grand canyon

I feel like we returned home from our road trip weeks ago {two weeks to be exact}, so blogging about it seems outdated. On the other hand though, if I don't finish my road trip updates, I'll feel like a task was left incomplete. The Virgo in my won't let that happen.

I was on a roll updating and then some unexpected, well actually, it was pretty expected, family novella occurred. My mom was admitted to the hospital on Friday in San Diego, so I've been back and forth since then. Unfortunately, the hospital doesn't have Wi-Fi, so I'm limited to completing homework for a class I'm taking this summer at CSULB and reading another Jodi Picoult novel {The Tenth Circle}. I'm not comfortable revealing too much about what's going on with my mom, but if you could pray or think positive thoughts about our family situation, that would be awesome. I'm a little anxious about what the future holds and how we'll deal with what's going on with my mom, more so, how she'll cope and manage her own health. Thankfully, Rob has been amazing and his family has been incredibly supportive too, and of course, my bro and Mimi are awesome and totally involved.

On to the Grand Canyon...

Is it completely un-Americana to say that this was my least favorite portion of our road trip? The Grand Canyon was spectacular and completely crazily massive, but those feelings lasted for a few minutes and then we were ready to move on to the next activity. It was a total National Lampoon experience!



Rob slept for a couple of hours en route to Flagstaff from Telluride, he missed New Mexico and some of Arizona.



We arrived very late to Flagstaff, so there isn't much to share other than our dinner/midnight snack at Denny's. We were up bright and early to catch a train to the Grand Canyon.

Do you see the train guy's bow tie? He was only the start of the train experience cheesiness. We were told that this was a fun ride with some silly Wild West reenactments. Boy where they right-on describing this ride with the word "silly". For me, it was an opportunity to not sit in the car. The train took us to the South Rim where we had about 4 hours to explore the beauty.

I love this picture of Rob!

Taking it all in

Okay...let's go

Desperate to escape...

I'm somewhat joking about my boredness. It views were spectacular and our pictures surely don't showcase the actual feeling of being in complete "awe". We would like to visit again one day: probably the North Rim, with little Tuckers in tow, and without the train experience. Not that it wasn't fun to be part of a pretend robbery...

The train station was located in Williams, AZ, an itsy bitsy town with lots of country western charm.


The town had a "shoot-out" with some live Revolutionary War-style music played by some high school kids. After watching the entire town watch the shoot-out, we ate some delicious BBQ at a little cafe called Cruiser's Route 66 Cafe.

They had a giant BBQ!

That's it for Flagstaff, Williams, and the Grand Canyon. Up next, a quick drive through Sedona and Avondale to visit my family.

scoot pink

When I recently posted this picture from the Boulder part of our trip, Crystal from Scoot Pink asked me to email her this photo of me in front of the pink Vespa.

I thought since I was at it, I'd also send her this picture from our New York trip in 2006.

Crystal posted these pics on her blog today! Thanks, Crystal for the shout out! Oh, how I'd love to one day pose in front of my pink Vespa!

Check out her great website, Scoot Pink!

converse(red)

Rob graciously gave me a Design-Your-Own-Converse gift card that he received for Christmas from a vendor. I was waiting and waiting to decide upon the perfect Converse to design. I just wasn't inspired by the color options. I really wanted fuchsia, but that's not an option, it should be though, shouldn't it? I ended up forgoing the Design-Your-Own and decided to give back with some cuties from the Product (Red) line.

telluride, co

This post, which details our experience in Telluride, is very photo heavy. Telluride was definitely my favorite city! While I would love to live in Boulder, I would love to visit Telluride annually.

Sometime after we left Denver, we drove through the desolate city of South Park, CO. Evidently, the television show is loosely based upon this little city.

Then we drove through a mountainous region with snow still on the ground.

And then we drove through a tiny town that forgot to put the second golden arch on the McDonald's sign.

Finally, we entered the lovely city of Crested Butte to have lunch with the newlyweds, Brent and Andrea. This tiny town was so perfectly {oddly} cute. In fact, it felt more like a movie set rather than an actual lived-in city.

Rob, me, Andrea, and Brent

Somewhere between Crested Butte and Telluride, we drove through some amazing scenery. The sky was so vibrantly blue and the green so freshly green.



Our first impression of Telluride...So gorgeous!


Our first evening in Telluride was awesome! We roamed the town and ate at Rustico, where I think I drank the best wine I've ever tasted. My taste buds may have been skewed though as I thought I landed in heaven once we arrived in Telluride.

We actually stayed in a little lodge in the city of Mountain Village, which is around and up the mountain from Telluride. At first I was disappointed that we weren't staying right in Telluride, but then we were informed that there is a free gondola that travels between the two cities.

Our first full day in Telluride started with the gondola ride. Oh my gosh, it was the coolest ride ever! The view was incredible! We took pictures, but they don't do the views justice at all, so I'm not posting them.

Excitedly getting on the gondola!!

After lunch, we walked by a guy that was giving city tours on Segways. We decided that would be a fun, nerdy way to see the town.

This humble home could be yours, for only $8MM - turns out property is not cheap in Telluride

I love this picture, the scenery and Rob's helmet placement :)

After our city tour and a little nap, we went for a hike.


We ate dinner at a great sushi place {can't remember the name} and then had ice cream at the Sweet Life, which is where we ran into TomKat, certainly one of the highlights of our road trip! Once back to our hotel room, we video chatted with Rob's family. I had to take a picture because I couldn't believe we were chatting with Rob's parents in San Clemente and then Rob's sister in San Diego. Rob even figured out how to share pictures. Technology is crazy!


4th of July was out last morning/afternoon in Telluride. Our plan was to go to the town parade and then the BBQ. This was the perfet 4th of July Americana celebration. Everyone was dressed in red, white, and blue and ready to celebrate the purpose of the holiday.

I loved how the town honored their veterans.

This was our Segway tour guide

This little guy was my absolute favorite parade participant

This elephant had an accident right in front of us...the crowd loved it!

After the parade, the entire town walked to the park for a BBQ put on by the fire department.

We had to wait in line for about an hour, but Rob was happy because there was a park wi-fi

On our Segway tour, we learned that these two homes {now valued at a couple million dollars} were once the homes of the town prostitutes

Saying farewell to the ridiculously beautiful city of Telluride...



Leaving the beauty of greenery and entering desertland...