Christmas in the Capital
We flew to Washington D.C. for a few days on Christmas Day. The weather could not have been better, what a great few days in our capital.
American Northeast
After years of planning, we finally got to go on her fall color trip to New England. The night before was stressful, hoping Lois (Jolie’s Mom) did not get delayed in her flight to our house to watch the kids. Once they landed, Jolie picked them up at the airport at 9:30 pm, and we still had to finish up the final packing and preparation. We got up at 4:30 am to get through security for our 6:45 am flight. We flew through Salt Lake City, where we had a fun breakfast and a mimosa sampler.
Old Faithful
For some reason, I decided to challenge myself and shoot every photo for this trip in JPG instead of RAW. This is what happens when you don’t use your camera regularly, ‘minor’ settings get forgotten sometimes. We booked a room for a couple of nights at the Old Faithful Lodge and drove up from Denver. This first day was all driving. We stopped for the Park signs at Grand Teton and the southern Yellowstone entrance.
Land of the Ancients
We spent several nights camping at the Morfield Campground in Mesa Verde National Park. The weather was perfect, and we enjoyed exploring this part of the state. We spent a couple of days at Mesaverde and then a day driving around the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument with a visit and hike around Hovenweep National Monument.
American Southwest
Day one started early before sunrise at the Doubletree in Grand Junction, Colorado. We drove 20 miles via the west entrance to Grand View overlooking Independence Monument. We arrived around 6:30 am, waiting for some morning light on a brisk morning.
The Bechler River
We did a 5-day backcountry llama trip into the Bechler River region of Yellowstone National Park in September of 2014. We used Jackson Hole Llamas (No longer in business) for the excursion and had one of the best trips ever.
15th Anniversary London Adventure
Jason surprised Jolie with this trip, planning with her sister to keep the kids and calling her boss to get the time off work. He let the cat out of the bag earlier than he planned by accidentally texting Jolie some revealing information one day while she was at work, he was texting Jena at the same time and got the texts mixed up. As a result, he announced the trip that night giving Jolie a card and a guide book of London, what a fabulous surprise!
Disney World
Lake Yellowstone
We made the long drive from Denver to Lake Yellowstone in the center of Yellowstone National Park. We drove through Casper, Thermopolis, and Cody with the start of our adventure via the East Entrance to the park. Fall colors are turning around the park, only helping the grandeur of Yellowstone. We stopped at Sylvan Lake on the way into the park before getting checked in to our room at the Lake Yellowstone Hotel.
A weekend at Colorado National Monument and Taylor Park
We took the vanagon for a quick weekend trip over to the western slope when Tessa was about 6 weeks old. We spent a couple of nights at Colorado National Monument and spent one night at Taylor Park Reservoir on our way home.
Southeast Colorado over Memorial Day
I spent the long weekend touring Southeast Colorado with my buddy Larry. On the weekend when everyone goes west out of Denver, we decided to go another direction.