will help me get some sleep tonight. Am off work the rest of this week, as I have absolutely no voice left. A whisper is all I can do at this point. Try talking to a hard of hearing patient with only a whisper. Not so good. It looks like my first stop of the travel nurse career will be....drumroll please....... Pueblo Colorado.
I am awaiting my contract to arrive in the mail, but it seems like a good fit for me.

Favorite Monument photo

I have several photos of the Washington Monument, most are your typical touristy shots. This one turned out to be my ultimate favorite one of the monument. I was just trying something "artsy" with the tree in the foreground, but it ended up looking pretty sweet. The sky was a perfect blue, and it transferred to the photo well. I think it's the lines of the tree intermixed with the lines of the monument that I enjoy the most.

grates

This past week, I traveled to Washington DC for a few days of touristy stuff! It was an amazing trip with lots of interesting sites and stories. For my first post, I decided to go with probably one of the most unique grates I have ever seen. These were found at the WWII memorial. I know that most people do not look down to notice such a nice detail. However, detail in the planning and construction of this amazing memorial made it memorable. I will post more soon. Upon returning from DC, I got incredibly sick and am still recovering. Also in full job search mode. I had a phone interview today for a job in Colorado, and have some interesting prospects in Alaska, Wyoming, and Montana. I do not know what it would be like to live some 30 miles north of the Arctic circle, but I may find out! Who wants to visit me there?

I lied

I lied, I do have a picture to post today. It was taken this evening at sunset from the parking lot at Target with a well placed bush.