The Goodrums

We've actually had a fall this year - such a welcome change. Love this season with all its brilliant colors. Our tree has lost nearly all its leaves by now - but it's so gorgeous when changing. A few snapshots of the brilliance...

You might want to spell the candidate's name correctly. Indeed it's pictured directly above your text...

Proofreading (not to mention spelling) seems a lost art...

Working in the realm of politics gets really interesting at times. The other day, prior to the Colorado primary elections, I saw a synopsis of the races on NPR that made me laugh out loud. Don't know that anyone else would appreciate it, but I found it very entertaining:

Voters in four states will go to the polls Tuesday and pick their party’s fall candidates, but perhaps no races are being watched more closely than the primary contests for governor and the U.S. Senate in Colorado. There, the expected has taken a back seat to the astonishing. Plagiarism? Check. Gender politics? Check. Charges of Wall Street coziness? Check. Competing presidential endorsements? Check. Bicycle-sharing as a United Nations plot? Check. Selling house for campaign cash? Check. -Full NPR story here.

Living in Colorado - A+++. Colorado politics - priceless. :)

♫♪♫♪

I actually sang that Psalty the Singing Songbook song while driving out on our recent camping adventure. Only my family will appreciate the song. Even Jen Nelson commented that the CD we had listened to about 45 times already was just fine (we forgot to bring the CDs and there's not much radio to be found in the mountains). Unfortunately, I couldn't find a video or MP3 of the "We're going camping" song - but I did find this clip that should give you an idea of its excellent quality. It's no wonder we all had major socially awkward stages growing up... :)

Anyway, this first weekend in August, we embarked on a little mountain get away - redemption for this post.

My college roomie, Jen, joined us from Texas for the adventure. Jen flew in Friday night. Saturday morning we packed up and headed out to the Glenwood Springs area. Our original plan was to spend time in Glenwood Springs - hanging out at the springs, vapor caves, perhaps rafting or paragliding - but we ended up spending almost no time in that area.

The first thing we did after our longer-than-I-expected drive was find a campsite. We were fortunate and someone else hadn't shown up for their reservation the night before so the campsite hosts offered it to us. We earned quite a reputation as campsite stealers! We pitched our tent, ate some lunch and headed down to Aspen for the afternoon.

Amazingly, after almost 3 years in Colorado, Michael and I still had not made it out to the Maroon Bells - the most photgraphed site in Colorado. Although we'd never quite understood the allure, we did once we arrived. They were well worth the drive and we now see why they are so photographed. We hiked the "scenic loop trail" along the river that feeds Maroon Lake.
























We made it back to our campsite for a late but yummy dinner. The fire was stubborn so it was dinner by moonlight.

In the morning we broke camp fairly early and headed further west to Rifle Falls. The falls are pretty but we were disappointed to find some human intervention in the falls when we hiked to the top. We grilled a quick lunch at the picnic spots by the falls and then started back east.

















We did stop off in Glenwood Canyon for a hike up to Hanging Lake/Sprouting Rock. Beautiful hike. We then trekked back through Dillon and stopped at our favorite sushi place. We arrived home late Sunday evening.



















We dropped Jen off at the airport first thing on Monday morning and jumped into a new work week. Packed weekend - but it was oh-so-nice to get away.

View the full picture album here.

It's sad that our only trip to the mountains so far has been my work trip to Vail. Hopefully we'll remedy that soon!

We did manage to get in a nice hike before we returned to suburbia. In my world it was the ideal hike: hike up, take the ski gondola down (save the knees)! The gondola saved us from a nice afternoon thunderstorm as well.

















Mt of the Holy Cross above on the left

Given my new role in state politics, I found this little comedy routine at the Capitol to be entertaining:

State Rep. Mark Waller ribbed our local state Rep. Frank McNulty that he had

"no business weighing in on agricultural issues just because the area he
represents has the word 'ranch' in it."

Just in case anyone's unaware, we live in the suburbia of suburbias, "Highlands Ranch." Michael joked that we should get a tractor. But if we do, we should definitely keep it away from Amy Kern. :)

Pictures from Keystone a few weeks back.

































Looking at Breckenridge

We're supposed to get some good snow tonight and tomorrow. Perhaps I can head up to the mountains Tuesday or Wednesday to take advantage of the weather and my time off...

I realized tonight, driving home amid some flurries, that we do not have these road signs in Colorado. Living in Texas and the south, these signs appeared during the winter. Here, I guess they expect you to know.

We had a leisurely Saturday morning, rolling out of bed somewhat late and padding around the house in our pajamas for a while. About 10am, we starting discussing what we should do with the rest of the day. Michael suggested that we might take a drive out through the Rockies to see the changing leaves - a sight Colorado is famous for. We've been amazed at how many people we know that haven't even been out to see the leaves change, even after living here for many years. I had talked about wanting to see it this year, but figured it probably wouldn't happen given the chaos of our lives lately. I must say that I love having the flexibility (when we're not crazy busy) to decide at noon to go to the mountains and to be able to jump in the car at moment's notice and go. Both our stage of life and the place we live contribute. I sure can't argue.

So, we left shortly after noon, driving up I-70 a couple miles to Central City and heading north to Estes Park. We then drove through Rocky Mountain National Park and back through Winter Park. I think we managed to hit all the major Colorado "parks" in a single day. We were home in time to watch a movie before bed.

The scenery was incredible. We stopped and took pictures on a couple occasions. We were treated to some pretty incredible views of Long's Peak and got to check out the the hiking route from afar. The keyhole looks like it could be a bit intimidating (as it's rumored to be) but it's good to be able to prepare yourself mentally (as much as you can planted safely on the ground). I think we're inspired to tackle the peak next season or so.

Amazingly, the traffic wasn't too bad, aside from the "Elk Fest" that we happened upon in RMNP (at least admission to the park was free). People drive/act like idiots around animals (see also Yellowstone, Canadian Rockies, etc.). Again, at least we didn't pay $20 admission to sit in unmoving traffic.

Overall, well worth the trip.

A couple picture previews:




































View more here.

"Some national parks have long waiting lists for camping reservations. When you have to wait a year to sleep next to a tree, something is wrong."
George Carlin, US comedian and actor (1937 - 2008)

So the original plan was to go camping over Labor Day weekend. We waited too long and all the spots at RMNP (and everywhere else) were reserved. As a backup option, we spent the Saturday of Labor Day weekend in Breckenridge. We took a scenic drive up and back with our neighbors. Breckenridge had an arts festival, carnival and duck race going on over the long weekend.

After the gals read an article about the famed Olympic swimmer during the drive on Saturday morning, Michael Goodrum decided he was going to attempt the Michael Phelps diet - so we essentially ate our way through Breckenridge. The Phelps diet didn't even last the day. Otherwise, we checked out the art, played in the (frigid) river, took some pictures and spent time with friends. Here are a few shots from our adventures:






















Eric's bum meets the river... oops...

















The big ducks
The little ducks came floating down the river






















Zoe and Eric with the duck

















Daddy and Zoe






















Mommy and Zoe
Note Zoe with her sticks. You can tell that we live in an area of new development and don't have any substantial trees. Zoe is obsessed with sticks. She was picking them up everywhere we went the weekend we kept her.






















Michael being anti-social














Summertime slopes

Sunday afternoon we got together with most of our adjoining neighbors for a game night. Among the many adventures of the evening, we played Life - a classic game from our childhood. I had no clue the game even existed anymore. It sure seemed a lot more difficult now than it was in my childhood recollections!

This is very exciting.

We have been lacking in the blog department lately. We have two eventful weekends to report. Perhaps that will happen here in the next few days.

So the DNC has wrapped and had surprisingly minimal impact - at least on us. We got caught downtown in a bit of traffic (street closures, etc.) on Sunday but otherwise didn't see much effect. Even the complete closure of I-25 yesterday didn't seem to cause any major problems. It's pretty impressive to close 6 miles of a main interstate in a big city during rush hour and not cause major problems.

We watched the acceptance speech last night on C-SPAN (love the no commercials and not having to listen to the junk commentary by the network reporters!). Since it was a beautiful night, we had all the windows open and could hear the fireworks going off in the distance. It's a strange sensation to be so close to a major event like that. We actually tried to get tickets to Invesco last night but so did everyone else... The wait list wasn't quite short enough. It would have been cool to be there in person for a moment in history like that.

Michael and I spent half of the night cracking up at Biden. What a guy! He reminds me of someone I deal with in my work. The cheesy smile, the handshake extension from about 10 yards away, the celebrity wave, the go get 'em cowboy. Seriously...


(One of the many examples. It starts at the 1:12 marker and goes on for about a minute.)

Biden's a classic politician if there ever was one. Good ol' boy. (Call me cynical but I see way too much of these antics in my line of work).

I have a hard time seeing Biden's appeal for most Obama supporters - yet I'm sure that's not the point. I'm sure the nomination is to bring in people that Obama might not appeal to and maybe for leverage in DC, as Biden's clearly part of the insider network there.

So now the next phase begins. New GOP VP today. This race just continues to get more interesting. It would have been entertaining and an interesting comparison to have both the DNC and GOP conventions here in Denver, as there had been talk at one time. Instead we'll just have to watch next week's events from afar (no hearing the fireworks this time around).

In the meantime, the Gulf Coast can dodge the hurricanes and we'll keep up our attempts to dodge the wildfires (if I could just stop wheezing from the smoke that would be great - and I'm starting to miss being able to see the mountains too!).

We decided to make the most of one of our first unplanned weekends in a while. We had both been home for something like two weeks in a row, which indicates a trip of some nature was in order.

On Friday after work, we jumped on I-70 and headed to the mountains. Thankfully we managed to beat most of the traffic and were able to get the last "real" campsite in the campground. We checked out Leadville over dinner, home of ultra-marathons and other crazy endurance sports, as well as the former stomping grounds for the likes of Doc Holliday.















Proof the we actually do use our tent on occasions.

Friday night we got to break in some new gear, including new sleeping bags and Thermarest pads, which make the ground much more comfortable.

On Saturday morning, we got up at first light to attempt a summit of Mt. Elbert, the highest peak in Colorado. The hike is 9 miles round trip and gains/loses about 4,400 ft. each direction. The trail was not technical or sheer (for the most part) but somewhat more aggressive than I expected. Some parts of the trail were at fairly extreme angles (think 45 degrees or more). The trail did not hesitate to remind me that I have not been working out much this summer (excuses have been easy to come by - travel, visitors, surgeries...). It was generally an off hiking day for me, but we eventually made the summit. Highpoint #20 checked off. Now we can say we have done the highpoint in the state we live in. That was getting a bit embarrassing.















Mt. Elbert















Michael at the Mt. Elbert trailhead
(where the Mt. Elbert trail separates from the Colorado Trail)



















Evidence that the trail was very steep in sections
Michael is standing about 10 feet from the camera















At the top


Panoramic View from the top of Mt. Elbert

The descent always takes me longer than the estimates thanks to two uncooperative knees. We made it back just as some ominous storm clouds rolled in over Mt. Massive (the peak next door) and as we started hearing thunder in the distance. We hurried back to our campsite, broke camp and then stretched out a bit from the hike. Just as we got in the car to start our drive back, the rain started to fall.















Storm Clouds over the campground















Storm over Mt. Massive as we drove away

On the way back, we stopped in Lake Dillon at a little sushi place we've discovered. We pulled in to Denver as the sun set - and were in bed within 10 minutes of reaching the house. :)

All in all, a good Saturday in Colorado.















Placing highpoint #20 on our highpoints map















Colorado now has a pin

More pictures from the trip here.

The peak we look at directly from our house is Mt. Evans.















Mt Evans from our house

There is a scenic byway that travels to essentially the top of this 14,000 ft. peak. Since we moved to Colorado, we have seen the signs for Mt. Evans every time we drive into the mountains and comment that we need to go do that drive sometime.

A few weekends ago, we finally got around to actually making the drive. You start the drive up Mt. Evans from Echo Lake. The drive is not for the faint of heart, as it is quite sheer in some locations. We drove straight to the Summit Parking Lot, where we made the short 1/4 mile hike to the summit (only 130 vertical feet - although it's at altitude and you feel it the first couple steps). We snapped a couple pictures at the top and then headed down to Summit Lake for lunch.















Michael in the Summit Parking Lot















On Top of Mt Evans



Mt. Evans 360















Summit Lake
There were people actually hiking up and skiing/snowboarding down some of the areas with lingering snow. That's dedication - or else living in denial that ski season ended 2 months ago!

We checked out a couple trails and some scenic views from summit lake and then drove down to check out the M. Walter Pesman Trail. We encountered an interesting obstacle both at the summit and along this trail - massive snow drifts still in effect. It was quite reasonable given that it was still in the 30s at the summit. My running shoes and Michael's cowboy boots weren't the most appropriate footware for pursuing this hike. Thus, we continued our drive past a very friendly bighorn sheep.















Why Hello There

We stopped at a bristlecone pine grove to check it out as we continued the descent. At the bottom, we spent a few minutes at Echo Lake to gaze at where we had been.















Echo Lake

Beautiful scenery and a cool way to view a 14er with minimal effort. I think we'll be bringing visitors back to this one.

For the full picture portfolio for the trip, click here.

So it seems that each area of the country has it's own unique "weather" phenomena.

• Houston it was hurricanes and floods primarily.
• Mississippi it was both hurricanes and tornadoes.
• Boston it was crazy nor'easters (they get hurricanes too).

Funny - it seems we've lived mostly in coastal communities until now.

Upon moving to Denver, we had thought we were pretty safe, as we considered the potential natural disasters. Denver is not exactly known for its floods, hurricanes or tsunamis (300 days of sunshine a year!). Blizzards are occasional but rather rare and so long as you have sufficient food and water they tend to melt away in time. We're fairly safe from earthquakes and, while we get our fair share of hail storms, we're close enough to the mountains that tornadoes rarely have a chance to form. We get some crazy winds - like 50-70 mph, but normally they don't do much damage. Last week we learned our vulnerability.

We had quite the thunderstorm last week (the first of the season). At one point, lightening struck very close by - close enough to scramble my computer (causing it to open several hundred programs at once). Shortly after the hit, I began hearing sirens - giving us flashbacks to this. I looked out the window to see where the ruckus was - and what I saw did not give me comfort. There were two glowing red sections in the open space that backs up to our house. At that point it had been very dry and we had not had any measurable precipitation for several weeks. The fires were less than a mile away and the wind was blowing 50-60 mph at that point. Thankfully the fire department was on the scene within probably a minute of the flare up and had it under control quickly (although there were flashing lights for hours in the open space). The next morning we woke up to a scarred and blackened section out in the open space. Scary enough, I think we've found our vulnerability. I am thankful for a responsive fire department and hope we never have to deal with this kind of natural disaster in any closer proximity than we did.

We learned an important lesson today - don't run self-clean on the oven in the middle of the winter. It's 30 degrees, snowing, and we have a bunch of windows open. Still the fumes are a bit overwhelming!

Oven cleaning is a much better project to be done in the late spring, early fall or on summer nights - when you can open all the windows comfortably.

So after a year in Denver, winter trips through mountain passes and a car that is fond of sliding out of the driveway, we finally decided to invest in a pair of snow chains for the tires. Chances are we will never use them (especially in the city - you'd get laughed at), but they say it's better to have them and never use them than to need them and not have them. The Prism now has a nice set of snow chains tucked away in the trunk for a rainy (errr, icy) day as well as jumper cables, which we discovered that we did not have when we needed them a few weeks back. Winter driving...

So I started this post about two weeks ago and have never gotten around to uploading the pictures. Here's a very belated post about our trip to the Denver Zoo.

The second weekend of November, we took a trip to the Denver Zoo. It was the perfect day for a zoo trip. It was cool enough that almost all the animals were active but not so cold as to be uncomfortable. It was a gorgeous day with blue skies and sunshine until the minute we decided to leave (when a freak, isolated rain shower hit). I was impressed with the Denver Zoo - it was quite well done. ...And Michael finally got to check out the zoo, which has been on his wish list for a while. Here are a couple fun highlight pictures from our trip.





























The baby giraffe was tiny and just learning to use its legs















Zoe checking out the peacock - very intense

































Eric joined Zoe to make up the little kids contingency



















One big kid with a rhino
The big kids far outnumbered the little ones















































Ever had one of these days? I sure have... :)