Our Return to Michigan: The End of the Winter Road Trip

The end of the winter road trip was drawing near. We left the Quad Cities on Monday morning to make our way back to Michigan. On the way, we stopped in Joliet to visit Brandon's Uncle Don and Aunt Barb. It had been at least three years since we'd seen them, which was far too long. We had a nice time conversing for a couple hours over some lunch before heading on our way. 

At last, with great delight, we reached the Michigan border! We finished the drive back to Grand Rapids and arrived at Carolyn's. It felt good to be home. Well, of course, we don't really have our own physical home, but we do call Grand Rapids and Michigan our home. 

Pure Michigan

As we were unpacking the car and bringing things into the house we realized that the house was colder than expected. Despite being set at 55 degrees the thermostat registered 47 degrees. Uh oh. We called Carolyn, and as we waited for her return call we went Cherry Deli for delicious sandwiches and warmth. Upon her call, she instructed us where to find the furnace manual and to read it for any helpful instructions. We did so and reset the furnace hoping the pilot would re-ignite itself. Unfortunately, despite our best attempts, it did not. 

There was a local furnace maintenance company listed on the furnace, so Brandon decided to give them a call. Surprisingly to us, we were able to get a repairman out in the next hour! In the meantime we went over to visit with our friends the Blanskis just down the street. One of the best things about staying at Carolyn's house is being able to walk down there and hang out whenever. It's one of the best kinds of welcome home. 

When the furnace repairman arrived he assured us we had gone through the proper procedures, but that something else was wrong. He did his repairs, which thankfully required no new parts. The heat returned, and he was on his way. Quite an adventure for our first night back! But, we're glad we were around to handle it and the temperatures didn't get low enough for any pipes to break or other catastrophes to occur.  

So we're back from our winter road trip! The time sped by, especially with visiting such good friends and family. 

Our odometer reading after the winter road trip. We posted an initial reading in this post. Since then we've traveled approximately 7768 miles! 

A Quad City Wedding and Weekend

It's only a little over 4 hour drive from Rochester to the Quad Cities, but a rain/snow mix caused us to leave even earlier in order to make it to the 2pm wedding of our friends Mike and Anna. 

Picturesque snow covered trees outside of Carolyn's apartment 

The weather improved the closer we got to the Quad Cities and we made it with plenty of time to spare before the wedding. The wedding ceremony was held at Augustana Chapel, which is located conveniently just down the road from Brandon's mom's apartment. As anticipated, the ceremony went off without a hitch and we enjoyed congratulating Mike and Anna afterward. It was also a short and sweet ceremony (the best kind) so we were able to return to the apartment as we awaited the beginning of the reception. I took advantage of this time to take a nap. 

The wedding reception was at the Blackhawk Hotel. Upon first hearing the locations of the ceremony and reception, I felt this was the truest Quad City wedding I'd ever attend. Why? Because, the ceremony was in Illinois and the reception was in Iowa. The event would cross the Mississippi just as the Quad Cities do. 

Congratulations Mike and Anna!

At the reception, Brandon introduced me to people he knew and then caught up with them on life. It was especially nice to meet Mike's parents whom Brandon knew well from spending hours at their house and going on family vacations with them. I believe the highlight of the reception for us was seeing Mike dance. Brandon couldn't recall Mike ever dancing. It was a fun time, and we're incredibly happy for Mike and Anna. 

Enjoying the reception at the fancy Blackhawk Hotel

On Sunday we were able to spend time with Brandon's mom. We went to church with her and afterward spoke with a lot of people from Brandon's childhood. After a big lunch we spent the rest of the day relaxing. In the evening we treated ourselves to the Quad City favorites of Hungry Hobo sandwiches and Whitey's ice cream as well as watching Spectre, the newest James Bond movie. It was a great way to wrap up our time in the Quad Cities before heading back to Michigan the next day. 

Our Time in Rochester, Minnesota

We only had two nights to spend in Rochester before leaving for a wedding in the Quad Cities. And, they were weeknights rather than the weekend, but we still felt it was worth it to visit my sister Carolyn in her new abode. 

We arrived before Carolyn got out of work so we killed time by driving through Rochester to see what it had to offer. This included checking out the Hy-Vee grocery store just a couple blocks from her apartment. We were easily impressed by the Hy-Vee and deemed it to be fancy, probably for two reasons. One, the freezer section contained Whitey's ice cream, a definite perk in our eyes. Two, there were at least five different samples for Brandon to consume. One of the samples highlighted a new selection of breads available from the Hy-Vee bakery that could be custom sliced in the thickness of your preference. The cheery, elderly Minnesotan woman handing out the samples was truly exuberant about this new offering. You could even say that Hy-Vee offering custom sliced bakery bread was "the best thing since sliced bread"! It was amusing and tasty. 

After Carolyn returned from work, we checked out a local taco place across the street from Carolyn's apartment called La Poblana #2. Yes, #2, meaning that it's probably the 2nd location of the restaurant....probably. Either way, the title #2 gives it an appropriate air of sketchiness. It's good to know Rochester has authentic Mexican. We approved. 

Pork and carnitas tacos from La Poblana #2

After getting our fill of tacos we hung out at Carolyn's apartment. We ended up watching a movie called Starship Troopers on Netflix, which was thoroughly ridiculous and a great candidate for Firewalker Film Festival. For those who don't know, Firewalker is an event that our friends hold every November to watch three really terrible movies and vote which one is the worst of the worst. I don't think it's really a compliment to the movie, but it is surprisingly entertaining and amusing.   

Brandon and I relaxed and did some food prep on Friday while Carolyn was at work. I hadn't made a cheesecake in far too long and was itching to bake one. While I put together a chocolate cheesecake, Brandon assembled a jicama slaw for tacos. When Carolyn arrived home we greeted her with delicious black bean sweet potato tacos. Mmmm. 

We all devoured a good portion of chocolate cheesecake

On Friday night we all checked out a local climbing gym. Rochester has two climbing gyms. Carolyn had already been to Roca Climbing Gym, so we tried out Prairie Walls Climbing Gym so she could compare the two. The ratings of the top rope climbs felt tougher than listed, making up for the short height of the walls. There was a nice large bouldering area as well. What we enjoyed most of all was the climbing games the gym had. There was a functional climbing treadmill which we all tried out and fell as it rotated faster and faster. Additionally there was a speed top rope route with a timer at the top to record your highest speed up the wall. But, the most interesting game was a programmable climbing wall with lights. You had to touch each rock that was lit up with green lights and avoid those lit with red lights. We all had a lot of fun experimenting with it. 

Carolyn working a boulder problem

Trying out the climbing game

The harder the game got the more it felt like a climbing version of Twister

Brandon going for a green lit rock while being surrounding by red lights

Trying out the climbing treadmill

Dramatically falling off the climbing treadmill

Carolyn on the climbing treadmill

On the timed speed wall

Reaching the top of the speed wall

Time flew by far too quickly. We had to leave by 8am on Saturday morning to make it to the wedding on time, especially with the snow rain mix that had come overnight. I can't complain too much about her Minnesota move, since I don't know where we'll end up living after this sabbatical, but I will miss living near to my sister. We're glad that we'll get to see Carolyn again soon as she'll be back in Grand Rapids for Easter weekend. 

Road Trip from Fort Collins to Lincoln to Rochester

We need to be back to the Quad Cities by Saturday, March 19, for the wedding of our friends Mike and Anna. But, we decided to squeeze in a trip to see my sister on our way there. She very recently moved to Rochester, Minnesota, which is not exactly on the way to the Quad Cities, but it's close enough for our purposes. 

The drive straight to Rochester from Fort Collins is 12.5 hrs, so we're thankful to have family in Lincoln, Nebraska to help break up the drive. On Wednesday afternoon we drove the 7 hrs from Fort Collins to Lincoln where we stayed overnight. We were able to briefly catch up with Blake on Wednesday night and Barbie on Thursday morning. We didn't get to see our nephews at all, so we'll be happy to be back in June to spend more time with them. 

The 6 hour drive from Lincoln to Rochester went smoothly other than some annoyingly high winds on I-35. We made good time and we had some adventures on the way. We reached Carolyn's place before she returned from work, so we drove around Rochester to see what her new place of residence had to offer. In addition to Mayo Clinic, we were pleased to see a good selection of stores, a variety of parks, and an extensive looking river trail. 

What I call "the bridge of torture" over I-80 in Iowa

Doesn't it look menacing and ominous? It is supposed to be "...symbolic of man, machine and transformation -- a modern relic representative of an area with rich agricultural history." Others agree with MY interpretation. Read this news article if you want a good laugh! 

Brandon googled a local burrito place in Des Moines, Iowa called Bandit Burrito. It was the perfect stop for lunch.  

Welcome to Minnesota

Living Life in Fort Collins, Colorado

After our adventures in Denver we headed up to Fort Collins, Colorado to spend some time with our friends Heather and Jonathan (aka McGee) and Eli, the relatively new (nearly 6 months) addition to their family. We were able to stay with Phil and Marjean, parents of some good Colorado friends of theirs, and enjoyed getting to know them. Life is different now that Heather and Jonathan have a kid, but it was great to have the chance to live this new life with them. One of my favorite parts was that Heather, Eli, and I were able to take a lot of walks together and catch up on life. And, we all had a lot of fun just hanging out, watching Eli be a baby, and laughing at the weird craziness of our lives as well as the TV show Brooklyn Nine-Nine. 

Our reputation precedes us. Heather prepared a delicious taco dinner Monday night. 

We brought tacos to Jonathan at work and then had a tour of his lab

Taco Tuesday lunch from Fuzzy's Taco Shop

We had to don lab coats to see the mice that Jonathan uses for his experiments

Making the obligatory trip to New Belgium, a Fort Collins staple. This time we were on a quest to discover which Belgian breweries the owner visited to inspire the start of New Belgium. We're hoping to see some of those breweries in Belgium with Nate this April. 

Wearing my t-shirt promoting Founders and Michigan beer

Brandon always gets excited about the impressive barrel aging room at New Belgium 

Small batch area where employees can create experimental new brews 

New Belgium is immense. No wonder it's the 4th largest in the United States. 

Watching the bottling line is always my favorite 

Our tour guide was enthusiastic about his job at New Belgium and thoroughly explained the brewery's history. He also gave us the name of a brewery to check out in Bruges, Belgium. 

That's all the pictures we have from our days in Fort Collins. We're getting lax. I can't believe I don't even have a picture of Heather. So, I'll have to use the following picture of their family instead. 

Jonathan, Heather, and Eli about a month before our time with them

Life is good. A piece of me wants to move to Colorado now...time with good friends, snowboarding in the mountains, warm weather in the winter. But my heart is in Michigan too (and a bit of everywhere else we've visited). 

March Denver Adventures

As Brandon mentioned in the last post, we were able to stay in Denver with Nate's parents again. While we were there, I took advantage of walking the trails through the neighborhood green space. I probably should have been running to train for an upcoming 5k, but walking seemed more enjoyable. Brandon joined me to check out Red Rocks one afternoon as well. I had hiked there with friends before, but Brandon and I ended up just checking out the concert venue. More of a rest day was in order. 

Red Rocks natural, outdoor concert venue

When we were in Denver in January, Nate's mom had suggested we check out Tocabe, a Native American Eatery. We didn't get a chance to go then, but we remembered her recommendation. On Friday night, we were able to take her there and check the place out. The restaurant was set up Qdoba style, but instead of burritos you could choose Native American style tacos, flat bread, or nachos. There were pots of rice, beans, spiced meats, and toppings to choose from. Brandon had a Native American taco topped with buffalo meat, while I tried the flat bread. Both were delicious. There was even honey provided on the tables to dip the flat bread in. Yum. We left wishing Tocabe would open restaurants beyond Denver. 

Spread from Tocabe 

On Saturday our friends Heather and Jonathan (who Brandon refers to as McGee) had to be in Denver for a birthday party, so we met up with them beforehand. It was fun to meet their son Eli (who Brandon refers to as mini-McGee) for the first time over brunch/lunch at the Denver Biscuit Company. The menu includes a variety of sandwiches and dishes including biscuits. The place is also noted for it's cinnamon rolls. The cinnamon roll was giant, and we were able to split it between all four of us. After trying some other things on the menu and leaving in a sugar coma we all decided the cinnamon roll was the best. 

Only about half of the giant cinnamon roll

In the evening, we were able to meet up with friends Chris and Savannah who we met through Nate. We were able to meet their new son Jameson as well. It was a fun evening of swapping stories over a flight and a few pints at Elk Mountain Brewing, their neighborhood brewery. 

The flights were served on snowshoes

We appreciated our time in Denver and the time went quickly. Sunday morning we headed up to Fort Collins to meet Heather and Jonathan at their church and spend the next few days together. 

Our March Copper Mountain Visit

We had a great time snowboarding at Granby Ranch, but it is not the biggest of places. So even back while we were in the planning stages for this trip we knew that Winter Park was just down the road and thought we might take a day to go there or something like it just to get in a little bit more variety while my family was still around. Well as Katie mentioned in her last post we ended up using our last day with Blake and his family around to go tubing instead, so we weren't going to get in any more days with them. But as it turns out my dad had an appointment in Boulder on Friday to stick around for. So it worked out really well to go tubing on Wednesday because we could let our achy bodies rest a day and still have all day Thursday to do whatever we wanted with my dad still around. 

We decided to head up to Copper Mountain instead of Winter Park because Katie and I still had one day left to use of our four day pass. It just meant a little further drive Thursday morning. But that was well worth it to save on the price to two full price lift tickets. So we set off early Thursday morning taking a really beautiful drive across on US 40 and down CO 9, neither of which I had ever taken before. 

It was again a really beautiful sunny day. Copper ended up being a lot more crowded for a Thursday then we would have expected. But we were still able to make the most of it.

Riding up in the chair lift together

Katie and her now more refined snowboarding skillz

Dad following behind, blindly trusting where we were taking him.

My dad can attest that Copper is much bigger than Granby Ranch. He was very thankful that he did his first two days back at Granby after his 10-ish year hiatus from skiing. But he still had a great time on the longer and bigger runs. We just took our time to get down and took lots of breaks. After lunch he got in one more run with us. He then spent the rest of his afternoon relaxing at a sports bar watching NCAA basketball and drinking some beer while Katie and I finished off our day out on the slopes. Definitely not a bad way at all to end a day out skiing, and Katie and I had a really good afternoon together exploring some of the harder runs that she was too intimidated to try the last time we were there. She really came a long way this season... Go Katie!

Taking a little break, snappin some photos

Katie having another really good day so she was all smiles.

Dad making his way down for his final run. 

Katie and I surprisingly stayed out on the slopes til last chair at 4. Somehow our bodies lasted that long even after being out two days already that week. We then met up with my dad at the base and drove our way to Idaho Springs to make the obligatory stop at Beau Jo's for pizza and beer. It was delicious as always! From there we parted ways, and Katie and myself made our way back to Nate's parents' house where we were crashing for a couple nights.

Oh Beau Jo's Pizza, you be so tasty.

This was probably our last day out snowboarding this season, which is crazy! It's crazy to think that the "snowboarding" section of our trip is already over since we had been looking forward to it for so long. It was really, really cool to see how much Katie improved each time we got out. And I had a ton of fun since I had always wanted to trip like this where we could hit up multiple spots on one long trip out West. I don't know if we'll ever be able to do something exactly like this again, but I have a feeling we'll look back fondly at this time adventuring together with friends and family and want to at least try to do something like it again in some capacity. 

Historic Fraser Tubing Hill and Snowshoeing

After skiing/snowboarding for two days everyone was tired. So instead of hitting the ski slopes again we all decided that tubing was a better option. It turned out to be a great decision. 

At the top ready to go down for the first time

Brandon pretty much dared me to go over the jump on the hill. I was successful and got some good air. 

Riding the tow rope back up the slope

We all went down together holding the handles on each other's tubes

Cael went over the jump several times

Eli went over the jump as well

Blake, Barbie, and the boys tubing over the jump together

Brandon's dad had to get in on the action too

Proof that Brandon's dad got quite a bit of air off the jump

The boys doing the jump together one last time 

Note that as Brandon was the main photographer there are no pictures of him doing the jump. When I pointed this out to him, he just shrugged and said there are plenty of pictures out there already of him doing various jumps. True that. My husband is a bit of a dare devil. 

Even with the rope tow there was a lot of exercise involved in tubing, so we were all hungry afterward. The closest restaurant happened to be Azteca, a Mexican restaurant, so we were treated to tacos. One of the salsas we were served with the complementary tortilla chips was actually a spicy slaw which was unique and delicious. 

Rice, beans, enchilada, and tacos

Following the morning adventures Blake, Barbie, and the boys had to leave for home. Time flew by so fast. We are looking forward to spending more time with them in June. 

Brandon, his dad, and I stayed at the condo for another night as we got a great deal for the night and planned to head to Copper Mountain the next day. We rested for awhile after tubing and then decided to check out some snowshoeing trails around Granby Ranch. After some trial and error we located some trails at the golf course. I don't think we followed the correct trail system, but we did find some beautiful scenery as we trekked along a creek and railroad cutting through the mountains. Thick snowflakes began to fall making the journey even more picturesque. 

I was tired of wearing my snowboard boots, so I tried my tennis shoes in the snowshoes. Fail. It was more comfortable to go without the snowshoes. I think I need some regular snow boots. 

Along the trail

The scenery was spectacular

Brandon and his dad were successful with their snowshoes

Taking a break to enjoy the view

Brandon's attire did not blend into the surroundings

On our way back the sun was trying to shine through thick snow fall

Brandon's beard accumulated many snowflakes

Between tubing and snowshoeing, we didn't rest much on our "day off" between Granby and Copper Mountain ski/snowboard days. But, we used our muscles in different ways and had a lot of fun.