Childhood Memoirs: Autumn in Vail

we spontaneously hit the road saturday evening to head up to vail, as has been our custom since moving to colorado four years ago. jon just booked a hotel on price line, and we threw some stuff in the car. we set out early evening and were making great time.

not even a snag getting through the 3 mile long eisenhower tunnel.

but about ten minutes from our hotel we came across an eighteen wheeler engulfed in flames. can you see it? it's pretty much in the middle of the picture.

the fire engines arrived about ten minutes after we did, and all was exciting for awhile.

we watched flares being lit...

we watched flares die out. a full hour later, we made the last ten minutes of our drive to our hotel and checked in around 930. after a big ole breakfast and a swim in the hot tub (and a rousing animal planet about catching a ground hog) we set out for our favorite fall drive - shrine pass road.

it's still shocking to see mountains like this.

this dirt trail is shrine pass road. a former student we had from vail told us about it, and we've been in love ever since. we often see sheep roaming the slopes.

we got out to hike around and explore along the way.

we were pretty excited to stumble across this:

man of the cliff at the little fish taco joint we like in the middle of NOWHERE. there's literally nothing else in the whole town. honestly if there wasn't a sign, one might think it was a hipster convention. 20 somethings with beards, flannels and trucker hats.