Summer of Luxury Ends

After a week on the road and ten days tending house, my time as an unemployed individual is running low. I start my post-doc on Wednesday at the Univ. of Colorado at Boulder - I'm hoping that it'll be a nice change of pace from the busy-ness of UT. The counseling center at Boulder is much smaller and they reportedly intake 25-30 people in a busy week (compared to the 100+ during normal weeks at UT!). I'm also looking forward to an office with a window :)

My time at home has been filled with domestic duties - doing the grocery shopping, organizing the garage, mopping the floor - I think it's been good for both of us to have me here. Carrie's been able to go to work and know that things will get done here by the time she's home, and I'm getting some independent time to do something I love and work with my hands. It's a win-win.

Wedding planning continues too! We're slowly but surely circling around a date and trying to line up the venue and other important aspects. More coming soon for sure, if all goes according to plan!

Other news...we celebrated Emilie's birthday (which she shares with her older brother) this weekend with a barbecue at her and Doug's house and some Rio margaritas the next day. The occasion afforded us the opportunity to meet a few more members of her massive family - this time it was her parents, older brother and sister-in-law, and their little boy. Each new person just confirmed the fact that Emilie has the most inconsiderate family I've ever met. Just kidding - they're all incredibly sweet and kind and giving, and it was great to meet even more of them! Plus her mom, Debbie, brought an amazing caramel toffee coffee cake.

Think that's all for now - we'd love to post some pictures to spice this entry up a little but our camera's been getting repaired via Best Buy for the past week. We're hoping that it'll be back to us within the next couple of days - keep your fingers crossed :)

Road Trip '08 - Coming Home

C: On Thursday July 24th (mom's birthday :)) we pulled out of Austin with a trailer in tow. What an emotional moment-the sadness of saying goodbye to Austin, the excitement of this moment we had been waiting for the entire year, and some anxiety about this long road trip with a sketchy trailer hooked to us through the mountains. It was fitting that the weather was a mix of rain and clouds with intermittent sunshine. So we took off into the Texas hill country-finally this day was here!!!!

We were on the road for 8 hours that first day and then pulled into a quirky little RV park in Carlsbad New Mexico at 10:30 set up camp and slept well-so far so good...

J (7/25/08): We woke up the next morning in Carlsbad with a strong desire to get going toward Santa Fe, so we packed up quick and heated up some of Carrie's trademark breakfast burritos for the road. Delicious. We hit the road but ended up stopping in Roswell, NM - home of the International UFO Museum and Research Center. We paid for a tour of a big warehouse with old news articles and grainy photos tacked to temporary walls and walked around for a half hour or so before deciding that we'd learned enough about UFO's. For the record, I don't believe the hype.

We rolled on towards Santa Fe, pulling in around 2 pm on the 25th. There was a little confusion about where to go, but we soon found our way to the square - weather was great (hot!) and tons of people were milling around looking at handmade jewelry. We searched for a bit and ended up sitting on a patio with a couple of drinks, then walked around a bit more before taking off for Taos. So long Santa Fe!

Taos greeted us with gorgeous views...and mountain passes - not good for my trailer-pulling car or my anxiety level. As we pulled into camp the car gave off a burning smell(!) that got me pretty worried. I freaked out for a bit as we debated going home to save the car from potential damage and looked for a place to eat dinner. We finally ended up at a local brewpub with, no kidding, a two-pound burrito smothered in green chile stew. It was really good and heavy - comfort food for sure. Our conversation drifted toward fantasies of driving straight home and flying back out to Telluride or Steamboat to stay in a cabin for a few days rather than risk hurting the car any more. A quick Kayak.com search killed our dreams and we returned to camp feeling uncertain and kinda scared. And by "we" I mean "I."

C (7/26/08): No by "we" he could mean "we" because I was feeling similarly anxious and uncertain about taking off into the mountains with this trailer-at the same time we both felt very sad to let go of this road trip that had been in the works since December-tough!!! I was concerned about Jeremy's stress level and honestly wondered if the trip would be any fun for him with all of this on his mind. It was also raining and stormy that night in Taos-pretty chilly. Which made the burrito that much more comforting. We sat in that local brew pub, there was a couple musicians playing live music-we were drinking local beer and sharing this delicious burrito-despite all the stress we took a moment to appreciate exactly where we were and talked about how often times when traveling you search and search trying to create these perfect moments and can often be disappointed when your expectations aren't met. Then at the very moment you give it up and just BE where you ARE, that perfect moment presents itself because you can just appreciate what IS.

The next morning we were up bright and early-headed to a local coffee shop to use the internet and find a place to get Jer's car checked out. Unfortunately after checking my email we got news that two men in graduate school for psychology at CSU had been struck by lightning on campus. Jeremy knew one of them-he was pronounced dead and the other was in critical condition. We were both very sad to hear this and it did not help our anxiety level given that it had stormed the night prior and we were potentially heading off to the mountains with only our tent and the forcast called for isolated t-storms EVERYDAY.

We headed to a local shop and had the car checked out while having breakfast on a patio next door. It was a beautiful morning. The man at the shop said the car was fine-fluids good-everything looked great!! During breakfast we were still discussing how to get home and make different plans. After talking with the guy and having him check everything out-it seemed the car was fine and things were normal given that we were towing on a steep hill. We both really trusted him and felt very reassured after talking with him. So after a long discussion-pros cons etc-we decided to stick with the original plan and head to Durango-the general feeling was cautiously optimistic. We headed out for a BEAUTIFUL drive from Taos to Durango-after about an hour we both seemed to relax-the car was doing great-weather was good and we both felt we had made the right decision. Pulled into Durango and found a campground-then headed out to see the town. Jer suggested we get a hotel for our last night in Telluride-so we did a little research and booked an awesome hotel. Things were looking up-this is where I think we both finally relaxed into it and started having an awesome time :)

J (7/27/08): Carrie was right - that night was a turning point where the scales tipped to relaxation and fun. Making the long drive without incident restored my faith in the car, and gave me some space to check in on my own emotional state - eventually I let go of a lot of worry.

Our adventure for the next day was checking out Mesa Verde National Park, land of the Ancestral Puebloans (or Anasazi) and their amazing cliff dwellings. Carrie can testify to my excitement at seeing these things - after talking with Rae Ann last time I was in Colorado and reading the brochures, I was pumped to see a cliff dwelling or two. The drive was gorgeous and quick from Lightner Creek campground. We took a lot of pictures of the cliff dwellings! My amazement grew the more we saw.

On the way back from Mesa Verde, we stopped at Blue Lake Ranch, a place that we tried to stay at but they were booked. This place was like stepping into a fantasy land - kindly old owner who seemed to know us before we even spoke, huge vibrant flowers and organic garden, a clear lake and deer in the woods beside the cabins. The owner intimated that we could get married at their event center if Carrie ever proposed to me, and then gave us a lot of fancy pieces of chocolate. We drove away feeling calm and amused, and a little bewildered by the whole experience.

That night we checked out a local brewpub (getting to be a trend) and hit the campsite early to cook dinner and sleep. Carrie accidentally used soap instead of olive oil in the pan (they look oddly similar when stored in identical generic bottles), so we got the opportunity to cook dinner twice! That night it rained alot - thunder storms and lighting - and we got up in the middle of the night to play it safe and sleep in the car. A brilliant and comfortable decision.

C (7/28/08): The next morning we were off to Telluride-gorgeous drive from Durango. As we were coming down off of Lizard head pass we saw this beautiful lake surrounded by mountains. I immediately got really excited and asked Jeremy to stop-but not so simple when you are pulling a trailer down a steep mountain road. He apologized and we took note of Trout lake-promising that we would come back to enjoy the view and get some pics. (this will be important later :)) We arrived at Matterhorn-a beautiful campground in the middle of the forest. Set up camp and then had a huge hail storm-we didn't let it get to us-we were well accustomed to random weather and aware of how quickly these things move in and move out. so we drove into town to rent some mountain bikes and hit the trails. The sun was shining and skies were blue before we arrived in the center of Telluride. WOW what a beautiful town-this is definitely one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. We checked out the town a little then rented bikes, went up on the gondola and got on the trails. This was the first time I had ever been mountain biking-what an amazing place to break me in. We rode for like 3 hours-down the mountain on a singletrack trail, great mountain views, and then through creeks and a beautiful meadow. I was gripping my brakes pretty hard on some of them-but overall just got muddy and tired. It was great. Then off to a patio in town to enjoy a beer. We ended the night by making dinner at the campsite and praying for a dry night. We got our wish-all we saw in the sky that night were stars.

J (7/29/08): Not getting any rain made us all the more ready for some watersports the next day. We had agreed the night before that we'd check out Ridgway State Park, right outside the town of Ridgway and only fifteen minutes from Ouray. We woke up early (and dry!) and got moving with some breakfast burritos to fuel us. We got to the park and were disappointed to hear that they didn't rent boats of any sort - it was all BYOB. So we went back to town to a recommended rental shop only to find that Tuesday (today) was the only day of the week that they were closed. A kind lady in the Galloping Goose Cafe next door led us to another place, which then told us to check out another place across the street. So at Rig's Outdoor & Fishing, we finally found our watercraft - a one-person pontoon inflatable boat that had oars to row with. Sweet. After loading it up on the car and getting it to the lake at the park, I had an absolute blast rowing that thing around. Carrie gave it a few turns and then retired to the beach for tanning while I rowed to the other side of the lake and back, taking in the gorgeous lake and mountain backdrop the whole time. After about an hour we were ready to turn it back in and head for Ouray for a picnic (Carrie's idea, and a brilliant one at that).

Ouray is touted as the Switzerland of the USA - it's quaint little town and mountain views let us know why. We got to there determined to find a beautiful but quick hike - Canon (pronounced Can-yun) Falls provided both. We first took a steep but short hike up to the "high bridge" that looked down on the falls - it was a great view and on the other side there was a tunnel cut from the rock that we walked through. At the time I called it my favorite part of the trip because it felt like the most raw nature experience until that point. Luckily Carrie took a picture. We made our way back down and took the actual hike to the falls - again getting an awesome display of nature as the water pounded the rocks...both of us agreed that it was a mix of exciting and scary to witness the power of all that water rushing through the canyon. A failed attempt at getting advice on where to find wildflowers found us ready for our picnic in the lawn next to the Ouray hot springs pool - we had wine, cheese, crackers, and fruit - it was great...perfect for a picnic on a hot day.

After that we hit the pool - and what a pool. Seriously, this hot springs pool was everything you'd ever want in a pool and more. It had three different temperature zones - normal, sorta warm, and hot bathwater for soaking. But the crown jewel of this pool was the waterslide. We must have gone down the slide ten times each - one of those twisty, turning slides that shoot you out at the end. So fun. We stayed at the pool for a couple hours and then headed back to Telluride for happy hour wine and a snack, which we found at Rustico, an Italian place that somehow found fifteen people who spoke genuine Italian in Telluride and hired them to be servers. The obligatory patio in the sun completed the experience and made it hard to return to camp even though we knew it was our last night "roughing it." Camping that night turned out to be especially cool though - because I finally built a real raging fire! It took some coaching, blowing, and words of encouragement (and cursing), but it eventually got going and kept us warm and gave us a s'mores station for the night. We went to sleep under another amazingly clear sky thinking of hiking in the morning. What Carrie didn't know was that I had a lot more on my mind too...

C (7/30/08): We woke up early that morning to another beautiful day-perfect blue skies, brisk mountain air, and birds chirping (actually it was more like squawking) but we didn't mind. There was a definite feeling of anticipation in the air-I thought it was because we got to sleep in a king bed that night-take a real shower and wear terry cloth bath robes around the room. Think that sounds good now?-imagine it after six nights of camping-HEAVEN. Little did I know what Jeremy was anticipating :) [J: No kidding! Here are a just a few things that I had on my mind: the weather, how to get to the trail, would the trail be cool?, is there a beautiful vista at the top?, will there be other people?, what do I say?!] We had decided after a few recommendations and reading about trails to do a trail that went from Trout lake (remember that from earlier ???:)) and headed up to Hope Lake-a beautiful lake sitting at 12,000 feet. [J: Hope Lake sounded promising for a great view and moment at the top - I pushed hard for Hope Lake when we were deciding the night before where to go.] We had quite a difficult time trying to find the trailhead-but after some crazy four wheelin-(we were just packin it all in to this trip :)) we arrived at the trailhead. [J: At this point I was growing raggedly anxious. Couldn't find the turn off for the trailhead for about a half hour, then when we did it was a two-mile adventure over huge rocks, crawling along at about 5 mph the whole time, not knowing when or if we were going to actually get to a cool trail.] There was a group of middle aged women who started the hike at about the same time as we did. They moved to let us pass and then Jeremy took off. (I mean I know he is in great shape-he runs marathons for fun-what?!) but he was hiking at lightning speed. I was huffing and puffing trying to keep up with him and being awed by the amazing views, fields of wildflowers, and continuous waterfalls. At one point I said "wow honey-you are really moving-you seem pretty determined to get up this mountain!!" We kept hiking-we didn't see another person for the rest of the hike up. Jeremy was also pretty funny because he continued to whistle throughout the hike to alert the bears that we were coming. [J: My biggest worry - the weather - was looking good, so naturally I switched to my other two biggest concerns: being alone at the top and bears. All the while running through scripts in the back of my mind of what to say once we got up there, hopefully alone and uneaten.] This was another common thread throughout our trip-fear of lightning and bears-we obsessed about putting our food away, changing the clothes that we cooked in, and reading all we could about how to behave if we did encounter a bear-Not that it helped much since everything was conflicting. The funniest advice was "don't show them that you are afraid" after we had heard how intuitive they are-So I guess I'll just be real calm and laid back-are you kidding me?!? So, when he got out of breath from hiking so vigorously and whistling (also vigorously) I started clapping to contribute to the bear alert( my whistling is not so great). This also contributed to the energy of the hike-anticipation, a little fear, adrenaline pumping, whistling, hollering, clapping-we had our own little parade. [J: We (again, I) had to discharge some energy - what better way than whistling to bears and yelling?!]

The hike was about 3 1/2 miles and we gained almost 2000 feet. The trail led us up above tree line to a huge field of wild flowers and breathtaking views. Jeremy was really going now! we crossed over a ridge and there it was-Hope Lake. So gorgeous-surrounded by partially snow covered mountains mirroring the perfectly blue sky-we were the only ones there. Jeremy was up on a rock (surprise! he got there a little ahead of me). [J: I was so relieved to get to the top to find that a) it was gorgeous - a mountain lake! and b) we were definitely alone! And there was a big rock right beside the lake to stand on - perfect! I said a little "thank you" to the universe for giving me this moment...and then my heart really started pounding.] I stepped up on the rock and we spent a couple minutes catching our breaths and taking in this gorgeous place. Then he turned to me [J: *heart pounding* thinking "it's now or never, just do it, just start! Just start talking!] and said-"you know how you said I was determined to get up here today? well, it was because I wanted to give you something...he pulled the ring box out of his pocket, and then I completely blacked out for a moment-All I could do was cry-so overwhelmed with emotion. He then said, "After being apart for a year, 7 days on the road, and climbing this crazy mountain...I think we can handle just about anything and I want to commit to handling whatever might come at us"... got down on his knee and said "will you marry me?" [J: It finally ended up coming out okay - her reaction was perfect - all I could do was smile and laugh] I don't think I answered for quite awhile-all I could do was cry-eventually I said "I'd be honored". We had over a half hour to hang out, take pictures, stare at the beautiful ring and just be in this brilliant moment. Thanks to Jeremy's lightning speed-those women were far behind us allowing for this perfect private moment. That is exactly what it was-totally perfect-I could not have imagined it any better, it was amazing. Appropriately we would commit to a lifetime together, handling whatever comes our way on top of a mountain at 12,000 ft beside Hope Lake. [J: To hear her say that it was perfect was the best thing ever - after all of the anxiety of what to say, when to say it, how to say it, where to say it...this was a great payoff. Her reaction was so real - it was all totally worth it. I feel like men get a lot of pressure to do this the "right" way, and though we talked alot about not getting wrapped up in all the social pressure, it was unavoidable. To have her be so happy with everything did make me feel good. Of course.]

So the rest of the day was fantastic - we hiked down, MUCH faster than hiking up, and packed up camp for the last time to head into Telluride. We already knew that we had reservations at the Hotel Telluride, so we were excited to get there and test the quality of their robes and such. It turned out to be amazing - friendly staff, great room with a balcony and mountain view, and the robes were soft. We spent the day relaxing and telling friends and family the big news. At night we rode the gondola over the mountain to sit on a lawn, drink wine and listen to a concert in the village. After that we celebrated a little more with dinner and drinks (at the Cafe Excelsior - it was great) out in the town of Telluride before coming back to crash.

The next day was our homecoming - a long seven and a half hours to Ft. Collins - but we made it! And now we start on the journey of living together again...

The Ring

Ah, the ring....the ring was a source of much anxiety and enjoyment from both of us. It started with us doing some internet research, just trying to narrow down the options. Actually, it started with us trying to figure out if a ring, period, was what we wanted to do. We considered the ethical implications (conflict free diamonds, earth-friendly jewelry), feminist/societal implications (wearing a ring? what does that mean? why does only Carrie wear a ring? do only I propose?), and just plain logistics and preference (is the cost worth it? does Carrie even like diamonds? do I pick it or does she get more of a say?). In the end, we decided that a conflict-free diamond, mutually decided-upon ring with a bit more autonomy from my side was the way to go. And thus I commenced looking for The Ring.

Or we did, anyway. We started at the factory-made jewelry stores (Shane Co., Jared's, the mall - yuck) just to get an idea of what was out there, and it was pretty overwhelming. The salespeople were mostly pushy and weird enough to almost turn us off the process altogether and really set off the "feminist" alarms (i.e., pulling Carrie aside and saying "they'll go talk about money now," referring to me and the other salesperson). So we got the idea of what's around and what diamonds actually looked like - then took to the safety of the internet again. As we started to orbit around a decision, I took to the streets of Austin to find a store to look seriously. After consulting CitySearch, Kruger's Jeweler's came up at the top over and over. Relying on the research, I walked in hoping for the best.

And the best is exactly what I got. No pressure, just a completely friendly and disarming greeting from Anna, a woman that I would come to work with very closely over the next couple of months. She let me browse a bit and then consulted appropriately as I found a setting that looked promising. We talked generalities back and forth and I let her know that I'd like to do a little custom work with the ring. She said "great, I think that would be awesome." And the seed was planted to pursue my goal of having a personal touch in a ring that Carrie would wear forever. For me it was trying to find a way to put sapphires (my birthstone) somewhere that they weren't too overwhelming but would still be meaningful. I settled on a setting and asked them to hold it for a bit until Carrie could come down and check it out to give her okay.

Which she did! She loved the setting and even loved the idea of sapphires in there, tiny as they were. She left knowing that I'd pick the diamond and handle the final setting, but having no idea when I would actually propose - just enough agency for both of us. So I did pick out the diamond, again with amazing help and not an ounce of pressure from Anna at Kruger's. I left the store and immediately called my parents to tell them the good news - I picked a ring! They were both happy and very excited for us.

A couple of days after getting the news, my mom called me and said that she'd been thinking. There's a diamond "in the family" (hallowed words) and, after thinking about it, she'd like to have Carrie wear it. This stone belonged to my maternal grandmother, who died about five years ago. There's a lot of meaning behind my mom offering it to me for Carrie to wear. Wow - this made me really happy on so many levels! We did a little talking and it was shipped a couple days later, heavily insured, to my door. I emailed Anna and apologized and updated her on the situation - she was nothing but excited and told me to come in right away to check out the new diamond. I did so asap and she proclaimed it a "perfect fit" for the setting we picked out - awesome! So the stone was put in the setting and I patiently waited to pick it up.

I knew that Carrie was coming down soon after I picked the ring up, so I asked my friends Andrew and Julie to hold onto it while we hung out and packed for the road trip. In the meantime, I planted a fake ring box in a bag for Carrie to find in my room while packing - true to form, she didn't look but did bring it up to me, which made us both laugh. So I eventually got the ring and started planning for the proposal!