Colorado July 2009

What a crazy couple weeks we've had! My family met up in Salt Lake City on July 24th to go to the Hogle Zoo. Cody has never been to a Zoo and Jordyn loves seeing all kinds of animals.

Jordyn loved all the animals there! On the way home she kept saying, "Guess which one was my favorite?" and then she would tell us about some animal. Then about 3 minutes later she would ask us again, and it would be a different animal. She didn't like the "Stink Bugs" (why they had those there, I don't know). She was so good to walk around and look at every animal exhibit. She never once complained. There was a bird show where the trainers had so many different kinds of birds trained to fly all around the audience. From one side to another, up, down. Jordyn was really in awe of that show.

Cody and I had a great time too. Since this was his first time to a Zoo, he took in all the sights!

I think he found his long lost relatives there!!! Quite the resemblance huh?

After everyone had taken in all there was to offer at the Zoo, we went back to Aunt Stephanie's house. Cody and I gathered all our things and got reloaded to head off to Colorado for a little get away! Jordyn stayed with my Family.

Cody and I drove over through Price and Castledale to get to I-70. It was mostly a pretty drive. The closer you got to Green River, the more desolate it got, but most of the drive was ok. So, we continue driving into the lovely state of Colorado. We get about 10 miles from Fruita, CO and the Jeep all of a sudden looses power. I have an engine light that is flashing and another light that is yelling at me to "check gauges". I panick and pull off at the next exit (in the middle of nowhere) and just sit for a few minutes. Knowing we need to at least try to make it to civilization, we continue down the freeway going about 50 mph. We make it to Fruita! Cody checks all the fluids, and yes even the gas cap! At this point, the engine light is on, but not flashing. We decide to drive to Grand Junction and have it hooked up to a computer in Auto Zone. The Auto Zone guys diagnose it and give us a referral to a garage that happens to be open on Saturdays. By this time it's 8:30 pm in Grand Junction. We find us a hotel and call it a night.

Saturday July 25th, this is where we spend 8 hours getting the Jeep fixed. There is nothing around this garage for us to do. Everywhere we wanted to go we had to walk. We walked to much that day. So 8 hours , $350 dollars, 2 new sensors and an Ignition Coil Pack later, Cody and I decide to cut Denver out of our Vacation. We head up to Paonia where his Aunt Bonnie and Uncle Terry live.

Sunday July 26th, we set out for a drive over McClure Pass. It's gorgeous outside! At the top of McClure it's 58 degrees and raining. Something we haven't experienced in a while. Our plan was to do a big loop from Paonia, over to Carbondale, back over to Grand Junction and back to Paonia. Well, the rain had other plans! It rained so much that it caused a mudslide! Yeah, that left us unable to pass! So we turned around and went back the way we came.

It wasn't a total waste though. We saw some beautiful views and stopped into a funny little town called "Marble". They have a marble quarry there (surprised?). Everywhere you looked there were marble statues. That town had a population of 85! Wow!

This is just a view looking off of McClure Pass into the valley. Kind of pretty!

Since we didn't make it through our loop. We decided to go to a Drive-In Movie that was playing in Delta, CO. For 7 dollars a person you got 2 movies. It was a lot of fun! We saw Ice Age and The Proposal. Both were cute and funny. It was so nice watching a movie from the comforts of your own vehicle. We turned the Jeep backward and opened the hatch. We had a few blankets and pillows so it was very comfy. That night we actually had to put on our sweaters. It got kind of chilly.

For the remainder of the trip we just toured around Colorado. We made it as far a Golden, CO. The weather was so beautiful and mild temperatures. We really didn't want to come back, we were really wanting to just have Jordyn shipped to us and to never leave again!

We made it back home to Logandale around 9:00 pm Wednesday. Both of us were dreading the next day when we both had to be back to work. Jordyn was glad to see us. I think that's the longest she's been away from us since she was tiny. I think it was a good trip for all of us! Very, very relaxing (after the first couple of days anyway)!

We brought back 16 dozen ears of corn to split between us and my family, along with a bunch of other fruit. Jordyn and I ended up freezing our corn. We got about 25 freezer bags. It will definetaly keep us till our next trip to Colorado next July!

We did have a good vacation. Not what we had originally planned, but it was great to get away with Cody. We talked a lot about things for the future and just other events that have been happening in our life. Sometimes the best vacations are the ones you least expect to enjoy!