Palm Springs for New Years

My friend Colin asked me if I wanted to go to Palm Springs for New Years. Duh!!!! I started 2008 with a great trip to Europe & saw no reason to not end it with one. My goal for 2008 was to travel some where once a month & I did it. It was a great year. This was the first time I've ever been to Palm Springs and it was a lot of fun.
View of the mountains right out the front door of the Riviera Resort & Spa where we stayed.Grey Goose & tonic anyone? As Jeanne puts it, "I didn't realize GI Joe & Ken knew each other. The resort had a great pool & we spent the day there the whole trip.
We picked blue eye's (Mark) up from the airport and the shenanigans began :). Mark, Colin, Joe & myself on New Years Eve.
So I finally put the Speedo on. I figured what the hell. I'm single so might as well go with the flow.
Last night in the desert. Myself, Joe & Colin at Wangs in the Dessert.

Christmas Party!

So I threw my first Christmas party in a long time. It was a very empowering experience since this was the first party I had thrown since the breakup. It couldn't have turned out better thanks to the help of my best friend Cammie. I think all that came had a very good time & the party was a huge success. Here is my go to gal Cammie for party preparations. She is busy slaving over a cheese tray. We've been best friends for over 10 years now & our relationship just keeps getting better. Words can't describe truly how much she means to me.Three of my favorite people: Ruben, Colin & Jeff.One of the best pictures of the night in my opinion. Randi & NoahColin, myself, Cammie & Jeff before the party really got rockin.

I think Jeremy just farted & Jim couldn't believe it. :) just kidding. Funny picture with Jeremy, Nick, Jim & Randi.Hands down my favorite picture of the night. Myself, Mark, Joe, Colin & Cammie.

Australia, Nov 17th-Dec 5th

I traveled to Australia to visit my friend Michael who moved to Melbourne this past June. It was a great trip and one that I won't soon forget. I was able to do some really cool things while there like climbing the Harbour Bridge in Sydney, holding a koala & scuba diving at the Great Barrier Reef. I was able to visit the 3 states of Victoria, New South Wales & Queensland while there. I hope you enjoy this latest entry to my blog.

I figured I'd start the blog off with an image that most people recognize Australia with, the Sydney Opera House. It is truly something to behold.Michael, Joanne & I outside the show "Wicked" in Melbourne. My friend Zac has always talked about this being one of his favorite shows. For those of you that do not know, this is a musical that is a prequel to the "Wizard of Oz" and tells the story of how the good & bad witch came to be. I've never been a fan of the "Wizard of Oz", but this play was awesome. I would highly recommend seeing it.

Isn't he cute? Here is a baby koala inside a nature preserve on Philip Island.Coastal shot of Philip Island. This island is very unique. I don't have a picture of it because we were not allowed to take pictures, but every evening at dusk these small penguins come in from hunting for food all day to bed down in their burrows. It is the coolest thing. Suddenly huge groups of penguins come in & start walking across the beach. So funny to see.Great shot of Michael & his sister Joanne at the Anglesea-split point lighthouse.
This is some of the beautiful countryside along the Great Ocean road outside of Melbourne.We saw this cute little sucker along the road. He was slowly waddling along. I can't remember the name for this species, but it is not a Hedgehog.While we were driving on the Great Ocean Road we came along several wild Koala's. Look just over the top of my head in this photo and you can see a Koala in a tree. So cool to see them out in the wild.
Joanne & I acting silly since we had just seen all of these Koala's out in the wild.
The main attraction along the Ocean Road is the Twelve Apostle's. Are these beautiful or what?Another shot of 2 of the Twelve. Absolutely beautiful here.
Our jug of Coca Cola. So I finally found someone that loves Coke just as much as I do. We had spent a long day in the car driving around all the sites & needed a pick me up. Can you tell that we are high on caffeine? We didn't have just one jug, we finished off two. Ahh, good stuff.Michael set up a wine tour one day of the Yarra Valley. We caught a train out of Melbourne and traveled about 1 hour to this region. Last winery of the day. Michael & Joanne loved the wine. I mainly ate cheese. As most of you know I love vodka. Hmm, next trip Russia. I wonder if they have tours of the vodka plants. That would be awesome. :)Here I am with the Sydney Opera House in the background. It is absolutely beautiful around the harbor. The opera house was projected to cost 7 million and be finished within 3 years. It actually took 16 years to build and cost 107 million. While I was there the architect Jorn Utzon died. He resigned from the project due to budget & timelines. He never came back to Australia after it was completed.
Me with the background of the Harbour Bridge.
Joanne & I at the Blue Mountains outside of Sydney. In the background you have the Three Sisters rock formation. It is kind of hard to see as the weather was pretty bad.The highlight of the whole trip for me was being able to climb the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Such a cool experience. Here I am with my group of 10. I was the only American in the bunch.
I made it!!!!! Here I am at the top of the Harbour Bridge. What a beautiful backdrop with the Opera House & harbor.
I traveled to Cairns (pronounced Cans) so that I could finally see the Great Barrier Reef. Cairns is very tropical and reminded me a lot of Hawaii. Here is a shot of 4 mile beach.Look closely at this picture. These are bats & they were HUGE. Probably about a foot long. I have never seen a bat as big as this before.So I was tickled to death when my concierge at the hotel told me where I could go to hold a Koala. Isn't he cute? He weighed about 10 pounds. I'm just thankful that he didn't use those claws on me. He smelled like Eucalyptus.
**Note: I hate this picture of me and only put it on here because it is the only one I had holding a koala.**

Broncos Game

Ever since Jeff & Cammie moved here 2 years ago Jeff has always wanted to go to a Broncos game. I finally got us tickets to go see Denver play against Miami. I took my buddy Jeff T from volleyball and we all had a lot of fun.
Great shot outside the stadium.

So I scored some major exclusive seats. The very last row of Mile High Stadium. Nothing but the best for my friends :). Cammie, Jeff K, Jeff T & myself enjoying many beers.
Superstar Cammie!!!!
The mustard exploded all over Jeffrey's hand. Or maybe he just hadn't bathed in a few days.Beer run. We were literally on the last row of the stadium. They were good seats though. We had a perfect view of the whole field.




Cool video Cammie shot of the game while the crowd was getting pumped up and making some noise.
We lucked out with such a beautiful day. The weather was perfect with a high in the mid 70's.How does that song go? And I would walk 500 miles & I would walk 500 more. da da da da!!!! My favorite picture of the day. We were tipsy and bloated from all the peanuts and beer. In other words, it was a great day.

Mat Kearney Concert at Gothic Theater

Mat Kearney singing "Nothing Left To Lose"

Chase, Dan, Jared, Steve & I before the concert started.

Roadtrip to Yellowstone National Park

There is no better way to end a summer than a good old fashioned road trip. Drew, Aaron & myself embarked on a 4 day trip to Yellowstone for the Labor Day Holiday. We camped within the park and had a great time.Just outside of Rawlins, WY I took this pic of the changing landscape.The first night we spent in Jackson Hole, WY. Notice that Aaron, myself & Drew look clean in this pic. That was not the case by the end of it.
Probably one of the prettiest mountain ranges there is. The Grand Tetons are simply amazing.
This is my favorite pic of the whole trip. This was taken as we were entering Yellowstone.Giddy up partner!!! So Aaron is as big a horse nut as myself. We took a trail ride inside the park and had a great time. It was neat to see the park at this vantage point. The trail ride leader said 98% of people visiting the park never venture outside of their car.
The IDAHO SPUD. So there is a story behind this candy bar. About 13 years ago my family was in Montana for Christmas. My sisters and parents were out one day while the rest of us were skiing. They stopped at a gas station and Cynthia told mom to get her a Snickers to snack on. Mom decided to get her something local & bought her this Idaho Spud candy bar. They had already gotten back on the road when Cynthia decided to eat it and she thought it was god awful. We laughed about this candy bar the rest of the trip, so when I saw it in Yellowstone I had to buy one. Cynthia, Carla & mom will be getting one in the mail real soon. Yumm!!!They estimate the herd population of the buffalo in the park to be about 3500 this year. When you see all the land in the park you would think there would be a lot more than this.We lucked out as far as Old Faithful goes. The geyser erupts every 70 to 120 minutes. Luckily we had just gotten there and it erupted. Sweet!!!
I had to include this picture of Aaron since he rode in the backseat the majority of the time. We opted not to take the side panels for my Jeep since it looked to be great weather the whole time we were gone. The last day when we were driving home it was cold. We drove through rain & snow. Thank goodness we had a ton of blankets.
Huge bull elk just across the street from where we were camping.
It is the Ritz Carlton. Nah, that is just our tent.Nothing like cooking beans and chicken outdoors. Mental note, no more beans for Aaron on the next trip. :)I love toasted marshmellows. Of course the only way I eat mine are completely burnt to which Drew and Aaron thought I was crazy.
So you know the old story how "every village has its idiot"??? Well this idiot in the red cap was vacationing in Yellowstone. First off, you are not supposed to feed the animals. We watched from the Jeep in amazement as what was about to take place. This guy decided to go get his dogs out of his car & I guess he thought they would make friends with this elk. So he takes the dogs down to the elk & basically forces them with the leash to get right up to the elk. So what does the elk do? IT ATTACKS!!! The elk came up on its back legs and started pawing the poor dogs. It is a wonder it didn't attack this man too. Another tourist started shouting at the man telling him how stupid he was. We just felt sorry for the dogs because they got hurt and were crying. The dogs can't help it that they have an idiot for an owner. Here is the aftermath right after the attack. Notice the elk sticking its tongue out. It is probably thinking stupid tourist & I showed you. The poor dog on the left is the one that got pummeled with the elks legs.
So the highlight of the trip for me was seeing 2 moose. I have never been able to get this close to one before. They are huge. September 1st & we have snow in the mountains. This picture was taken right outside of Jackson Hole on the way home.
Maybe it was a good thing after all that we didn't have the side panels on the Jeep. It kept the air circulating since all 3 of us stunk to high heaven. Peww!!!!Huge rainbow that was welcoming us back into Colorado. This has been a great trip.