It has been a long time since I've posted! We have been traveling a lot and are finally back in Jackson for a while. In fact, I'm not sure how easy it will be to travel from this point on with winter road conditions. Hopefully this will mean more regular posting for me. I think it will be interesting for everyone in the south to see what living in a true winter climate is like! 

This picture doesn't really do it justice, but here it is!

William worked on sawing it, while Sammie acted confused as to why were standing on the side of a hill. William is the red blob behind the tree.

"Umm... What are we doing here and why?"

"This is boring... Moving onto better things!"

After cutting it down, William carried it down the hill. The trail we took was really icy, so getting it back to the car was a little difficult, but let's be honest- William did most of the carrying. I did help for a little while, though!

Safely lowering the tree ... I probably would have just let it tumble down the hill.

Carrying it down! Good thing the hill wasn't icy!

Packing out our Christmas tree! (Please note how icy the trail is!)

I know, it has been forever since I've done a blog post... right after I said I would post twice a week. Obviously, that didn't work out! It's been almost 3 weeks since I posted. Oops! Since my last post, William and I (and Sammie!) have traveled to Bozeman, MT and back, and then we did a trip around Colorado. We first went to Denver, then Colorado Springs, and finally to Summit County (Breckenridge/Vail area.) 

I'm really glad we decided to do the trip that we did. It was much less road time, less expensive, and still allowed us to see some amazing parts of the country that we had never seen before. One of the main reasons we moved to Jackson in the first place was to experience a different part of the country, and I think we have definitely accomplished that. We have seen so much that many Americans never see! Even in just the Jackson area, there is so much natural beauty to see. The west is so much different than any place I've ever been. I also have to say that seeing so much of the country has made me appreciate where I am from. After seeing lots of little towns and cities throughout, it has actually made me like Columbia a lot more than I did last time I lived there. 

Anyways, on to the trip. Honestly, I did not take many pictures in Bozeman. The weather was pretty gray and gloomy, which doesn't make for great pictures. The town was pretty cute, though! The main street area was nice, and the surrounding area was great. Lots of cool bungalows and some different architecture than what I'm used to. The landscape was pretty similar to that around Jackson, without the dramatic Tetons. There was some snow on the ground in the National Forest, which was very exciting for Sammie.

William at the Great Divide Brewery

Boulder, CO

Some extremely enthusiastic volunteers at GABF

Lexington Avenue Brewery presentation on Lowcountry food

View from the main parking area at Garden of the Gods

Sammie at Garden of the Gods, overlooking Pike's Peak

One of the other main attractions in CO Springs is Pike's Peak, which you can see in the picture above. It's definitely not the most dramatic peak I've ever seen, but it was a cool thing to have overlooking the whole city. You can actually drive all the way up to the top!

Aspens along the trail

Booth Falls in Vail, CO

View of Vail ski area from Booth Falls

Anyone that knows me knows that I change my mind and plans all the time. Well, it's happened again. We changed our off season plans! As our Pacific Northwest trip got closer, I started feeling kind of overwhelmed with the amount of planning we needed to do to make the trip worthwhile. There was so much to see and do, and I can go a little overboard on travel planning to make sure I get to see and do as much as possible. It basically just became too much, and since we have both already been to Portland and Seattle, we decided to look into other options.

A while ago, tickets for the Great American Beer Festival went on sale and sold out within about 4 hours. We both talked about wanting to go, but just wrote it off since they sold out so quickly. When I started to think about alternatives for our trip, I looked up tickets for the GABF and found that there were plenty for sale online. So, we are now going to the GABF and couldn't be more excited! It's not until a week from now, so we are going to head up to Bozeman for a couple of days before heading down to Denver. 

We have actually never been to either city (unless you count driving through Denver in the dark) so it will be a lot of fun. I'm sure I've mentioned that not many breweries distribute to Wyoming, so we are both excited to go to the festival and have the option of over 2,200 beers to try.