Boise River Greenbelt

On Tuesday night we caught a break in the weather and went for a long walk along the Boise River Greenbelt, a 20-mile long path that runs along the Boise River through town. Its like Boise's version of the Lakeshore Path in Chicago and winds along Boise State University's campus and through several parks and wildlife preserves.

More pictures from our visit are below:

The Boise River


The Greenbelt Path


Boise State Football Stadium


Boise State Football Stadium... and its blue field!

Home Away from Home, Boise Edition

Sorry for the lack of posting lately... we spent the last week getting settled into Boise and just didnt do much worthy of posting about! Boise is known to have great weather and very limited precipitation, but its been cold and rainy since we arrived... the reports say rain all this week too, so fingers crossed that it will pass and be nice instead!

In the meantime, we're enjoying our Boise 'home' - we're staying in one of the units at the adorable Boise Guest House. Its more like an apartment than a hotel and has been great so far. Until we have pictures of more adventures to share, here are some pictures from where we're staying for the next few weeks:

The front of the Guest House - isnt it cute?!


The door to our apartment (in back)


The Kitchen


The Bedroom (pug not included)


Jason's Trading Office (in a corner of the living room)

Boozer and Frank in the Living Room

Arches National Park

On our way to Boise from Durango we stopped for a day in Moab, Utah. Before we continued down the road on Saturday, we spent a few hours at the nearby Arches National Park... full of beautiful red rocks and sandstone formations, the scenery was gorgeous.

Above is Delicate Arch, seen from the lookout point... this is one of the most famous arches and is depicted on one of Utah's license plate designs. There is a hike to get up close to the arch, but we unfortunately didn't have the time so had to settle for a view from a distance.

The rest of our pictures can be seen below:

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Welcome to Boise!

We arrived in Boise late in the afternoon on Sunday and have busied ourselves getting settled and looking into how best to make use of our time here. More info to come (including pictures from our quick trip to Arches National Park on Saturday!), but just wanted to give a quick update that we're here!

Goodbye Durango...

Yesterday was our last full day in Durango (we drive to Moab this afternoon) and we celebrated by getting in one more workout/ butt kicking from Terri, the personal trainer we've been working out with here in Durango.

We found Terri at the Core Value Fitness Center here in Durango and were so glad we did... she really worked us out so much harder than we ever could have done ourselves (or wanted to, really... :). Even though we were only here three weeks, we're seeing improvements in our strength and endurance, and she even sent us away with the details for one of our toughest interval workouts so we can recreate it at home and keep up our momentum. While working out isnt always our idea of fun, her upbeat attitude really helped to motivate us and keep us going through those very long sixty minutes.



Thanks for everything, Terri!

Mesa Verde National Park

Good mix of busy and relaxing this weekend here in Colorado. On Friday night we went to a wine tasting with the Durango Wine Experience, though we dont have any pictures (we're trying to blend in, not look like tourists! :) it was interesting and we had fun looking around the galleries where the tastings were.

Sunday we drove out to Mesa Verde National Park in Cortez, CO, about an hour from Durango. The park is very isolated - once you reach the entrance, you drive 15 miles on winding mountain roads to get to the visitors center, then another 5 miles to any of the cliff dwellings.


View of Cliff Palace from the top of the Mesa
Mesa Verde was once the home to ancestral pueblo dwellers... they inhabited the lands of the park from 600-1300 A.D., though lived on the Mesa top until the 1200s, when they built the cliff dwellings we saw. Then everyone migrated south in the early 1300s, leaving the structures they had built.

We took a ranger-guided tour of one of the largest dwellings, Cliff Palace. The huge dwelling seems like it was primarily a meeting and ceremony place- there are over 125 rooms and only 25 appear to have been residential.


They built their adobes into the sides of the cliffs (the nature of sandstone naturally created the 'caves' in which they built)... built out of sandstone and mud, the craftsmanship was pretty amazing. And also amazing how well they have held up over the last 800 years.
Our full set of pictures from the trip can be seen below:

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The View

This is the view of the mountains and the Animas River (which runs through town) I saw on my way home from a pilates class last night... we're constantly amazed by how gorgeous everything is here.


This is our last weekend in Colorado, so we're hoping to make the most of it. Tonight we'll walk around downtown for the Durango Wine Experience, enjoying wine tastings and appetizers... tomorrow are hoping that the weather cooperates for a trip to Mesa Verde National Park.

Of course, we'll share pictures... thanks to everyone for the wonderful feedback & for joining us on this journey!

Tennis Lessons

Jason has been taking some tennis lessons while in Durango from a great local instructor... this weekend he rented a court and the owners got him all set up with the automatic ball machine so he could just do drills and work on his form... not a bad location to be playing outside!