Palisade, CO

Brandon and I are off for another excursion. First stop is Palisade, Colorado - wine country! We left the dog at home and will have the next few days to ourselves. On the agenda as far as I know is wine tours, and probably a lot of fishing. We have been in the car for nearly 5 hours and I am ready to set up camp and hit the hay. Our first road trip in our new car and it is great! Only a half hour from our first destination I thought I would write an update on what is to come, I can't wait! We love the palisades and our wine. Hopefully we have a nice sunny day tomorrow. I think we'll get up bright and early and get our lines wet before the wineries open, and then hit the countryside! That's all for tonight.

Madison River

Fishing, fishing, and more fishing! I can't tell you how much fishing we did on the Madison River. We fished all day long and into the night and I tell ya, I improved so much last weekend. I ended up growing a bigger appreciation for fishing than I ever had before. I caught less than 5 fish and I still had the time of my life. Fishing was hard because the river was so fast, but when I did catch a fish it was awesome. More to come!

Hynach lake

Our latest endeavor was a backpacking trip to Haynach Lake. We went with two of our good friends Connor and Becky. Starting from green mtn trail head we headed off at 5 am and slowly made our way up stopping for pictures, snacks and moose! Our first moose we have seen on a trail and we were up close and personal! It was a mama with her two babies... Incredible! Continuing on not to disrupt them we pass by many beautiful streams. Brandon dying to throw his rod in, but we keep going until we reach the lake. The destination was gorgeous! We were surrounded by huge mountains, on a beautiful blue bird day. The weather couldn't have been better. We unpacked and headed to the lake; pulling in fish one by one we were all catching tons of fish! Huge cutthroat trout were stacked in the lake and it was so fun to watch the gulp down our fly and catch them. We fished all day long and finally decided that it was time to set up camp and cook dinner.

Dinner consisted of a scrumptious meal of pasta with cheese and summer sausage, and of course coffee. We enjoyed the views while getting eaten alive by Mosquitos. I felt like I was back in my childhood again by the amount of bug bites I ended up with.. Brandon stopped counting at 50 because he got bored. I have bites all over my legs, and arms, and even worse nearly 10 on my forehead! (we even had bug spray)

After dinner we went back to the lake and caught some more fish.. I caught my biggest cutthroat yet! It was great. We enjoyed the sunset and the cool mountain air, watched the stars for a bit and headed to bed.

We woke up the next morning and snapped some great pictures and threw our lines back in the water. Six fish later I decided to go find Brandon. He had just as much luck, and all big fish! The four of us filtered some water and headed up to summit Nakai. It was a beautiful summit and only took us a couple hours because we were right at the base.

Fishing a bit more once we got back to the lake it was nearly 4pm and we needed to start heading down. Exhausted and again being eaten alive by bugs we were almost running down the trail to get home. To finish off a great trip we headed for Mexican and a margarita.

Back from Trip

We are now back from the road trip to the north east coast. What a great time it was. If anyone wants to get some ideas from us please ask we would like to give you some information if you're planning a trip out there. We are not spending time at home before we head back to Estes Park for the summer! I cant wait to get the fly rod back out, and take some backpacking trips. Will keep you posted on the wedding and our adventures this coming summer so stay tuned and look for more posts.

Oh Canada...

5/10
Yesterday was an interesting day, we decided to head up through Canada to make our journey back to Minnesota. We stopped for a quick cup of joe in Ottawa, and of course got lost because our phones didn't work, the iPad wouldn't connect, and the gps didn't recognize anything! With that said we drove the whole way through only stopping for gas until we made it back to America again.

Oh how I love Vermont

Today we are exploring Vermont. Only 11:00 and we've already toured the cabot cheese factory, and many maple sugar houses. If you have never tried pure maple, you are missing out. I will now be eating it on everything I make... Oatmeal, ice cream, veggies, ham...yummm I can't wait! Next stop we are heading to the Ben and jerry's ice cream factory. 

We love our seafood

Boston 5/8
This was a completely spur of the moment stop. Brandon and I were craving some chower and decided to check out the city. We gobble our chowder and don't get far when we see a brewery. Harpoon brewery, the 10th largest craft brewery in the country (and not available in Colorado). Tours were running all day so we of course went on a tour and stayed extra long for the tasting. We continued on our way and soaked up the atmosphere of Boston hopping from pub to pub. I guess since we really don't have a schedule, we can stay in Boston tonight..