9-9-09 = A whole lot of nada

Everyone was making quite a deal of the 09-09-09 date, and yet today's been like most ordinary days for me here.

I'm flying solo now that the hubby's doing his peds training in Boise. I've seen him a  couple times over the past couple weeks and he's due home in a little over a week. In the meantime, I keep busy with school and classwork. I'm really loving what I'm doing and grateful to be back in a college setting. Not that I don't miss my sweetie like crazy, I just like that I now have something to help occupy the hours.

The house continues to be a work in progress - mainly outside. We've installed our own sprinkler system and only need a few tweaks here and there before it's good to go. It works pretty well now, just have a few sprinkler heads that aren't coming to life when the water's turned on. Once that's all done and the yard gets smoothed out, we'll get sod installed and have a real yard. The pups can't wait since they've had to go to the greenbelt and overgrown lots around for their bathroom needs. One day we'll get a fence and some proper-looking flowerbeds, but since it's about to be fall/winter, we're going to wait and see. I'd hate to spend any good amount of money on flowers or such to only see them killed in the first freeze. And seeing how it's getting into the low 40's at night now on a pretty regular basis, I'm going to guess a freeze will be sooner rather than later.

I just got back from a wonderful trip to New York with some of my college friends. I can't get over how much I love that city. I've been maybe 4 or 5 times now and still want to go back over and over. There's too much to see and do - and eat! Oh, the food alone is worth a trip. I'm glad I don't have those kinds of choices here - I'd explode! Pics are up on Facebook for anyone who cares. I'd post some here, but Blogger's being its usual pain-in-the-butt and I'm too tired to fight it more tonight.

Not much else going on to speak of in our world. School for me, work for him - pretty much a switcheroo from where we were a year ago. The pups are doing well and Austin's being a normal crazy cat. I think he's loving the cool weather at night as it seems to give him energy to pounce and run all over the house like a crazed animal.

And that's all for now kids. More when something exciting happens. Or not. There just isn't much exciting in the town.

A walk through time

On our way back down to Cheyenne, Wyoming from South Dakota (a couple of days after Wall), we made a point to stop outside of Guernsey to see the a part of the Oregon Trail. At that point, carved into stone cliffs, are ruts from the wagon wheels. Standing in the ruts is really surreal - to know that hundreds of pioneers passed through that very spot and made those visual marks still seen over a hundred years later.

It was a COLD and windy, but definitely worth the brief stop. Here are a couple of pics.















Pretty amazing, huh?

Bumping against a Wall

So, when I last left you, we just finished our trip through the Badlands and its washboard dirt roads. After our brief visit into the Badlands Visitors Center, we took the interstate back into town. On the way back in, we kept driving past signs for Wall Drug in Wall. Now Wall Drug is not your local Walgreens or CVS, it's an entire city block (or more?) of tourist trap. It's claim to fame was offering FREE ice water to travels back in the 40's. Now, sure, there are some interesting things in the mega-mall of stuff (besides the free ice water), but it was just a lot of junk and trinkets from what I could see. But among the stuff are some crazy things - like giant animatronic cattle-drive campfire singers, TONS of mounted dead things, a chapel, and some props for picture taking. We were only there a few minutes since it was closing time, but we did get a few pics...











Since we couldn't eat at the drug store, we went across the street (in the snow!) to eat at the Cactus Cafe Mexican restaurant. The funniest two things there were the fact it offers no Mexican food - except in the summer months (migrant workers/chefs apparently only go up to South Dakota in the summer?) and the menu looked funny.



So that's our trip to Wall.

Adventures in South Dakota

So, going back a few weeks...

After we finished our interview in Grand Junction, we headed off to South Dakota. We stopped one night in Frisco, Colorado, and got some serious snow on the Jeep (photos in previous post). We headed on through Colorado, stopping to get housing arranged for our stay now, and spent the next night in Douglas, Wyoming.

Douglas was cold. When we went to bed that night it was already -9F. I think it got down even further than that, but I wasn't personally staying up to check it out. We got up the next morning at went to take our photo with the giant Jackalope (also seen in previous post). We even picked up two Jackalope hunting tags - good between sunrise and sunset on June 31. Maybe one day we'll make it back to Douglas to use it. ;)

From Douglas we went on to Rapid City, South Dakota. On the way there, you drive through Custer, past Mount Rushmore and through Keystone.

Since I'd never been to Rushmore, that was the reason for the side trip over to South Dakota in the first place. It was a mix of reactions. On the first sight (from the car on the way up), I was a little amazed how small it appeared. I thought it'd be HUGE. But after parking and getting on in the Memorial (you don't pay to get in the Memorial, you pay to park), and making our way up the walkway, it really did seem larger than life. Seeing it first-hand is not like any photo or postcard.

With it being the early part of December, there were not any big crowds, but there were some seriously cold winds and a dusting of snow on the hill. To help stay warm, we went in the museum and watch a video (narrated by a YOUNG Tom Brokaw) and walked through several of the displays on preserving the Memorial and Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor. For those too lazy to click on the link above to find out more, The entire memorial covers 1,278.45 acres and is 5,725 feet above sea level.

Here are some of the pics...

An end to 2008

I know it's been FOREVER since I posted, but in all fairness we left for Alaska the 10th and didn't have internet at the hotel. The hotel had internet, we just refused to pay $10 a day for it.

After Alaska we were at my family's home to visit and I didn't want to loose any time visiting to blog. Next was a trip to the in-laws and again, I wanted to spend time with family. Of course I got sick and spent plenty of time sleeping and trying to hold down crackers and water. Yum.

Then, we spent a wonderful week, including Christmas Eve and Christmas, in a secluded cabin off in the mountains of Colorado near Allenspark. We had no cell phones, no internet and a lot of fun soaking in a hot tub under the stars in the cold nights. We even ended up with icy hair a couple of nights.  It was a perfect escape and a great way to wrap up 2008.

We've now settled into our little home-away-from-home in Fort Collins and will be here for a month. I never thought I'd be excited to be in one place for just a month, but after spending a day here and a couple of days there, I'm thrilled to have an place to park for a full month.

As for more photos of our adventures, they will be forthcoming over the next couple of days. Tonight is just an update and to wish everyone a wonderful start to 2009. We're enjoying a quiet night waiting for the ball to drop - Mountain Time - in our PJs with the pups.

We'll catch up with you more in the New Year!

Along life's highway

Here are a few more photos of things we've seen along the way. Beautiful nature, critters of all kinds, and even some wildlife in our own Jeep.

Keep in mind these were mostly all taken from the Jeep as we move along. Not all are of the greatest quality and none were taken within a national park or refuge. Those are still to come.

I do want to clear up any confusion and say that we came to South Dakota for fun, not for another Residency interview. I'd never seen Mount Rushmore and since we were so close (and had a couple days to kill between interviews) we figured we should.

And on a side note, for those keeping tabs, we've completed six interviews as of today (12/7). We have another Tuesday morning in Cheyenne and another Friday in Alaska. After that we'll take a break for visiting family and the holidays. January we'll be in Fort Collins for Benjamin's family medicine rotation and will complete the ninth and final interview during our time there.

But that's later, for tonight here are a smattering of photos from our days on the road in Idaho (we had an interview in Pocatello), Utah, Colorado (we had an interview in Grand Junction), Wyoming and South Dakota.

Did you notice how alert the dogs (in their Christmas collars, I may add) are in their first photo, but by the end they're bored? That's not your imagination at work; I really do think they're over all this coming and going. But come Wednesday, Grandpa is taking them back down to Texas (along with our Jeep) while we go to Alaska. They'll have some good quality time with him and all my family while we're up checking out life outside the Lower 48.  Think he'll let them sleep in the bed with him and Grandma?

So much to post

I have so much I want to post, but keep running out of time in my days. Tomorrow we're taking a breather and doing some errands and catching up on laundry, etc. Hopefully, I'll find time to catch you up on what we've been up to in Idaho, Utah, Colorado and what we're doing in South Dakota. Until then, enjoy this photo...

Teetering in the Tetons

The Grand Tetons National Park is amazing. A-MAZ-ING.

Of course, this being winter, the main road through the park (where you can see the lakes and such) was closed to automobile traffic, but the highway that goes up to the border with Yellowstone National Park was open and a pretty easy drive. The visitor center in Moose was open and was a nice education experience. We then just drove around and got some fantastic photos in various areas. We even got the Jeep off on some back trails and drove through a creek. And of course, no trip would be a Marcum trip without SOME fishing along the way. Alas, nothing was caught, but at least attempts were made.

As an added bonus, The National Elk Refuge is right outside of the park and was loaded with elk after they migrated down from the Teton for the winter after the rut.

Enjoy the pictures and click on any of them to enlarge them!