Colorado Day 2

Let me tell you, it's wonderful to wake up after a good night's sleep to this:

This morning I pretty much just relaxed, and then we helped out setting up the AV stuff for the conference. The conference room was pretty neat:

Then we went to town for lunch and a little shopping. I really liked this sign in a knife shop:

We went back to the hotel to get ready for an afternoon expedition. While I was waiting for the guys (how did that work?), I walked around and shot some pics:

We went to the entrance of Rocky Mountain National Park, but we didn't go in because we couldn't afford the entrance fee. We did get some pictures outside the entrance that are probably almost as good as inside:

We went driving to another part of town. We were looking for a certain hotel (more on that later), but we ended up finding a bunch of elk:

After seeing the elk, we found what we were looking for: The Stanley Hotel. Not only is it on the national register of historic places, but it was also the inspirational (and some of the scenes) for The Shining.

Estes Park has this scarecrow display for all of October, so I took a lot of pictures of the ones I found scattered all over the city.

Kristjun going upstairs, where we weren't allowed to go.

We headed back to our hotel, but first we needed gas. Guess who got to pump it? (Yeah, I needed a little help!)

We dropped the van off at the hotel and then walked to this lake:

Then I went off on my own to see the town.

My hair's not frizzy (well, not THAT frizzy); it's a funny hat!

I know we're in Colorado, but there was still a store totally devoted to Huskers. They even had handprints of some of the players.

This evening we had our first session. Here's the table where we got our goody bags:

After the conference I went out to take a picture of the night lights. The biggest building in this picture is the Stanley. On the way back to the hotel, I heard the elk screaming. That was kind of cool.

I Now Have Sympathy for the People Who Had to Walk the Oregon Trail...

Today five of us headed to Colorado. We took two cars because we had so much sound and music equipment to take. (Kristjun and I picked it up from a worship leader yesterday at church for Adam, and when he saw it this morning, he said "Tyler asked me to take A LITTLE BIT of equipment!".) So anyway, Kristjun and Adam went in the Cherokee, and Mike, Kirk and I went in the van. Kirk and I sat in the backseat so we could watch movies, but first we just started talking about stuff, like personal economics and random stuff like that. We got on the topic of how long and uneventful the trip through Nebraska would be, and I mentioned something about how we would pretty much be following the Oregon trail "So if you think this is a long car ride, just imagine it taking weeks... on foot... with worn-out shoes."

Kirk's only pretending to be excited about the long ride in this picture...

We followed Adam because he actually knew where we were going.

We talked a little in the car, and Kirk and I watched some movies, and then listened to the radio when we could get a station decently. We stopped twice for gas. I watched how they pumped the gas so maybe someday I'll be able to pump gas on my own. But then again, ignorance is bliss. We also had lunch and snack breaks at the gas stations.

This is what most of our trip looked like. Can you see why I was going through mountain withdrawls? I think western Nebraska is even flatter than eastern Nebraska.

I saw the exit sign for Gibbon, NE, where my grandma grew up. I didn't take a picture, but you can assume it looked almost exactly like this:

I assumed the trip from Nebraska to Colorado would be like the trip through South Dakota. South Dakota started off in the east looking exactly like Nebraska (really flat with lots of corn fields), then as we entered the Badlands got really moundy, and then suddenly got mountainous in the Black Hills. So I was starting to get excited when I saw this:

And then it got flat again. :( I noticed that we had switched time zones, and it was later confirmed that we were indeed in Colorado, but for being in the Mountain Time Zone, there sure weren't any mountains!

At the second gas stop, some of us had to ride the dinosaur statue:

Last night on my Facebook account, I posted "So excited for tomorrow... if for no other reason, it would be nice to be surrounded by mountains again instead of all these corn fields!" But here's a pic near Loveland, Colorado. Still no mountains, and look at what is growing in that field!

Finally, mountains were in the backdrop, and I was really excited. (I'm really not sure why I was getting so excited over mountains. After all, I've lived around them for pretty much all of my life and all they really do is make my ears crackle.) I didn't take too many pictures of the mountains because I realize that most people who will read this are spoiled with the west coast mountains.

We checked into the hotel. Since I'm the only girl, I have a room to myself. It's kinda weird. I mean, it's bigger (and a WHOLE LOT nicer) than my apartment space, and I don't even get to share it! But I guess that just means I get to relax here and play Basshunter music really loudly.

After getting our stuff dropped off in our rooms, we met up with Rodger (Adam's dad and also the C&MA district superintendent), and a couple of authors, plus everyone's wives. Then, as a big group, all went to dinner at a cantina. I got a buffalo burger with cream cheese, jack cheese and avacado, with a side of beer cheese soup. Then we went for a little walk around town, although most of the shops were closed. There was a walkway that overlooked the creek:

The only shop that we could find open was a leather shop:

Then we came back to the hotel, where I decided to write this blog post! While writing this, I got a phone call. I assumed it was the front desk calling, and I was thinking, "I wasn't playing Basshunter THAT loud!" The call was indeed from the front desk, but they were just calling to see how my stay was going so far; how nice is that? It was great finally getting to see Colorado and the Rockies, and chatting with the authors and all the other people. I'm really excited for the pastor's conference to start tomorrow. Michael Frost is the keynote speaker; I met him tonight and he has a good Australian accent. I read the first chapter from his book The Faith of Leap. I think it will be a great week... well, except maybe for the drive back home!