University of Northern Colorado - and the ride home

I SO enjoyed my time in Colorado.  People had said that Greeley wasn't a nice town.  Now that I've been, I'm not horribly impressed with the town of Greeley (or what I saw), but the part of campus I was on every day was STUNNING.  Meet Grizz.  He is a bronze (?) statue at the University Center. 

From across the street...  You can see Grizz on the left, but the flowers are an outline of a bear profile...  it's hard to tell from the picture - sorry! :( 

This is one of the residence halls on campus...  I thought it was pretty... 

This was the first sign I saw when I got onto Campus... 

The Visitor Center was an old house - beautiful old house..

This tree was next to Gunter Hall...  It had these HUGE leaves and bean like things....  anyone know what it might be??

The flowers and sign for Gunter...

These "chimes" were always going off.. every hour... every half hour?  shoot I dunno, but I heard them ALL the time. 

Gunter Hall was named for Julius C. Gunter - the Governor of the state of Colorado at the time it was built (in the 20's).  The building was originally the school gym.  There are lots of pictures of old athlete's in the hallways and there is even still the half court circle part of the original gym floor still exposed in one part of the building.  It's kinda cool. 

One day at lunch I snapped this as we sat at a picnic table out in the lawn...

This was taken from my car during another lunch time.  The building in the distance is Gunter.  The Visitor center is to my right in this picture... 

This was taken the last day from the 3rd floor conference room where we met for our "wrap up" meeting. 

The view out of the Motel 6 window in Bernalillo, NM the night of the 23rd. 

and the bug on the window.  :) 

Chancey looking as innocent as humanly possible.... 

Kota...  :) 

Awww, P-Piper.... 

This is a picture of one of my classmates Karen, and I.  She's insisted I visit if I find myself dog showing in the PNW again :) 

and my classmate, Brande, who lives in Colorado.  Us out celebrating that we were done Thursday night.  :) 

Welcome to New Mexico?  It rained.  Quite a bit. 

At a rest stop in NM... 

We were all SO happy to get home....  and now, as you all know, we've resumed our "normal" schedule... :) 

What a week!

Wowza.  Tomorrow afternoon will mark a week since I returned home from Colorado.  It's been a whirlwind of a week.  I started back to work on Monday, which as you can imagine, has kept me busy!

The kids started back to school on Wednesday, and I've been running since.  :)  I finished all of the Kindergarten screenings and am starting to work on my schedule...  (homework for the weekend). 

On top of that, I had a final tonight and homework due in one class, had 4 papers and a survey due in another class, and I have another written final due  no later than August 9th.   I'll get a break from classes until 8/23. 

The weather has finally started looking like monsoon season.  It's been REALLY humid and rainy.  I like the rain, but the humidity and stifling heat I could do without! :) 

In case anyone was wondering, I fell absolutely in love with Colorado.  I think I am going to take a trip up to Colorado this winter to see what it's like in the winter.... get a taste of what winter in CO.  :)  Problem with CO is that there aren't as many shows....

Well that's all that's new I guess....  Sedona's still looking for that last major (grumble).  Hopefully she finishes this fall....  :)  I might start Rally with Chance....  stay tuned.  :)

Loveland - Estes Park - Rocky Mountain National Park (really really picture heavy!!)

As I was leaving town I stopped at Starbuck's....  it was next to THIS place....  I had to scratch my head and ask "do I want to know what a "butterburger" is?"

Interesting totem pole on the way out of Loveland...

Cool covered wagon roadside...

the wildlife in Big Thompson Canyon

more pictures from the canyon drive up to Estes Park

Welcome to Estes Park!

Noah's ark??

my future awaits.... ;-)

ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK!!! :) 

a roadside waterfall

the sights.....

I wish I could say that the colors on the mountains were because they were changing colors....  unfortunately there is a problem with an evil little beetle (I have a picture of the sign later) that is killing off many of the beautiful pines....

Couldn't you just picture a deer here.... drinking the cool water from the creek?  *sigh*  Heaven. 

I turned up a road and found a nice little hike up to a waterfall...  This is the story of what happened in that area...

and here, of course, is the waterfall I went up to see

and if you turn around from that spot, this is what you see

Playing with the camera..... ;-)

There were many different kinds of beautiful wild flowers in bloom all over the park (warning: there will be lots of pretty little wild flower pictures too!)

After that little jaunt, I decided to take a 1 way, 11 mile dirt road that went up to the top of the mountains... 

A little waterfall along the creek that went up the mountain...

Off in the distance, I could see this beautiful waterfall working it's way down the mountain....  have I mentioned... Heaven??

And this guy was just chilling road side....  munching on something....  He just hung out as I passed....

 more beautiful water... I stopped for a bit to let the dogs out and to check out the area....

Cool little mushrooms growing on a log....

This little area had bubbles coming up from under the log...  it was neat. 

And then, the kids...  :)  Good little dogs!!

Continuing up the dirt road....

I thought the colors of this wood were really interesting....

In a previous picture, you could see the buildings up at the top of the mountains.... 

I stopped for a "scenic view"... this was about half way up the walk when I turned around..

And once at the top, this was the view into a valley below...

And these were the others who stopped here too! ;-)  We're up above the tree line here....

On the way back down (sorry - some of the pictures are out of order because I took some with my Canon, and some with my Nikon).  These are lava flows....

And a little ways up the road, I saw a bunch of people pulled over.  Anyone who has National Park experience knows that there MUST be something worth seeing when there are that many people pulled over...  And this is what I saw... 

And to the other side...

I kept shaking my head at this fool who kept inching closer and closer to these HUGE animals....

and then I went to the other side of the road for the scenery.... ;-) 

I stopped at another hike up another hill (huffing and puffing - whew!)

And the sign that describes the two above pictures....

Pretty wild flowers....

The end point of the hike....

I had been wondering what these gutsy little creatures were....

It's as though the POSED for pictures!!!

I was able to catch two Yellow Bellied Marmots running and playing... note that one is a bob tail! :) 

On the walk back down I saw these beautiful creatures grazing....

Off in the distance, you can see the lava flow mentioned earlier... and then at the group of cars farther towards the bottom is where I stopped to photograph the elk where the crazy man was...

At yet another rest stop, I saw this cute little 'munk....

And these pretty birds....

Smart little 'munk... gettin' food from people....

He had no fear.  He ended up sniffing the person's hand before running off....

The valley overlook...

On the way back down - more beautiful trees :) 

Chance taking time to sniff the flowers... :) 

And here is the sign talking about the evil beetle killing the trees...

On the way down, I found this beautiful park... flowers and trees and rocks all in memory of people..... 

The kids stopped to take a dip and drink in the river...

The obligatory "cute Cardigan" picture on the bridge...

This is the bridge I took the above picture on....

There was a story about this park...  a huge flood hit in 1976.....

And I did mention earlier that I'd be jumping back and forth... well.... this was taken with the Canon at the very top of the dirt road.... a store that I wasn't able to get out at to take pictures - too many people - not enough parking. 

On the way down...

A potty stop for the kids...

In the Canyon on the way back into Loveland. 

This rock formation was called Devil's Spine...  there was a hike too, but by then I was FRIED!!!

I had such a great day! I included A WHOLE BUNCH of pictures, but if you'd believe it, this isn't even a fifth of what I took!!!  I would highly recommend the Rocky Mountain National Park to anyone who has a chance to visit.  I only was able to do one loop of the park, but it took all day and made me "ooh" and "aah" more than once :)