We get on a plane for Honduras in 9 hours

Yep, so Kalin and I are going to be heading out tommorow morning to Honduras to meet our first host family and begin our training in Honduras. So we are going to try and catch a couple of hours of sleep now.

To review our recent adventures:

We left from Colorado and went to Johnson City Tn to Clemson to Lexington to Charleston to Sardinia to Lexington to Washington DC to Richmond and Back to Washington DC. We will have pictures from that adventure "soon".

Peace

-Bert

Boulder and Frisco

So we have just returned to Robs house in Boulder after spending the weekend in Frisco/Copper Mountain Area of Colorado.
On thursday we hiked the Flat Irons here near Boulder, it was a pretty good workout. This is Kalin from the top of Flat Iron 1.



On Friday after exploring the town of Boulder we met up with the Fant's and all drove in the little truck to Frisco. The next morning Chas and Amy went snowboarding and Kalin, Rob, and I went snowshoeing in a national forest adjacent to the Resort. We returned to our Condo and to the hot tub and to grilled meal. On Sunday we all headed back to Copper Mountain - Kalin and I went Tubing down some crazy hills.
Kalin's high of this weekend was playing games with everybody in the Condo and her low was her snowboarding attemp. My high was adrenaline associated with the speed of going down a hill spinning and clutching Kalin's feet. My low was finding out that there was free lifts we could have gone up an hour before we had to leave.



Next Stop: unknown - where the wind blows

but we leave here tommorrow morning

-Bert

We made it to Colorado!!

So yesterday we arrived in Boulder, Colorado. We're staying with Bert's cousin, Rob. Today we're getting ready to bike to the flat irons and we're going to hike to the top! Yay for staying in one place for a little bit. Rob is so nice to let us stay in his room.

Meteor Crater and Petrified Forest and Painted Desert

Giant Duck eats Native American Man circa 1200 AD

Last night, we had the luxury of staying in America's Best Hotel. I think the hotel was an old quality inn that had gone out of business. So we got a cheap room (with a hot tub!) and slept on a huge bed, which was awesome after the huge hike. Today we went to see Meteor Crater and the Petrified Forest/Painted Desert. Meteor Crater was a rip off. It cost $15 per person. We had already driven all the way out there so we just figured we'd go anyways. I mean, it was pretty cool to see the crater, but it would have been a lot cooler if it was only $5 a person. Next, we went on to the Petrified Forest. It was odd to see all these huge fallen trees that were now shiny rocks in the middle of the desert. This national park was pretty cool, because you could just drive through it all and stop where you wanted to. It had really odd mountains with different shades of grey and red in it, with all kinds of wrinkles in the sides from water drainage. I kind of think the grey mountains looked like elephant skin. The painted desert was very pretty, but compared to the Grand Canyon and Sedona, we weren't as impressed as we could have been. So we are continuing east. We're at a very cool cafe in Albuquerque, New Mexico and we're going to try to make it to the border of Colorado tonight.

Kalin

WE WENT TO THE BOTTOM (OF THE GRAND CANYON)!!!!

So we just finished a 7.6 mile hike down the canyon. We stayed the night in a hostel called the Phantom Ranch, and we hiked back up 9.5 miles and 1 vertical mile. Needless to say, we are exhausted... BUT IT WAS AWESOME! A lot of the time, we couldn't look around because we were so high it would make us dizzy. At the phantom ranch, they served 45 dollar steak that was supplied by mules. However, we opted not to pay for the 100 dollars worth of steak and brought our peanut butter jelly and bologna sandwiches. We went to bed at 7:15 and woke up at 5 am. We were on the trail by 5:45 and made it to the top at 12:45. Interesting things about the trail: There was mule poop the whole way, there was ice at the top, we went through 3 tunnels, 4 waterfalls, crossed 5 creeks, and 2 suspension bridges over the Colorado River! YAY! Now we are on our way to Colorado.

-Kalin