long weekend – The Impatient Traveler

Social Distancing Road Trip

June 9, 2020 by The Impatient Traveler, posted in Colorado, Colorado Springs

The Journey to Colorado Springs –

We had been working from home for two months due to COVID-19 and had to cancel five trips including one to Spain and Portugal. With that, the stress of work, and everything else going on, we decided we need a change of scenery. If we had to work from home, why not work from somebody else’s home?

Deciding where to go took a little bit. We had to find an area drivable to Texas within a week that was dog friendly and had a lot of outdoor activities since many typical tourist destinations were closed (including many national and state parks). After quite a bit of research, we ended up picking Colorado as our destination as parks had just opened up and it wasn’t too far. Memorial Day weened just happened to be very next weekend so we decided to use the long weekend, meaning we only had five days to plan!

We quickly picked some Airbnb’s and got ready for our trip. It was very easy to pack because I was only going to wear activewear for the full week. With that, my hiking boots, and our dog’s stuff, we hopped into my Jeep on Thursday night after work and took off to Amarillo. We broke up the 11 hour drive to Colorado Springs with a 5-6 hour overnight in Amarillo and then a Friday morning to Colorado Springs. The drive to Amarillo is pretty boring we got some Chick-fil-A for dinner and arrived in one piece around 11 PM. We stayed at the Hilton Home2 Suites hotel on the way back from New Mexico one New Years Eve after driving through a blizzard. We knew the Home2 Suites was brand new, clean, cheap, and dog friendly, so we felt comfortable staying there one night. It was so weird seeing so many people at the hotel after not seeing very many at all for quite a while. We wore masks, dumped our stuff in the room, and passed out.

We tried to let our puppy, Dixie, sleep in the king bed with us since she’s usually in her crate at night. That did not go very well as every time we would move over the bed she would get on and off the bed. She also tried to protect us from some Chihuahuas that we’re making noise in the hallway and woke us up nice and early. We brought bagels for quick breakfast and took off to Colorado Springs.

The drive was absolutely beautiful and there weren’t very many people on the road so we were able to get to Colorado Springs pretty quickly. The problem though was that we couldn’t check into our B&B until 4 PM and we got there around 2 PM. Little did we know that our Airbnb was right next to the Garden Of The Gods!

The Garden Of The Gods is a beautiful park in Colorado Springs that has these massive red mountains of rock coming up out of the ground. We parked our car and were glad to stretch our legs after such a long drive. We got the puppies all suited up and took off on a hike around the Garden. It was stunning day and the dogs are loving every minute of it. We found a shady spot under a massive rock overhang and watched some rock climbers scurry up this huge portion of rock and hang out at the top of the rock.

It was really cool to see and a great way to spend some time before checking into our AirBnb.

Hiking with the dogs through Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs

We packed up the dogs and drove to Airbnb which was just a few minutes away from the Garden Of The Gods. I was actually just across the street from the parking lot and so we had some perfect spots for a dog walks in the morning. Airbnb was really nice and was two stories. Dixie was running up and down the stairway from the basement to the main floor over and over and over again and it was so funny. We were pretty tired so we grabbed some pizza, paired it with some celebratory wine, and watched Selling Sunset on Netflix before calling it a night.

Colorado Springs – Day 2

Day two in Colorado Springs was hiking day and we were bringing Dixie for her first hike ever! We got her backpack all ready so she could carry her poop bags and her water bowl and drove to the park. We drove into Cheyenne Canyon and it was already getting crowded around 9 AM! Thankfully, we found a parking spot higher up on the mountain side about 1/2 a mile away from the trail head. We tried not to get hit by cars as we walked on the side of the road to the trailhead and then embarked on a beautiful hike.

Hiking on 7 Bridges Trail in Colorado Springs

The views were stunning and the trail was nice and wide. There were so many other dogs and people out walking. Dixie was in absolute heaven! We had a little trouble finding the Seven Bridges Trail because it wasn’t very well marked, but after some back-and-forth and a few conversations with fellow hikers, we finally found it. We followed a river up the mountain and passed many waterfalls along the way. We ended up going over seven different bridges, hence the trail name, to get to the top spot where the biggest waterfall was. It was wonderful and Dixie played in the stream as we went. She pounced on some rapids and hopped over rocks like a little mountain goat. It was adorable. Thankfully, she didn’t pull me down the mountain either!

The hike took about three hours total and we were starving by the time we go back to our car. We drove back to AirBnb for some leftover pizza. Ryan took a nap and I decided to explore the ranch and park area across from our AirBnb.

The Rock Ledge Ranch historic site had some beautiful grass in front of an old house and I laid down in for a good while on a comfy patch to just enjoy the weather. Dixie was having a blast rolling around in the grass. It was really cute!

Puppy play time at the historic Ranch in Colorado Springs

After about 30 minutes, we walked around and found horses, geese, sheep, pigs, and other farm animals. It was really cute introducing Dixie to all the animals and ended up being a really nice little walk. When I came back, we rested for a little while and then decided to get some to-go Greek food for dinner! It was absolutely delicious and was a nice cap to a long day. (Even though they forgot my pita bread).

Colorado Springs – Day 3

Today was white water rafting day! It was pretty cold in the morning compared to the other days that we had been in Colorado Springs as the clouds were out in the sun was hiding. It was about an hour drive to get to the rafting place and we waited in our cars for social distancing reasons until the leader came by and grabbed our info for wetsuits. We got suited up and we’re ready to roll. Being only their second day after reopening with the new Covid-19 protocols, it took an extra hour to get ready and onto the bus.

Getting ready to go white water rafting in Colorado Springs

It took about half an hour to get to the rafting launch site. We were put into a group of 4 plus our guide, Ethan. Ethan had a great personality and was a fantastic lead for our level three and four rapids! The views were absolute beautiful and we started off with some pretty intense rapids. We floated for about 2 1/2 hours with a good number of rapids spread out in between themselves. It definitely made for a very minimal amount of downtime and a lot of fun time! Ryan almost fell out of the boat was going down the first set of rapids but, thankfully, he caught himself. You had to have really good core strength to stay in as you’re getting bounced around. It even started to rain and thunder and lightning in the canyon and was absolutely terrifying but really cool to watch the giant droplets of water river in front of us going through the rapids.

The only downside was I was absolutely freezing! There was no sun and the river water was from melted snow so it was literally just above freezing. Being in the front of the boat, I got completely drenched, so it was hard to enjoy the rapids when I was shivering it 100 miles an hour!

Overall it was a very worthwhile start to the day. When we got out of the rapids and back to base, they told us that they didn’t get any photos at all so this is the only one I have. Got to love memories!

We were starving after the rapids and the only thing between us and our our drive back to the Airbnb it was a Dairy Queen. We spent $30 at said Dairy Queen on chicken nuggets and blizzards. It wasn’t as good as I thought it would be but I guess you can’t have expectations for fast food! However, a cookie dough Blast was just what the doctor ordered.

We drove back to the Airbnb and changed and got ready for the rest of the day. We had quite a few plans but I got a phone call from VRBO canceling our reservation for the very next day in Ridgeway! We had a total freak out moment because we had two dogs were thousands of miles from home and may not have had a place to go within 12 hours. They didn’t even have a back up plan for us and told us that it was a glitch in their system which is why we hadn’t been notified prior. I did call quite a few times prior to the trip just to triple check that all of our reservations were in order, but somehow, this slipped by. What a disaster! Fortunately I had already been texting our posts about a later check out I called them and explain the situation and they said there was a few other guess it’s the same thing that happened to you. They told us to come on down! What a relief!

Spending so much time and effort on the AirBnb situation resulted in a stressful afternoon. All of a sudden it was time for dinner. We wanted to go to a brewery somewhere and hang out on a patio but, unfortunately, everything was still shut down.

On the bright side, we had to make a quick stop to Walgreens to get something for Ryan and I ended up getting 5 free Walgreens hand sanitizer bottles from the checkout guys! It was really nice of them to give those to us. We ended up finding this really cute little restaurant with healthier food, after the Dairy Queen disaster, and picked-up to go salads to eat in a beautiful park. There’s actually quite a nice evening and I really enjoyed spending time with my hubs a the park bench eating dinner. It was a wonderful way to top off our relaxing time in Colorado Springs

Big Bend National Park, Texas

October 22, 2019 by The Impatient Traveler, posted in Big Bend / Marfa, Texas

More and more, gift giving in my family has turned from things to experiences. Personally, I love this trend, and for my birthday this year, Ryan surprised me with a trip to Big Bend National Park!

Big Bend is a national park along the Texas / Mexico border that spans over 800K acres. While my birthday is in July, we took off on our road trip to Big Bend in September so that the heat wouldn’t be in full force. We left after work on a Thursday evening and., after 7.5 hours of driving, podcasts, and yelling at our two dogs to behave in the back of my Jeep, we arrived at our AirBnB in Alpine, Texas at 1 AM.

Our AirBnb was a traditional adobe looking building and was pet friendly, so it was almost perfect for our dogs. I say “almost’ because the fenced in back yard was missing about 6 feet of fence so we couldn’t let the pups romp around off-leash, but the inside was super cute.

We chose to stay in Alpine to reduce the drive from Dallas to the Park and stay in a in a more populated area, but that meant some early mornings to get to Big Bend. Big Bend was about 80 miles, or an hour and ten minutes, from our AirBnb, so we only got about 5 hours of sleep after arriving in Alpine before waking up to head to our kayaking experience. We woke up around 6, walked the dogs, cooked some breakfast, and took off on the hour long drive to Terlingua to meet up with our guide.

We met at the one gas station in Terlingua and gas cost $3.15! To set expectations, gas was $2.11 when we left Dallas, was $2.83 in Alpine, and over $3 in Terlingua! We are so glad we listened to the warnings about filling up before we left to the park. The drive to the park was spectacular and went relatively quickly at 80+ MPH.

We grabbed some extra water and snacks from the gas station upon arrival and then met our guide, Erin, and the dad / daughter duo that were the other guests on our hike. We loaded into Erin’s van with all of the kayaks in the back. The drive from Terlingua into the park was about 20 minutes, and then it was an additional 40 minutes or so to get to the river entrance. Erin was full of fun facts about the park and it’s history, living in the small town of Terlingua, and her background from Tennessee. Her accent made the stories that much better.

We were in awe of the views along the park and couldn’t believe the river close to the road was the boarder between us and Mexico. We finally pulled up to the parking lot and had to unload all of the kayaks and fill up our dry-bags for the trek. We even got these really sexy looking boots to wear through the mud. My boots were about 2 sizes too big so I was slipping and sliding all over the place! This made carrying the kayaks quite difficult but we eventually got to the Santa Elena Canyon entrance. We waded into the water and took off our boots to get into the kayak. The mud felt so good on my feet and was only about 1.5 feed deep, but there were some sections where you feel into quicksand like mud and it went up to your hip! It was so crazy.

Once we were all in, we started our semi-relaxing ride. I say semi because we were able to paddle about 80% of the time and were stuck in mud and had to pull about 20% of the rest of the time. The Rio Grande river is damned up in El Paso and, unless El Paso releases some of the water, the Rio Grande river is very shallow in the Santa Elena Canyon. It was still an amazing experience in between the massive cliffs, especially since there were only 5 of us. It was so relaxing. Ryan couldn’t have done a better job planning this.

We make it about 2 miles up the river before stopping for lunch. I made some PB&Js and we enjoyed some Sun Chips while taking in the view. I found a nice-looking log and pulled it into the shade as my lunch chair. It was a truly great spot.

Eventually, finished lunch and relaxed in the river for a little bit. The water temperature was absolutely perfect. We really lucked out. While the other duo on our trip power-paddled back to the exit, Ryan and I took our time to really enjoy the view and take it all in.

The most difficult part of the whole day was getting the kayaks back to the van. We were covered in mud, our boots were super slick, and there were rocks all over the place to push you off balance. We had quite the time trying to carry the heavy boats back but, eventually, made it. We got quite a workout in for the day! After loading up the van, we hit the road for the hour long, educational drive back to the gas station. It even rained a little and Erin joked that Big Bend judges rainfall by “drops per square foot” since they get so little.

We were pretty exhausted and didn’t dawdle in Terlingua once we arrived. It was back in the Jeep and off to the Airbnb. Our pups couldn’t be happier to see (and smell) us when we got back. We showered off all of the mud, took the pups for a walk, and relaxed a bit before finding a spot for dinner.

There is a pretty popular place in Fort Worth that we have both been to called Reata, and apparently, the original location is in Alpine! We went around 6:30, were starving, and ended up ordering waaaay too much food. We started with some delicious corn bread and biscuits, had crab stuffed, bacon-wrapped peppers, split a goat cheese salad, and then got two massive entrees. Ryan’s chicken fried steak should looked like two entire chickens, and my steak with enchiladas had two bread-plate sized pieces of steak, corn, beans, and enchiladas.

We were soooo stuffed and had to take the majority of the food back home. Since it was my birthday celebration, they even boxed up some apple pie and ice-cream for us, which we enjoyed cuddled up on the couch at the Airbnb before hitting the sheets for bed.

Day 2 – Big Bend Hike & Marfa, Texas

Our 1 year old dog, Dixie, was not a happy camper at night. She was barking in her kennel all night and we had a rough time sleeping. I had to get up at 3 AM to take her potty, which actually turned out OK because I looked up into the night sky and saw millions of stars. It was beautiful!

Combined with the 6 AM wake up to head to Big Bend for our hike, we were so tired. Thankfully, we grabbed a bunch of caffeine at the gas station which perked us up for the 2 hour drive to our hiking spot within the park. The drive was beautiful and we got to watch the sun rise over the mountain range in all of these amazing pastel colors. It made the drive much less boring. We even passed a Target along the way!

We arrived at our hike and were excited to start on the 4.8 mile journey up to the top. Originally, we were going to hike the Emory Peak Trail, a 12 mile rigorous hike that reminded us of the Tongariro Pass that we hiked in New Zealand. However, we opted to hike the Lost Mine Trail instead so that we could check out Marfa in the second half of the day. We were not disappointed by Lost Mine in the slightest. The views were amazing there was some cloud coverage so we didn’t get too much sun. The temperature was perfect for hiking and there was even a cool breeze to cool us down. We got so lucky.

Even though Big Bend is technically a desert, the plant life is so diverse and beautiful. There are cacti of various types all over the place, flowers in different colors, grasses, and other weird looking plants that, when combined, made for a gorgeous looking landscape.

It took us about 1.5 hours to get to the ridge top. Again, you couldn’t beat the views. We spent some time at the top taking it all in. We even took a snack break and attempted rock climbing on a big boulder just to enjoy it further.

The dad and daughter from our kayaking journey the day before were also supposed to hike Emory Trail, but we ended up running into them on our hike down from the top! They said that they got to the Emory trailhead too late and the park rangers were cautioning people not to go since it was going to get too hot! I am glad we didn’t waste time driving over to that trail only to get rerouted to Lost Mine.

The hike was the perfect length and we were sore but feeling good once we got back to the Jeep. We ate our PB&Js on the 2.5 hour drive to Marfa. Marfa is a town of 1.8K or so in the middle of nowhere. Marfa has become well know among the art community for Chinati Foundation which is on 340 acres and is a permanent house of certain artists work. There is also a random Prada store (similar to the target) about 30 miles north of Marfa which is now an iconic image for Marfa. With all of the driving we did to and from Big Bend, we decided to skip the Prada installation and check out the gallaries in Mafa instead.

We started by going to the Chitani. When we got there, the two people at reception did not even look up to greet us. It was pretty strange and they told us that the only thing we could check out there was the outside cement block installation. We walked through what sounded like rattle snake infested grasses down to the art- which really just looked like a dumping ground for giant concrete blocks. We didn’t get it, but that’s OK. Every type of art is not always for everyone.

We then went to the Ballroom – another gallery. This one had this creepy exhibit of motion triggered things – like ladders with dog heads that had long wigs and the ladders moved closer to you when you walked towards them. It was very strange and, again, not my cup of tea. We went to Inde / Jacobs Gallery and had a great conversation with the owner. We actually liked the style of art at this Gallery. We kept walking, got some coffee, and checked out the Marfa Store. It was run buy this young guy from Minnesota who moved to Marfa with his boyfriend. We talked to him about transitioning to such a small town and he had some interesting perspectives.

We the checked out the town square and the shops / galleries within. There was one gallery with 3 massive Andy Warhol paintings! It was so crazy seeing such high caliber art in Marfa, Texas! We walked past a few places for sale and decided to check out the real-estate prices on Zillow. Holy cow it was expensive. The homes were comparable price-wise to Dallas, but some of the homes didn’t have city water or even AC! We were so shocked!

We took off back to the AirBnb to spend some time with the dogs. Ryan and I hung out in the hammock in the backyard for a bit before we decided to go find some food. We went into the town and settled on an Italian place called Guzzy’s. It was strangely decorated insides and reminded us of a night club. I got some ravioli with Alfredo and Ryan got some pizzas. The food was average but did the trick and we spent the remainder of the evening with the dogs before passing out around 9 PM.