September Photo Dump

 I'm sad because my favorite month has already passed by - yup, I blinked and it was gone!  So here's to an AWESOME September!!

Aleah got her braces off the end of August!!  She looks beautiful!!

Hooray - the pumpkin spice English muffins are out!  My Favorite!!

Septembers' Full Moon - gorgeous!

What a beautiful sunrise among the clouds and the aspens - this was on our early morning walk!

WOW - I've NEVER had all 3 coffee cans of pumpkin bread NOT come out of the cans - I was almost in tears until I looked at the picture and noticed the front left one looks like a gnomes face!!  HA!  That brought a smile to my face - the next 3 loaves were better - just one that came out like this!  It still tastes good but really?????

And finally the aspen grove below our house - one of the best years ever for the aspens!

And that's a wrap for September!

Fall Trip - Back Home

 It's hard to sleep in when you're used to getting up early!  I woke up quite early so got up and showered and put on my coat and walked around the grounds, just to get some exercise!  Since "The Diner" was going to be open today and it served breakfast starting at 7:00, we were out the door early to go eat.  And of course, guess what - it was NOT open, even though their website said it was........

We decided we were NOT going to wait around for the other one to open at 8:00 so we quickly packed up and left with plans to eat in Gunnison - yes, it would be much later than normal but I had plenty of snacks in the car to eat until we arrived!

The drive back home was beautiful - a different way of course!!  I loved this back way of going into Gunnison!

Thought this was a unique picture with the dead tree surrounded by all the gold leaves!

We made it into Gunnison - very hungry by this time and there was a line at the W which is the restaurant Glenn loves - it's a locals place!!  We split an omlette which was excellent and also ordered a HUGE cinnamon roll to split!!  Even had 2 different people come up to our table and ask us if the cinnamon roll was good as they were going to order one to take home - YES IT WAS!!!!

 We were on gravel for a while - I kept snapping and snapping!  This was on Black Sage Pass.

Once we got down on the flat land, it's always fun to look back at the mountain - lots of gold in those hills!

And finally Monarch Pass which is always gorgeous in the fall - sometimes it only last a few days but the weather was very nice so hopefully the leaves will stay on for a while!

And eventually we made it home - even the colors around home had changed in a few days and were beautiful - what a great fall trip!!

Fall Trip - Day 2

 At our age you never know if you're going to get a good nights' sleep but we both slept great so that was a plus!  I knew exactly where we were going to eat breakfast because only one place was open - so we got dressed and headed to town and were there by about 8:15!  OH MY GOSH!  With it being the ONLY place to eat breakfast, the line was almost out the door - AND they were short of help! We waited and waited and waited and finally got up to the register to order - the gal was making a latte as she took my order (and all I could think of is she is NEVER going to remember what we ordered for coffee).  Breakfast sandwiches with regular coffee for Glenn and a mocha for me - $38.00 (what did I expect???  HA)

Unfortunately there was NO place to sit inside as it's VERY small so the only alternative was outside - they had a nice deck with lots of tables and chairs but it was all shaded - Glenn had worn his coat, I hadn't as I knew we would be sitting inside - RIGHT!!!  SO I would stand in front of the place for awhile and get warm and then go and sit with Glenn!

We FINALLY got our breakfast sandwiches and they were delicious!  I kept watching the gal that took our order bring coffee out to other people outside and then I realized she was serving people that had ordered after us - GRRRRRR - by this time we're 1/2 way done with our sandwiches!!  I walked in and told her we didn't have our coffee and I was right, because she hadn't written it down, she had forgot it.  In her defense she was SUPER busy and I was very nice about it - she apologized and soon brought out both of our coffees along with a paper bag with a strudel in it - so very nice of her to give us that!

So we went back to our place and had another cup of coffee and split the strudel before we headed out!

We headed over McClure Pass - a beautiful place but some of the trees weren't quite turned yet - still majestic!

The view of the entire valley was amazing!

Then we dropped down into the town of Marble - (that tiny picture above is an error - Blogger printed the same picture twice so I made one very tiny!) Marble is a small town but it leads to the trail that has the most photographed mill in Colorado - Crystal Mill - we ATV'd there a few years ago and it's WELL worth the trip there in the fall!   We made a swing through the tiny town - it has quite the business at probably the only place to eat in town - BBQ - but we were still full from breakfast so didn't stop!

Stopped at this pretty place to grab a picture!

Then it was back up the pass!

Back to our place for a photo op on the swing!!!

Dinner - I felt like we were batting zero!!  There was a Mexican place open that just had an OK menu so we decided to head back to Big B's where we had eaten a few years ago - you just order inside and then sit outside to eat in this huge area - it's a fruit farm with a campground and just a cool place!  Hamburgers and fries were great and we were back home before dark!  Glenn and the owner sat around and talked quite a while - his girlfriend showed up later so we visited before we all headed in for the night!

Fall Trip - Day 1

 It's my favorite time of year and one of my favorite trips of the year - leaf peeping in Colorado!!  Because we were STILL having issues with the razor, we decided to not take the ATV - we would just drive the car and stay in a cabin or hotel.  By the time we figured all of this out, there wasn't a lot of choices of where to book so Glenn suggested we stay in Paonia, driving a couple of passes that first day!  So that's where I booked!

We headed out early Tuesday morning and ate at Jan's in Buena Vista for breakfast - always good food!  And then it was over Cottonwood Pass and over to Kebler Pass, one of my favorite places for leaves!  There's always traffic on Kebler but since it was a week day it wasn't too bad!

The colors were gorgeous and the picture below is MY favorite of the entire trip!  I love taking photos when there's a little bit of snow on the mountains!

We drove up to Lost Lake - there's a campground up there and it's a beautiful spot!

We headed to Paonia mid-afternoon and it was a lovely drive!  I had NO IDEA where I had booked a place to stay - only that it was located on a fruit farm and it was to the side of a house!  But I had no service whatsoever - and later found out that Verizon does NOT work at all around there - interesting!

SO we went into town and I got enough service sitting outside a restaurant that I could google the address and figure out where it was!  Of course we had driven right by it so we didn't have far to go out of town to find it!   I was so surprised when we pulled in to discover there were several small cabins too!

It was beautiful there - the owner met us as soon as we pulled in and he was very nice!  We found our place just to the side of the large house (which actually turned out to be common area for everyone but since we were only 1 of 2 couples staying there, we had it all to ourselves!  Inside was a complete kitchen and living room and game room)  

Our place was so cute and very nice - with a living room that looked out onto the large deck in front and a little galley kitchen and a bedroom with a window seat - I was thrilled!

We walked out to the center of the property where there is a great place for a campfire and sitting at picnic tables, etc!  It was beautiful!

The owner had given us a list of places to eat in town and I had looked up some before we came - but unfortunately, getting food in this town isn't easy!!!!  Besides a restaurant that had NOTHING that looked appetizing to eat, the only other open place for dinner was a pizza place - and then we found out it was closed for remodeling!   OH MY!!  But we knew there was a food truck in town and we DID find it - it was a pizza place- wonderful!!!  We ordered just a medium supreme - I was aghast at the price of $28.00 for it!  OH well!!   And Glenn wanted a beer so we found the liquor store and got him beer and me a Mike's - since they had told us 1/2 hour to 45 min on the pizza, Glenn took me home so I could get the drinks nice and cold and he went back and picked up the pizza!   Dinner on the front deck was VERY nice - the pizza was delicious - but the drinks were not very cold!    The owner joined us for drinks and lots of talking!

So a very nice first day of our trip!!!