Road Trip with Josh- Iowa & Chicago

I am pruposefully not posting anything about Nebraska because I genuinely really dislike that state. We woke up at 5:30 in the morning, packed our tent up & hit the road. We drove through Colorado, through the entire state of Nebraska, and then went to Dunkerton, Iowa & stayed with my roommate Heather. It was a ridiculously long day, and one I hope never to repeat again.

Ulysses S. Grant's home in Galena, IL

Midwest beauty... No mountains, but still lovely.

Road Trip with Josh- Denver & Estes Park

One of my highlights was reconnecting with some "old" friends in Denver. It is so great to show up on someone's doorstep, whom you havent seen in 4 years (or even talked to!), & just have it be so normal and fun. As soon as Heather and I started talking that evening, it was just like we both reverted back to junior high, and we were laughing so hard at all of the dumb things we used to do & say. What a refreshing group of people these three are.

More lovely friends that we had the chance to see & spend a little time with!

This hike to Chasm Lake, late in the day, with Kailey & company, was one of the best parts of our week. We absolutely loved our 6 hour hike; it was filled with great conversation & so neat to hear how God was working in these guys' lives. 

Have loved our random adventures together in the last couple of years! What a gem this girl is!

This doesn't look that bad, but believe me, it was really scary. 

Road Trip with Josh- Telluride, Colorado

We were delayed driving through Arizona but some traffic, so we did not make it to Telluride until almost 3 1/2 hours after we had originally planned. Telluride, Colorado is a small mountain town in the mountains. It is amazing. We woke up in the morning, in a friends' brothers beautiful home, with mountains all around us & a huge stream in the backyard. Since we had arrived in the night, we had missed the amazing scenery for the last 5 hours of the day.

The Road Trip with Josh- Petrified National Forest

This photo hardly does justice to showing just how crammed we were in this vehicle. Josh had almost no room for his legs because there was so much stuff at his feet. Neither of us could push our seats back at all, because they had so much behind them. We left a very small room open in the windows behind us in order to avoid hitting other cars on the freeway. This is day 1- our smiles are pretty big. Day 6, we were slightly traumatized.

Beautiful desert.

I can't imagine a better person to spend a week going through 6 states with! Josh was incredibly patient, inquisitive, and always in a good mood. He did an excellent job of using the road atlas (only!) to guide us through the states & he managed to keep his comments about my driving to himself. There was only one time when we were driving to a trailhead in Telluride, and the gravel road kept getting more and more narrow & the drop off more and more steep. We finally were stopped in the road by a spontaneous waterfall blocking us from passing. I was trying to turn the whole car around on a dime, and it was really tense. Josh kept sighing & holding his head in his hands, probably nervous I was going to go a few inches too far & we would tip over the edge. The sighs were getting to me, so I yelled at him that if he didn't like how I drove he could just get out of the car. Before I could even finish my sentence he was out of the car. I guess thats a not a good indication about what kind of a driver I am. To my credit, I did get the car turned around, and we drove back down to a place that was less narrow, where we could leave the car on the side of the narrow road.