Halloween

Our split personality Jack-o-lantern — even he is afraid of himself.

Winter

Couch

While walking the dogs last week, we spotted a free couch on the side of the road that was much nicer than ours. It even had a hide-a-bed. Without much discussion, we took the dogs back home, brought the truck over and loaded up the coach.

After receiving help from a couple of construction workers next door, we managed to wrestle the couch into the house. Now we had to figure out what to do with the old crappy piece of furniture.

For that evening, the old couch sat upright on our deck, making anything in our storage closet unreachable. Tyler said he planned to strip the couch so we could burn the wood and toss the rest, thus saving ourselves a trip to the Wolcott dump and a dumping fee.



He started early on Sunday morning with the Broncos’ game on the television. After a bit, he decided just to dismantle a third of the couch, leaving the rest to be Moses’ dog bed in our bedroom.



But it looks like Moses — and Aspen — are quite smitten with the new couch.

Road trip part two: Ouray

For the second part of the road trip, we left the dogs with Kent and headed on down to Ouray (pronounced you-ray). In a weird way, it reminds a lot of Homer with its tourist season, small shops, and quirky locals. We stayed at the Black Bear Manor —which is an awesome bed and breakfast — and hung out for three days.

We hiked every day, and then would reward ourselves with some drinks and grub. Our favorite spot was the Ouray Brewery, which had some good beers and food to chow down on. Plus it had an awesome deck:



And here's the random section of the trip: the homemade burro trailer:



We followed it the last 30 miles home, and we were both enthralled with its sleek design. If you need to see a couple more pictures of this modern marvel of engineering, click here.

Road trip part one: Moab

Before the winter season commences, us West Vailers wanted one last summer fix. So Kent joined us for four nights camping in Moab. We wanted to explore a different area, so we drove down Kane Creek Road a ways. After driving for an hour, Kent and I were starting to lose faith in finding the perfect campsite. Tyler was a bit more optimistic. When we reached the top of Hurrah Pass, the boys stopped and asked a bald guy on a four-wheeler if he knew any good camping spots. He didn't have a hat, helmet, sunglasses, or appear to be wearing any sunscreen in the desert. Here is the account, as recited by the boys later.

The boys: Is there any good camping down that way?

The Guy: No camping. Just drove through Lockhart Basin. I gotta get home.

The boys: So where would you go camping?

The Guy: I can't go camping, I need to get home.

The boys: We mean, if you were us, where would you go camping?

The Guy: I gotta go home.

The boys: No. If you were US, where would you want to camp.

The Guy: Oh, I'd go that way to trippin' springs - got caves and lots of cool stuff. I'd go that way.

So we headed on down the road. I wasn't very impressed with The Guy's recommendation at first. I figured he had fried his brain out in the desert sun. Then we saw a sign that said Dripping Springs, and took a left. Within five minutes we found the caves, and then our campsite. Way to go Guy!



The next morning we went to explore the caves. We forgot our headlamps, so we had to backtrack to camp to fetch them up. After we had proper lighting, the spelunking (and picture taking) was much more enjoyable.

Throughout our time camping, we managed to come up with a few songs that we all can sing a few lines to. Some of our titles include "We lost Aspen in Moab" (don't worry, we really didn't), "Doing drugs in the desert" (don't worry, we didn't), and "I was born with a birthmark." Here are some of the lyrics Kent came up with:

I was born with a birthmark / it's all I've got on my skin
I don't have tattoos of snakes, scorpions or bullshit / I just want you to get f@#%in over it

I actually have the whole song on video, but I promised Kent I wouldn't post it. So if you want to see it, you have to come to West Vail to watch it. But here are the other pictures from our trip that I know you will enjoy just as much.

Katie and Athena in Vail

Katie and Athena came to spend last week with us. Athena gave us lots of smiles, and slept the whole time we went hiking to view the spectacular fall colors. Here are some of the sights we saw, but don't worry — we didn't trespass on any property, so we didn't have to be dealt with.