Joshua and I have been home for almost 24 hours. We’re attempting to adjust to eastern standard time instead of mountain, but our hearts of full from the almost 3,000 miles of driving we did in the last week.
In the spring when I convinced Josh that Colorado had to be our vacation spot for 2016 (Thank you Creative at Heart for having round five in Denver 😉 ), we started making plans for our trip. We we drove out in 2011 we stayed in the Denver area the whole trip. This year we flew a direct Southwest flight from Cleveland (during the RNC…) to Denver, loaded our two suitcases, my pelican, and carry on into the rental car, and drove 10 hours north to Bozeman, Montana.
When Josh was in high school, he connected with a Harvest Crew. This crew cut wheat for farmers who had so much land, they needed help harvesting the crop. So the crew would start in Texas and make their way north as the wheat was aquired it’s beautiful golden color. Bozeman happened to be Josh’s favorite stop. Fun little fact, a month and a half into our relationship, Josh was offered a job in Bozeman and the crazy boy asked me to move with him. For reasons unknown, the job fell through and we stayed in Ohio. It got serious enough I was looking at majors at the college in Bozeman.
We spent one evening and drove south to Yellowstone. I first visited the national park in 1996 – when I was six. 20 years later I was able to make memories with my Husband – memories that I have photographed and ones that I can remember more vividually then 20 years ago.
We drove nearly 50 miles of the park, watched Old Faithful blow, spotted a female elk laying by the lake, and stopped for plenty of photos. When we exited Yellowstone we drove through Teton National Park, and again took MORE photos. God love my Husband because he never once complained when I asked him to stop for another photo opportunity.
Driving through Wyoming back to Denver, we were literally FEET from a forest fire. I have never been that close to witness the destruction of a fire on a forest like that. Of course I was driving when we went past, but Josh eagerly grabbed my camera and got some incredible shots of not only the fire, but also the helicopper scooping up water from a small lake.
We’d eventually get into Colorado. Thursday even we had anniversary photos scheduled (a whole post is dedicated to those – don’t worry!). Friday we traveled north to Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park were we were able to get about 30 yards from ELK! Yes…real life ELK! And not just one, but SEVERAL…and not just one time, but TWICE we were only a couple yards from this beautiful animals.
If you follow on Instagram, you have been able to see several behind the scenes photos from our trip. It’s been a wonderful vacation and I’m excited to share some of the photos from our National Park visits! Be sure to keep an eye out for our anniversary photos. I can’t wait to share the gallery with you!
