defining my summer

2007 has become a "good" summer! (We're just back home from our trip to Colorado and are basking in the glow of an awesome vacation.) Thanks a multiple of a million times to mom and dad for making it happen!!!

First, I must say that my family and I have tasted the good life of first class with respect to flying and it's going to be hard to ever go back.
H. A. R. D.
Yowza.

So a few weeks ago, the airline contacted DH and told him they were overbooked for our flights home from Denver and asked if we would take a later flight if we were upgraded to business class/1st class. DH took it and I, always the supportive wife, gave him a hard time for not insisting on free tickets. But I was wrong. If you get the chance to go 1st class...do it. Oh, for the love of Pete. Shorter lines for the airport security screenings, so much leg room I had to unbuckle to reach the seat pocket in front of me, special luggage tags with "priority" labels and the time of departure of each aircraft to minimize the chances of lost luggage, individual video units, warmed towels, fancy-schmancy foot rests, all the wine I wanted, pseudo-gourmet meals, and warmed nuts. WARMED NUTS, I tell you. It was crazy. I was looking for the foot masseuse to show up. E looked at me halfway home, curled up in her over sized seat reading a good book, half-eaten warm pastrami and roast sandwich and empty bowl (of warmed nuts) on her linen-covered table, hazy from the sugar-high from bottomless Sprite, and she told me she wanted to always go business class. My daughter has tasted the good life and there's no going back, I fear.

Anyway, I digress.

Colorado was fabulous. As expected. And due to the persistence of my sweet sister, I climbed a mountain, along with DH, Q, two sisters, and two nephews.



The one on the right is Flattop Mountain, and that's the one we climbed. We went from ~9000 feet to ~12000 feet in 4 miles (one-way). Hallett's Peak (the one on the left) was the original destination, but freezing cold, tornado-strength winds (I exaggerate only slightly), rain, and our ill-prepared group of east-coasters and Texans wearing shorts up on the tundra of the Rockies resulted in our turning back probably less than a half mile from the summit of Flattop.



There we are at the point we decided to turn around. I don't know why I'm smiling. It's really more of a grimace. It was miserable.

There wasn't much elevation gain left to do at that point (thus the name of the mountain) so I'm justified in stating with finality that we climbed it. Hallett's peak was only another .5 mile (500 feet or so higher) from Flattop and required a boulder scramble to the summit so who knows if we would have made it if the weather had been nicer that day (as is was for EVERY OTHER DAY of our entire trip). I think we would have. In any case, we climbed that freakin' mountain. We did!

Other activities included baseball (for Q, DH and my dad) at Coor's Field with the Rockies (including a rain delay in a storm that resulted in groundsmen being flung across the field as they clung to the tarp, according to the account and pictures from DH),

horse riding...





(Happy? You think?)

..., picnics, Fall River Road and Trail Ridge Road, dominoes, cards, cook-outs, laughing, and lots and lots of songs from "Annie" (courtesy of the little girl cousins). It's a hard-knock-life...you think?...

It was a good vacation.

Oh, and I almost forgot!! We had Leonado DeCaprio as a ranger guide for a nature walk we took.



See? Told ya'. There he is signing E's Junior Ranger book. He was so cute (in a very young Leonardo kind of way) that I forgave him for giving wrong information about the amount of oxygen available at higher altitudes and for being wrong about the height of Long's Peak by 2000 feet. Kismet for being given dimples.)