the rest of the trip I

Estes Park, Colorado as seen from the library balcony at Ravencrest Chalet

Noel spent many a summer here as a camper with her youth group and then a summer as an intern leading caving, ropes course and other various and sundry activities.

Our Rocky Mountain National home with a view

Ravencrest Mascot!

 

Hike to Bierstadt Lake

 

Sights of Estes Park (the elk are real)

The Sleeping Indian (head on the right, toes to the left, beautiful Colorado sky to the up)

Hardcore rafters gettin' ready to kill the Rapids on La Poudre

The view on the morning we left. There's something about clouds gathering over the mountains that makes Noel's heart stop every time. It's so beautifully awesome.

colorful Colorado

Kinda redundant since that's what "colorado" sorta means anyway

a beautiful flower for mi amiga, Jean

a snake for Greg

peas in a pod because according to the balloon artist,
"i'm such a sweet pea"

my friend, Jean, she's great, she works with inner city kids in Denver and she loves all people.
i realized spending some good quality time with her that i really miss her and driving around with her and just chattin' it up and listening to hip hop.  jean and I have known each other since high school and we were great friends then and have kept in relative touch since.  greg likes her because she did show choir...and because she's awesome of course.

Mile High City

best balloon artist ever in BeauJo's, home of the "mountain pie"

Oo, Aa, the colors of it all!

Home Spicy Home

So, no trip to New Mexico would be complete without a trip to Albuquerque.  The best thing about Albuquerque is that I (Noel) grew up there and so have many boring, funny and sometimes saddening anecdotes all over the city.  Poor Greg has a hard time getting it all straight but that's okay because sometimes I do, too.
We especially love the people so this section, more than many others, will involve the people I treasure and still go back to see.  Also, the food.  Oh, the food.  To die for...actually, when I think of the great feast, I think of this great New Mexican extravaganza in which all my friends are there answering the Lord's question, "Today I set before you green and red chile, choose today which you will have."  And then He laughs jovially, not unlike James Earl Jones and says, "Just kidding, 'tomorrow', if you can really call it that, is a new day with new mercies and more chile."  Maybe there will be other colors of chile also...oh, the possibilities.  If you don't understand and this picture of heaven does nothing for you, well, don't worry, it just means you're not a New Mexican.  But don't worry, in heaven, you can be an honorary member. :)

But, you just wanna see photos, of course:

a southwestern storm for our trek

Southwestern landscape whilst driving; if you squint you'll see the rainbow!

salsa fiesta in Old Town! we tried about 20 kinds of homemade salsa and if we had paid, we could've voted, but we didn't so we just ate "dinner" of salsa and chips provided by the good gente of ABQ

proper decor for showing at the Salsa Fiesta

anatomy of a salsa fiesta bite

going in for the kill

hoping it doesn't kill me

this is Linda, she's the best.  she used to come and do lots of youth group activities with us when we were mere youths. she's prayed for me since I was an annoying teenager and she was giddy when she found out we were going to seminary and said, "I've prayed all along that this day would come!"  She's also amazingly hospitable and had us over for a spontaneous dinner on sunday night at which we laughed and laughed and had a GREAT time.

these are some of the wonderful ladies with whom I was privileged to hang out with both in my growing up years and then in my brief stint of helping out with youth group.  not pictured: magnolia camp, who is also one of this bunch.  i'm so proud of these girls, getting married, goin' to grad school, saving the lost, all in a days work; love you, brett, jessie & marcie.  most of them still go to the new St Mark's...aka Christ the King which is still home in many ways because 99% of the people I love are still there, just a different space.  that's okay, the orange carpet added character but not much else :P

greg tryin' out cowboying for size

This is Noelle and Noel. :)  Noelle was my grandma away from my grandma (who lived in El Paso).  She would come to my swim meets and have us over to play Monopoly.  Everything I know about it I learned from her...we'd spend HOURS playing.  She also taught me all I know about card games...which, as most of you know, is not much.  We spent some good time at her house, drinking her scotch, eating her peach pie and petting her dogs and yacking it up.  So little has changed in many ways, I miss her very much. 

This is Randy and Redd.  They were kind enough to let us stay with them and feed us breakfast and dinner and tell us all sorts of stories about their lives and the lives of the church family.  They used to live 2 blocks away from us and so they babysat us sometimes and we'd go sell them girl scout cookies and the like.  They are some of the most attractive people I know and they haven't changed a bit.  They know they've been really blessed by God and so they just want to give and give and are truly thankful and joys to be around.  I'm glad we could stay with them.  They also have some AWESOME albuquerque views!

The view from the back patio of the "guests quarters" looking down on the valley where the city is

backyard with a view...a beautiful view of the Sandias, complete with cloud cover [longing sigh]

the following are actually stolen from our last trip to ABQ in october of last year.

the mountains are a personality in their own right and I have missed them for a decade

I have also missed the Frontier for a decade. I think this burrito speaks for itself.

of course, we also stopped this time for some more frontier tortillas for the road trip

a view of Central Ave, Route 66.
we used to walk up and down for fun and explore shops and buy thrift clothes and go to the Frontier

a school with a view; this is the Academy where I went to school.
It has another fabulous view of the Sandias

the natatorium where Noel spent SO many hours swimming and playing water polo

oh, Garduño's salsa, how I love thee.

The REAL story of Roswell, New Mexico

On our way to ABQ, we stopped by Roswell's UFO Museum and Research Center, home of all things alien and UFO-related.  Spurred on by the events of a fateful July evening in 1947, this Museum documents the history of the town and the accounts of those involved either in the discovery of aliens and their aircraft downed in Roswell or the cover up which took place thereafter.  And it's great; you can take photos of anything except the Gift Shop :)  My one critique is that for a legitimate establishment with a very compelling story to tell, they sure had a lot of typos.  For all of you who know me, this is something I cannot abide...especially for museums and centers of fact transmission.  I mean seriously, as though America isn't already full of skeptics, why further that skepticism by clueless editing of walltalkers?  Well, before this turns into a post on typos, we'll move on....

You know you're in Roswell when...

I blew this up because I want to make sure you can see the "TOP SECRET" part...also, I never found anything explaining space light generating from aliens groinal regions so your guess is as good as mine.

Sorry the bottom's so blurry, it reads "Certain artistic license has been taken to show visually what has been reported."  Whoa, I'll say.  I thought Steve Miller was the only space cowboy but boy was I wrong.

This is a very partial list of propaganda on why it's likely that aliens exist and come to Earth.  Please note the Bible verses.  It's funny how few people really take the Text as legitimate and yet, when it comes to proving aliens exist, everyone's a believer.

The stuff that dreams are made of...or at least UFOs and/or weather balloons and/or government cover-ups.   This is a photo of a photo of one of the first military persons on the scene of the 1947 Roswell incident with the man to first discover the crashed UFO and its dead inhabitants.  He kept pieces of the craft which were like aluminum but immediately went back to their original shape once manipulated.  The original pieces conveniently disappeared from military personnel offices shortly thereafter.

This is an explanation of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind".  Please note that one of the only people they consider "sophisticated" and a legitimate source is a pastor.  Awesome.  I hope I have such claims to fame to look forward to!

Noel pictured with RALF (Realistic Alien Life Form, for long) and the New Mexican flag, with a place like Roswell, how can one not be proud to be a New Mexican????

Greg befriending the poor caged RALF-good luck, little buddy.

One of the many alien wares shops in Roswell.  Actually, we were legitimately perplexed by how many businesses did not capitalize on the whole UFO/alien thing.  I mean, come on!  Nobody's going to go anywhere in this town if you don't claim to have something to do with inter-universe relations. 

This comic pretty much sums up the whole UFO museum for me.  Like, well, they can make up weather balloon stories and crash dummy stories (2 ways in which the government tried to deny the incident and say that it was really them running tests, etc) if they want, but we all know that one way or another, it was actually the aliens.