Off Topic - Crested Butte, CO

Well, since Fawkes is relaxing with his Previcox right now, J and I loaded the dogs in the car and took a road trip to Crested Butte for the weekend. This was the sunset as we were going to our hotel for the night.

Mt Crested Butte 

It is about a 4 hour drive from our house with no traffic.  However, the words "no traffic" don't really apply to metro Denver and we stop to let the dogs out, eat, etc, so it took us about 5 hours to get there. Jasper is awesome to ride with, he picks a cozy spot in the car, nests the everloving hell out of it, and lays down.  He is all "wake me when we get there."  Maya, special little snowflake, is a bit more of a challenge.  She spent most of the drive as she does all car rides.  That is, bashing her head against the window as she tries to attack/herd cars going in the opposite direction.  Or even stopped cars that we pass because even genius border collie mutts don't understand relative motion.

They are good at balance beam tricks though

There is nothing quite like hearing your dog's face THUNK against the window over and over for hours.  If you put said window down, even a little, she runs to the other side of the car and curls in a protective ball for about 5 minutes before resuming her game. Or herding cars on that side.

But in spite of that, we had a relatively easy drive.  Crested Butte is like many other CO mountain towns - beautiful and outrageously expensive to live in.  For example, just for fun we looked up the price of an 1800 sq ft log cabin (adorable, btw) on 0.1 acres in the town.  Asking price?  1.1 million.  Yowza.  And the only jobs are industry - hotel, skiing, restaurants so I guess only fabulously wealthy people can really afford to buy houses here.  For tourists though, it isn't terrible.  And fall is considered the off season even though this is prime leaf viewing season.  This is my first time here and after 5 years of living in CO and quite a bit of world travel, this place is still pretty spectacularly impressive.

These aspen aren't even close to peaking yet.

Today we took the dogs out and ended up doing about 9 miles total.  First, a quick 1.5 mile jaunt to a lake that I promptly fell in because I am an idiot and do stupid things like trying to balance beam on a slippery, unstable log.  There are no photos of that - J believes that photographing my failures is not in the best interest of our marriage (he is wrong about that, I adore mocking myself) - but I was wet up to mid thigh.  Yay for low humidity and quick drying gear.

Then we went over to a place called Horse Park Ranch and hiked amongst the changing aspen.  Lord of the Rings geek that I am, I kept imaging I was wandering the woods of Lothlorien.

Maya and I climb a fallen tree for no other reason that because it is there

Maya likes to help plan hikes.  Probably why we get lost.

Jasper has other priorities

I even have an elven name chosen, Nimloth.  Which way to Middle Earth?

So bright

We had planned to do a 6 mile loop but got pretty lost at the inadequately labeled trail junctions.  When in doubt, wander until you get tired and then head back the other direction.  Especially when the last trail junction has nothing but a shattered wooden sign on the ground.  We think we ended up doing 7-8 miles on this portion, took about 4 hours.  And just beautiful scenery.  The dogs had a blast running around.  Jasper is "fully" recovered from his TPLO surgery in April but when he runs and runs and runs for hours he pays the price later so we try to keep him on leash for part of the hike.  He doesn't appreciate that and screams bloody murder.  Passing hikers said they thought they were hearing some Amazonian monkey being eaten by a jaguar.  Accurate description of the sound he makes.  Fine dog, run your damn leg off.

This place will be even more beautiful in another week, but we can't really complain.  Dogs are tired: Jasper is upside down and unconscious and Maya is looking at me with the sad face that says "what is this "tired" sensation and why am I feeling it"?  Hopefully can get another short hike in tomorrow before heading back to reality and a horse that (pleasepleaseplease) is on the mend.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!!