Leading Me Home: Sightseeing and a Near Death Experience

When we were in Colorado for our retrieval, we had an appointment every morning at our doctor's office.

Our first morning appointment at CCRM.

After the ultrasound and blood work, though, we had the days to ourselves! There are so many things to do in Colorado, but we were limited because of the meds I was on. On these meds, I have many limitations: no caffeine, no alcohol, no chocolate, no bending/twisting, no elevated heartrate (140bpm or higher). So white water rafting was automatically out. :-) Basically, we did a lot of driving, which is fine because Colorado (especially at this time of year) is beautiful.

On Sunday, our first full day in Colorado, we took a trip to Boulder. We had lunch and then walked up and down Pearl Street.

Boulder, CO

Pearl Street has lots of street performers. We happened upon this street performer at the end of his show. That didn't stop him from volunteering me to help him. (And me trying to hide behind the person in from of me wasn't nearly as affective as I had hoped!)

On the second day (Monday) of our trip, we headed to Estes Park. Michael loved driving all the mountain roads. I, on the other hand, was trying to not have a heart attack. Those roads terrify me.

We walked around downtown Estes and ate lunch there. I spent a few summers in Estes Park/Rocky Mountain National Park when I worked for Group Workcamps in college. Walking around downtown Estes brought back so many fun memories!

We planned to go on an easy hike to Bear Lake, but our waitress convinced us to check out "The Pool" which was a longer, but easy hike. So, we did what the local suggested and headed to Rocky Mountain National Park.

Any other time of my life, this really would have been an easy hike. It was beautiful and secluded, but I had to stop several times to check my heart rate. It wasn't as flat as she had made it seem! Michael ended up leading the way because his normal gait is ridiculously slow. That way he forced me to go slow.

Oh, and we bought a selfie stick. Most embarrassing purchase of my life. But it was super useful when you're all by yourself in the middle of Rocky Mountain National Park!

(This was our very first selfie stick picture.)

Back to the hike...

The people we passed on the trail looked as us funny. We weren't planning on going on this kind of hike, and neither one of us were necessarily dressed appropriately. But we didn't care!

We finally made it!

On our way out of the park, we noticed a TON of cars pulled off on the side of the road. As we got closer, we realized there was a huge herd of elk right up next to the road. They were so close to us!

Tuesday was our third day in Colorado, and after our morning appointments we headed to the Mount Evans Scenic Byway. It's a two hour-ish drive from where we were to Echo Lake, the beginning of the Byway. We packed lunch and found a picnic table next to the lake.

And I froze to death. It was in the 40's and windy!

Messin' with the selfie stick...

Then we headed up the mountain to the Scenic Byway. The Mount Evans Scenic Byway is the highest paved road in North America. This was, hands down, the dumbest idea I have ever had. Remember when the mountain roads in Estes freaked me out? I had no idea what scary mountain roads were like, until now...

Above the tree line...

Mount Evans Lake. At this point we are so high up, I am literally crying. I hate heights.

My pictures don't do these roads (or the height!) justice. The edges of the roads were sheer drops. We were literally driving on the edge of a clif, with no guardrails.

We found a herd of mountain sheep!

Chillin' on the side of the road.

Praise Jesus, we made it to the top and we didn't die!!!

The mountain goats just blend right in...

We made it to the top without dying, but now we had to go back down the mountain. I cried on the way down, too. I'm not kidding. If you make one little mistake driving on these roads, you will go crashing down the side of the mountain. It makes my heart start to beat fast just thinking about it!

After we made it past the scary part of the mountain, we stopped to take some pictures with the aspens. They were just beautiful. And this girl had just cheated death!

I love being back down with the trees!

As you already know, our trip got cut short because we triggered and the retrieved a day early. We loved our time together in Colorado, but we were definitely ready to come back home. When we got home, we had a bag from our sweet friends Abby and Derek of all the delicious goodness that I hadn't been able to enjoy for the last month! We are blessed by such wonderful friends!