In Case of Flood, Climb to Safety

This week we took a little road trip and went down to Rocky Mountain National Park. The park was gorgeous, and Cleo had a great time as well--she even realized that it's okay to walk on a leash and hasn't refused it since!






We went up as far as we could go by road in the park, stopping where they closed the road (we assume for cold). But, honestly, getting there was half the fun. We had to drive through a canyon called Big Thompson Canyon on the way and the road is literally at the bottom of the canyon (next to Big Thompson River, of course) and it was absolutely gorgeous. I would make that drive every day just for fun! This is also where the "in case of flood, climb to safety" sign comes in...really it should say "in case of flood, good luck!"



And just about a half an hour outside of the park is a city called Estes Park, CO. I don't have any pictures of it, sadly, but I absolutely fell in love with this city. It's tiny and has all these one of a kind shops and everything is within walking distance. And it's super dog friendly--we only got kicked out of one store and most stores have signs on the front that say dogs welcome! (We can't leave Cleo in the car yet because she'll eat the car).

But, about a half an hour outside Estes Park, there's a store called Colorado Cherry. I love cherries. And this place has everything cherry: juice, cider, jam, jelly, everything. We stopped and I picked up some cherry jam for filling some cupcakes this week!

Very successful road trip!

How Here is Different Than There

Moving to the other side of the country is obviously a big adjustment. But, some changes weren't really anticipated and we have to live around here awhile to get a hang of them. Mostly they are things you'd never think of that are suprising! Such as...

Traffic Lights



On the eastern side of the country, we have three lights at traffic stops: red, yellow, green. Occasionally we see a green arrow. And that's it.
Here, however, there are no "green lights" for turn lanes--there are only arrows. So you either get a green arrow (not that I've seen this), a flashing yellow arrow (which means proceed with caution), a regular yellow arrow (which means you better book it before the light turns red) or a red arrow. This seems particularly unintelligent since the flashing yellow and the regular yellow are in the same "circle" so you have to really be paying attention so see the change if you are waiting to turn.

Communication



Such as one area code for the entire state.
One news broadcast and, yes, it covers the entire state.
The news broadcast is horrible, too. It's so bad. We had a high school news produced by high school students and it was better than this. You can literally hear people in the background saying "ok...go" when they switch the cameras.
There are a large amount of radio stations, though. That was a GOOD surprise.
And I'm going to go ahead and throw "highways closed for high wind" into this one. Because the highway is pretty much the only way to get to any other city from here. And it's at least an hour away. The highways close way too often.

Lawns



The only lawns in this state that aren't brown are in our neighborhood. And that's only because we are required to water it three times a week.
However, we are not required to have the following in our yard, but can't seem to get rid of them: Prairie Dogs AND their lovely holes (Cleo likes to stick her head in them so..that's always fun) and antelope AND their lovely crap. Thankfully, Cleo is a pansy and after about 20 seconds of staring at the antelope that are consistently in our yard (eating my mums), she runs back to me or the house. Yea, she's a great herding dog ;)

Cleopatra

We've officially been in our new city 1200 miles from our hometown for a month now. We're starting to get everything settled and have really been getting used to our new city. We've definitely hit a good curve, and are enjoying it out here. Especially because it was 80 all week and will be in the 70s all this week, while it's 45 in our hometown! :) We won't be able to brag about this for too long, but for now it's good to rub in our families faces.

To this point, I've been pretty sick since we got here. Had a 10 lb losing stomach bug for 2 weeks, and other than that it's been just kind of one thing after the other. But, I've still been looking for employment and despite looking for a job for a month, I still don't have one. After giving up on finding something in Education (you know...the thing I actually have a degree in), I'm just trying to find something full-time, basically anywhere, during the day--which is hard to do, apparently.

Why during the day, you ask?

Because of this little midget. Cleo.


We rescued our Cleo, half cattle dog half aussie shepherd, a few weeks ago.


And, although getting an 8 week old puppy comes with sleepness nights, many fond moments cleaning the carpet, and nipping at the ankles, we love this weird, adorable puppy of ours!