#231 Key Lime Pie Competition

A special thanks goes out this week to our Colorado friends who traveled to Pennsylvania for a wedding and stopped by to see us in Virginia on their way home! We admire that kind of creative thinking. We do.

And, as if their visit was not enough, they brought key lime pie with them! We, of course, had key lime pie in the refrigerator. I ask you, what could be better than a little key lime pie taste-testing competition?

Competitively yours,
Mary

#216 Our Top 10 Drives Revisited

We were afraid this might happen.

Just as soon as we made a list of our Top 10 drives, we found ourselves on the Million Dollar Highway. So now what? After great deliberation and with fear that we are falling prey to the most-recent-will-always-be-the-best syndrome, we’ve decided to revise the list.

Just south of Ouray, CO in the San Juan Mountains, the two-lane road is a cliff-hanger. If you’re afraid of edges, it’s a little scary.

We’re still hanging out in the beautiful mountain state of Colorado and loving the big horn sheep, the pronghorns, the mountains with summer snow,

the aspen trees,

and those cool ranch gates.

Yours in having a hard time leaving Colorado,
Mary

#215 The Mountain States

Driving through the mountain states of Idaho, Utah, and Colorado, we appreciate... Fascinating geologic features

Sonic Drive-Ins

A bunch of national parks to explore including Arches National Park (1 of 5 in Utah)

and Mesa Verde National Park (1 of 4 in Colorado)

Uncrowded fun roads to drive

We also appreciate all these things as yet unphotographed...

• Rocks, rocks, and more rocks
• Ponderosa Pines
• Mountains
• Wild animal life – jackrabbits, prairie dogs, antelope, elk, muskrat, ravens, lizards
• Agricultural animal life – sheep, horses
• Lack of storms, warm temperatures, and sunny skies
• Bug-free windshield
• Friendly locals

Yours in having trouble choosing between the northern plains and the mountain states,
Kelly and Mary

#214 Oh The Places We’ve Seen Cool Libraries

With so much natural beauty out west, some may not notice the libraries - their mistake. My 4 favorites are...

Twin Bridges, MT with an outdoor mural

Boise, ID with an exclamation point

 

Hagerman, ID proud to be Idaho’s best

 

Mesa Verde National Park

 

You can take the librarian out of the library, but you can't keep her from hitting the brakes whenever she passes one. 

Yours in library appreciation, 

Mary

#11 Fifty Words and a Picture

Happy 20th anniversary tomorrow to our friends and role models, Rob and Donna!

Not only did they travel for four+ months...
they carried and cooked their own meals (no 3 meals per day provided)
they wore the same clothes over and over (no valet laundry service provided)
they walked from town to town (no ship to carry them)
they slept out under the stars (no comfy cabin to come home to each night)
and they journaled with pencil and paper!

And one year after hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, they’re still together, still happy and already starting on another new adventure. Happy anniversary. In a tribute to all 20-year marriages in Colorado, we released We Are Still Married: Stories and Letters at the La Junta train station.

In this book, Garrison Keillor taught me how to write postcards. Garrison wrote, “A postcard takes about fifty words gracefully, which is how to write one. A few sweet strokes in a flowing hand – pink roses, black-face sheep in a wet meadow, the sea, the Swedish coast – your friend in Washington gets the idea. She doesn’t need your itinerary to know that you remember her. Fifty words is a strict form but if you write tiny and sneak over into the address side to squeeze in a hundred, the grace is gone and the result is not a poem but notes for a letter you don’t have time to write, which will make her feel cheated.”

Yours in needing way more than 50 words to congratulate our friends,
Mary