Sarah and I really had a great time in South Padre. What’s great is that we like to do touristy things, but that we also like venture out into the wilderness.

One the cool things that we discovered was that we could drive on the beaches (legally). When I found out I was like a kid in sandbox with Tonka toys. There were beaches on the north part of South Padre Isl. that have not been developed, so we drove up and down passing many families fishing, having a picnic, laying out in the sun. They were great, but there was a lack of quality seashells.

I kept looking at the map and noticed just south of where we were staying was a highway that went directly up to the shore into a state park. We had a rental car and unlimited miles so it had to be investigated.

We realized we were pretty close to Mexico, but it didn’t sink in till we passed a border inspection stop on the way to our unknown destination. I felt a little uneasy going past the stop, almost like it was a DUI checkpoint, but continued down as we kept seeing signs for the state park.

When we reached the beach, it was different from the beaches we had been on before. There were tons of shells as well as a lot of garbage. We kept driving down the beach and got to a point where the shells replaced the sand.

We drove all the way down to the point where we were at the mouth of the Rio Grande. Sarah couldn’t believe that just a matter of a few hundred feet was Mexico. It was a sight that we had never seen before.

We did a 2 hour dolphin tour that took us around the bay and out into the gulf for a bit. For the first half they dragged a net and brought up some of the sea life.

Read the rest of this entry »

Note: Not coming home, friends and family. Please box and ship Clancy and Buddy to South Padre… kthxbai.

Read the rest of this entry »

Weiner Mobile from gotshoo and Vimeo.

This video is on the last leg of our Colorado trip. And you thought I had posted everything! I think at this point I have been driving for at least 10 hours. The majority of the driving was through Kansas, which is the worst state to drive through. It was such a boring drive I woke up GTG just to get video of the Weiner Mobile. As I describe it in the video, it was an epic moment.

Uploading the last of the Colorado pictures. Looking back, I could do it all over again.

More info…

This was taken at the Fat Tire Bike Week in Crested Butte. The guy above takes old townies (fixed gear bikes) and refurbs them. He joked, “I do more hands on work with Schwinns than Schwinn does now.” He had some awesome looking bikes; check out the blue and white one right-center of the picture.

I wish I had gotten his contact information but GTG and I had just been beaten up on guided mountain biking trails. We crashed back at the KOA shortly after this.

We later on joked that we wanted matching townie bikes for our wedding gift.

Believe it or not, I still have plenty of CO photos left.

This was taken from the top of Pike’s Peak.

We’re back home. See what we bootlegged!

Geez, lot has happened in a week. “Nessie” is slithering around Lake Springfield (Dave, I thought you were kidding), Heinzel is posted all over the SJ-R, TV 20 is still doing some outstanding reporting, AC and JP have iPhones, and my grass is green again.

I am headed back into work tomorrow. Anything for not another 15 hour day of driving.

I’ve got about 3 GB of photos to sift through.

I am pooped.

Not the Avalanche or the Broncos but the whole state. This is what I’ve learned in my week stay in the mile high state.

• You can not hit pedistrians like you can in Illinois. There are special signs in the middle of the roading pointing out that you must stop for pedestrians – “It’s state law.”
• People bike everywhere. Every city we’ve been to: Estes Park, Fort Collins, Colorado Springs, Durango, Gunnison, Crested Butte; there are tons of designated trails, special bike lanes, bike racks. Bike shops are more plentiful than Strabucks.
• Driving in the mountains is not for the weak of heart. Watch out you pacemakers. But it’s soooo cool driving down a 7% grade at 75 to a valley.
• Hot is not hot. Someone apologized for the weather when we first came out. It was like 90 with no hummidity. We explained to them that it was nothing and we would just “tough” it out.
• No lack of beer anywhere except on Sundays when stores can only sell beer with 3.25% or less amounts alcohol.
• Tundra grass only grows a 1/2 inch every 75 years. GTG was very upset at the top of Longs Peak when tourists were trouncing down on the delicate grass.
• A 75 mph speed limit on the interstate is the perfect limit.
• KOAs are the place to stay. Everyone of them has had wifi.
• “Intermediate” means a total different thing in mountain biking language out here.

We’re headed back east tomorrow. Brother, please clean up or hide anything the dogs have torn up.

Didn’t know I modeled for the Bass Pro Magazine.

This is GTG at the top of Pikes Peak.  I love how in one hand she is holding her purse and in the other she has newly bought souvenir. I am in the background taking pictures and telling her to come back because Momma GTG will kill me if she gets hurt… or falls off the side of the mountain.

We drove all the way to the top. Pretty exciting since guard rails are nonexistant and a 1/3 of the road is a dirt and gravel mix.

It’s no secret that GTG wants to kidnap me and move us out to Colorado. I just wasn’t aware to what extents she would go. We checked out Garden of the Gods Tuesday night. She asked this couple to take our picture… (the perfect setup). The guy was a photographer. His wife was a real estate broker. They immediately started singing the praises of Colorado. “Ohh, the average temperature here during the winter is only 50…. A great place to raise a family… Sometimes you’ve just got to strike out on your own…” She even dropped us her card.

I know she had to of called ahead and made this setup with the Colorado welcoming committee.

Disclaimer: Momma Shoo and Momma GTG, stop reading now. You don’t want to know any of this. You’ll never let us go on vacation together again.

Told you I’m a trooper. A short walk to geocaching sites turned into a three-mile, 7200 foot hike. How did this happen, you ask (especially since I was getting ready to down a couple Sudafed after my last post)?

I did down the Sudafed. We started on our geocaching expedition, and that turned bust really quickly. We didn’t find anything. Shoo asked if I felt up to walking a bit further, and that turned into summitting a mountain while totally high off meds.

We ended up out at the Flatirons, a range that are like foothills to the Rockies. They were created by plate movement, then exposed by erosion. You can actually see the cracks in the cliffs and the boulders that have fallen off. They look quite a bit different from the mountains up in Estes. They’re more crumbly looking, I suppose. Anyway, we ended up summitting the peak of the first Flatiron. (There are five total.)

The hike was much more challenging than our first one out here. It began easily enough…just a bit of an incline, but it quickly got more difficult. I suppose climbing a mountain can’t be a piece of cake. To keep the incline somewhat manageable (if you’re a mountain man with legs the size of my waist who’s been hiking since you were three), the trail cut back and forth. We also had to cross a boulderfield at one point. (We will have pictures later to give you a visual of what I’m talking about.)

Then we managed to take a wrong turn and ended up accidentally clamoring up boulders to scale the mountain. We were about 7000 feet up climbing up the side of a cliff face. (Moms, this is why we told you to stop reading.) We realized our error, and Shooster had to talk me down the side of the mountain. With the Sudafed-head, I wasn’t feeling like I could make it down safely. I won’t lie, it was terrifying. We could look down and see what 7000 feet looks like (really high). We’ll have to show you pictures so you can really get the feel for what we were doing. Again, moms, don’t look!

We found the right trail and continued on our way through a series of switchbacks to finally make the last big push (climbing over boulders with footholes conveniently cut out for us). At the summit, Shoo busted out the video camera, and we made a short video. Then it began thundering (one of those afternoon storms that tend to roll into the mountains), and we hauled bottom to make it down below treeline so we didn’t get fried.

It rained on us a bit on the way down, but nothing too bad. We gulped Gatorade and water when we finally reached the car. Now we’re sitting in Panera (don’t make fun) eating a late lunch and blogging.

We’re off to Colorado Springs next…