Honeymoon update part 5 - image heavy

July 14, 2009

OK, last honeymoon post, I swear! Thanks for playing along. :)

Our last full official day in CO was spent in Estes Park. I remember going to this place when I was a kid, and again in 1997. It's a beautiful little tourist town, very clean, nestled in the mountains. Tons of cute shops.

Every place we drove in the mountains, there seemed to be a beautiful little river or creek running along side the highway. OK, so we have water here in Missouri, I promise you this, however, we don't have lots of cool rocks, and houses on the river banks, mini waterfalls... GOLD. *sigh*


It's kind of a magnet, I can see why ppl would want to live near them. I would worry however, about spring, and my house floating away.

This is what Estes Park residents get to look at *every single day*. Lucky them.


Back in '97, I was a bear maker. No really. I made teddy bears for a "living". I have to put it in quotes because even when you do well at it, you're still making minimum wage at best. But it's a fun job, and you get to meet a lot of people and go to beautiful places.

And speaking of floating houses, there's a cool places there called Estes Ark. It's a teddy bear store and back in the day, it was one of the places you wanted your bears to be. It must still be one of the places to be, because it's one of the few teddy bear stores that have made it in the downturn of the industry.

Oh, maybe because it looks just like Noah's Ark. Here's some smart people, that took a play on words to the extreme, and made a landmark out of it. No photos allowed inside, but the bottom floor is packed with bears and critters. The stairs (which are just as you'd imagine in an ark) are filled with other animals and noah's ark collectibles.

Even tho I don't collect bears anymore, once in a while, something comes along that makes me pine for a bear, and this was it. I bought a little bear that "spoke" to me, but nowadays he wasn't a $250 bear, he was a $9 bear.

Yes, I own teddy bears that cost $250.

It's a long story.

I love the clouds against the ark. It makes you wonder what is coming around the corner.

40 days and 40 nights?

I commented as we checked out, how they had the absolute best view in all of Estes Park. Their front doors looked out over the mountains.

*jealous much*

Yes.


On the way in, we stopped at this little overlook. You see, I have a vacation rule, if I want to stop, I will, and we'll not complain about what time we "need to get there" or be in a rush, because we're on V.A.C.A.T.I.O.N.

Hello...!?
Carry the 9 kids.

So anyway, the instant we stopped at this overlook, I had a serious dejavue moment.

I had been there before.

Yep, minus 29 years, I had been in that exact spot.

It was ground zero for ground squirrels!

I remember when we went to CO when I was a kid, there was a place where you could stop, and feed the ground squirrels, they'd come right up to you and sit in your lap as you fed them.

I also remember that this was one of the few times (only time?) that my dad was ever excited enough to pick up the camera and shoot a photo himself. He took a photo of me feed the squirrels.

This was back in the day, when most ppl didn't take a roll of film feeding the squirrels, that one would have one, or two rolls of film for a 2 week vacation, and one EVENT had *one* photo.

I also remember getting home, and my mom being so excited about the photos from the vacation, and when she got them developed EVERY single photo was blurry. Her camera lens was filthy and it basically ruined every photo. :(

I think this trip ended up with me kind of, hmmm... reliving my childhood trip. I don't know, was it my way of missing the lost photos and memories?

We retraced many of my steps back then, and instead of doing it in a '74 impala at 55 mph and film 110 camera. We did it with a 2010 Ford Fusion and a pro DSLR.

Both are much more comfortable.

I'm fairly confident, that Gene is the squirrel whisperer.

These little critters will love you as long as you have nuts. And they will pack them away until they are freakishly imbalanced. At moments I wondered where they would store them all.

Besides their cheeks anyway.

I'm sorry, but that's freakishly huge.
And I'm talking about the squirrel btw.

In the end, I got my photos of me and the squirrels. A little late, a little older, a little more road traveled, but I have them nonetheless.

A couple videos for you, with my new flip. I didn't do the greatest job, it was the first trip I'd ever taken it on.

FYI, I laugh a lot.

I kinda like that part.

And this is how we ended our vacation:

I thought it was kind of a fitting end.

*the end*

{kinda - I have other pics some other time lol}