God Save the Queen

We made it safely, but so tiredly London yesterday.  I'm getting too old to fly in middle seats in coach for lengthy flights.  The lady next to me was 75 and had knee surgery in January, and I was way more antsy than her.

We spent sometime wandering here and there yesterday, but we didn't really have a plan, just what we could stay away for.  Nick found a wonderful Indian restaurant to end at last night and that was a perfect way to end the night.

Today we had a hard time getting up and going.  We only have two days here, but we were almost willing to sleep through it all we were so tired.  AND THEN THE UNTHINKABLE HAPPENED... MY STRAIGHTENER DIED.  I don't remember the last time I wore a ponytail in public, but it had to be.  The blowdried in the room didn't have heat, so my hair was exceptionally bad this AM... and no straightener.  So, now I have a dilemma of global proportions because how do I buy a straightener overseas that I can use when I get back!?  1st world problems, yes, I know.

Anywho!  We did the hop-on-hop-off bus today, which we've never done.  With so little time in the city, we got to ride around and see everything at least.  We headed back to the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square and did a quick run through of the art there.

But before all that... we went to the Sherlock Holmes museum!  The museum was a little cheesy, but we used to listen to Sherlock Holmes stories when we were kids and I've watched every remake / take on Sherlock Holmes since.  It was super exciting to be at 221B Bakers street today!

Being here makes me want to go back and read more history.  You always see connections between things and I always get interested in their origins.  Being in the UK I had even more than normal given America's history with this country and others.

Me at Big Ben - it's being worked on so all but the clock face was behind scaffolding.

Outside the National Gallery w/ my ponytail.

Both of us.

Monument Outside Buckingham Palace.

Beautiful flower garden outside Buckingham Palace.

St. James Garden below Buckingham Palace.  Had never seen a black swan before.  Many beautiful species of ducks I'd never seen as well.

Admiralty Arch

Tower Bridge

SHERLOCK HOLMES MUSEUM!!

Us at the Sherlock Holmes Museum

London Eye, River Thames, and Big Ben

Westminster Abbey

Some Things Aren't Free

When we get to the end of our hikes and see what we see, we have a saying, "some things you have to pay for."  There are some places you can get in your car and drive to the top of, and everyone can get there with relatively little effort.  But there are some places, that you have to pay the piper to see.  :)  

This was a great hike in Boulder, Colorado (Chautauqua park) called the 1st and 2nd flat irons.  The weather was perfect (especially the higher up the mountain we went).  Maybe because it's a college town, there were a lot of young, healthy people passing me at a 100 miles an hour.  Nick was patient and let me break as I needed to to make it up the mountain.  It was only three miles, but it was ~1,400 foot ascension, so it felt like you were climbing straight up the entire time.

On this hike, I discovered that Nick wasn't the only guy fibbing to get someone to the top of the mountain.  We heard a guy telling his girlfriend that they only had 10 more minutes to go, when Nick mentioned that it was probably closer to 30, the boyfriend looked at Nick and made the finger across the throat gesture to get him to be quite. lol.  He had already been giving his girlfriend pep-talks to get her that far.. it was a familiar story and not the first one I had heard given on the mountain that day.  :)  To me or others.  That beings said, there were some women climbing up the mountain who were killing it.  No pep-talk needed.  

The view was beautiful... a few pictures of the journey.

One of the fins behind us at the top.

Powdered sugar donuts - my favorite hike food.  :)  It's my reward for making it to the top!  It's really how Nick tricks me into going to the top.  Nothing tastes like a powdered sugar donut after a 3 billion foot hike.  :D

Taking pictures was a challenge with our phones.  Either you could see us or the thing behind us.  In this case we opted for not really seeing either.  You know, me a little dark and the fin a little too light.  :D 

We'd eventually find our way up this heap of rocks through a series of switchbacks.  And that still wasn't the top!  On the way down a chipmunk was mad at everyone coming down.  He was on the rocks yelling at people.  

 

 

Life List Stuff

About two and a half years ago or so I spent time mapping my values and about 100 other personal aspects of my life.   In addition, I started a mindmap, connected to my values, of all the things I wanted to do in this life.  I have a post-it note web in my home office that looks like one of those psycho stalker walls... Nick always says it makes him feel like he's going to have a seizure when he looks at it.  lol.  He's a neat freak, order person though, so I guess it makes sense.

SOOO, anyway.  The reason I'm saying all this is, I not only crossed graduation off my life list this past weekend, but I was also able to attend a concert at Red Rock Amphitheater, which was on my list!  Nick knew it was on my list and worked to pull the night together.

It was an amazing night... the setting is unreal.  We didn't know the band that was playing (Big Head Todd and the Monsters), but they were excellent - great musicians.  They were a band from Colorado that had made it fairly big, and the Coloradans were very appreciative of their work.  And they had a keyboardist that also played a Hammond B3, you can't beat that in any music.

A pleasant surprise was Collective Soul opened for the main band.  That was pretty awesome as I grew up as a child of the 90s and their music was always on the radio.  :)  They were also excellent musicians and it was a great performance.

You can sort of see the amphitheater in the middle... took this picture while we waited to get into the venue.

Wowza!! What a view!

 

Entering the concert venue.

My favorite person ever.

Me!  I got to take two of my life list goals off the wall!  :)

Epic.

Towards the end of the second band, a full orange moon started coming up over the horizon.  It was AMAZING!!  You can see the tiny tiny orange dot in the city lights in this photo... but it was huge... everyone's cameras came up and pointed that direction.  I'm sure the band was confused about what was happening behind them.  It was magical.

Never Too Late

Well, it's been an epic 3 days, with not a lot of time between goings on.  I thought I'd try to at least get my thoughts down on a few things though before it all got away from me!

Saturday I graduated from college with my bachelors degree!  It was such a meaningful day.  It certainly feels like one of the greatest accomplishments in my life to date.  And I am super happy to be on the other side of all the work!  :)

As soon as I walked into the arena, with Pomp and Circumstance playing, I got all teared up.  I wasn't sure how it would hit me, but multiple times I teared up during the ceremony.  The ceremony was in the Denver area and in addition to Nick coming, my mom and dad came out to celebrate with me, as did my in-laws, which was also very humbling to have people come all this way to recognize this achievement.  I sat next to a guy who was in his 50's and graduating; his 80+ year old dad was there celebrating with him.  :)  That made me teary too.  The lady I walked down the aisle with was in her 40s and her kids were all there celebrating with her.  I think that was also a special aspect to it all, the room was filled with graduates of all ages, but certainly non-traditional students were the norm.  It felt like a room of people that weren't kids, but had worked through life to get it done.  I think that felt special as well.

It was a beautiful and emotional day.  Throughout the day I remembered multiple times what I told myself when things were getting difficult or stressful... it was a quote I found on Pinterest that helped me:
"Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it.  The time will pass anyway." ~Earl Nightingale

For some reason that helped me every time I was struggling with my progress.  And the pictures below prove, the time did pass.  :)  I'm grateful to have spent it in a beautiful location with people I love and who love me.

Nick and me with mom and dad

Nick and me with my in-laws

Me with my stuff!  The guy behind me keeps cracking me up!  His family was sitting in the same area as my family and so he was showing them his stuff too.  lol. It looks like he's photoboming or something.  Too funny.  

Photo credit for the pictures above goes to my mother-in-law.  :)

Lady who I met at the ceremony.  Her kids got her the Wonder Woman cape, which a few of us talked her into wearing during the ceremony.  :)  So awesome.

I think this sums up my story as well... I got to graduation later than I would have liked, but I got there!  You're never too late to follow your dreams and accomplish your goals!!!  Remember... the time will pass anyway.  :)  

Viva Las Vegas

Today held an interesting drive from Visalia, CA to Vegas.  A fairly barren drive and then mass chaos on the roads, both ways.  Many people were leaving Las Vegas, but many were headed that way as well.

We normally travel in the April/May time frame, but due to school breaks for Nick and I we've traveled more in prime travel time.  As we left Yosemite there was a line of cars that probably had a two hour wait to get in to Yosemite.  Sequoia National Park was probably a 45 min line to get in when we went and endless lines everywhere as parking was non-existent and we had to take several shuttles to get around.  And today we got to our hotel and there was an hour line to check-in, a convention was taking place and every last one of the attendees got here before we did. lol.  Needless to say, everyone and their brother is on the road right now.

When we travel, we stretch a dime into a dollar.  Nick does quite a bit of research on all the hotels we stay at - they're cheap, but have good reviews.  Low amenities, but clean.  We pack a cooler or eat from cheap stands.  Whatever it takes to go on vacation.  :)  Interestingly, the most expensive place we stayed on this trip was the tent/cabin in Yosemite.  I'm writing this from the Paris hotel and it was cheaper than the tent/cabin with a double bed, covered by a tarp with a single light bulb... I guess all that electricity they were paying for with that single light bulb was really setting them back. :)

Anyway - Las Vegas... it's where the normal meets the abnormal.  There are so many everyday, normal people here and so many wild and crazy people here.  Every time in Vegas I'm interested in people's story.  Why do they come here to work?  Is it like Los Angeles where everyone is a waitress trying to be an actress?  Are they from here?  Anyway... it's always a  mysterious place to me when I'm here.  Past that... this town... hmmm... Always interesting for a few minutes, never hurts our feelings to see it in the rear view mirror.

That's a chicken bull people can ride sitting behind Nick.  It seemed amusing at the time.  :D

Well... you know... from somewhere on the strip.

Ceiling in the Venetian

Gondola rides - this one is from inside of the hotel

Mosaic of a Pepsi Bottle

White Castle, Walgreens, Denny's all in one spot... now that's just American right there.

Just two crazy kids

lol. 

The chair is a Italian bust/head

Recreation of Bernini's sculpture in Pizza Nova which we had the privilege of seeing for real during our time in Rome

Another view.  Didn't remember the falcon on the woman's arm, kind of cool.

Craziness of the strip - view of our hotel

We're Not Laughing Any More

We're staying in Visalia, CA at a lovely 50'sesque hotel.  Most of what I have seen of the town has that 50's vibe to it.  We got her last night and quickly made ourselves at home.  There was a big wedding at the hotel and some of the guests decided to stay and unfortunately, I almost lost my ever-lovin'-mind.  Our neighbors weren't partying too hard, but the walls were thin and there were people coming and going all night.  After a polite conversation at 12:30am and a not so polite front desk call at 2:30am, the part finally died down.  Unfortunately, I wasn't died down, so somewhere around 3:30am, Nick and I finally passed out.  Needless to say, I didn't do much laughing last night!  And, needless to say, we got a bit of a late start today.  Also, as I write this... there are fireworks going off... who knows... might be a long night again.  :D

We hit Sequoia National Park and despite the 4 billion people that had descended on the park, it didn't disappoint.  I have always wanted to see the redwoods in Northern California.  While those are taller, the sequoias are still very tall and much wider.  Some of these trees are estimated to be 3,000 years old.  What was happening 3,000 years ago?  The Zhou Dynasty was in its first year of rule... there was no city of Rome... Babylon was in decline...  yes... I looked all those up.  Anyway... they're some old trees.

View from room

Shot of drive through the park

Looking up, baby!

Pictures from our Big Trees Trail hike in the park 

I don't want to brag, but I lifted this tree all by myself.  ;)

 

Panorama view.  The fallen tree to the left is over a path and has a hole cut in it that people can walk through.  The tree in the middle is ginormous. 

Fallen giant

A new resident for the tree!

Still a tree hugger... but these trees are harder to hug

Beautiful views of a reservoir area on the way to the park.

And another.

Adios Muchachos!