am i in a fake land?

the mountains! my favorite flower...peony

hello all....this is claire.

i just got to bolder yesterday to visit miss eliza and let me tell you....i feel like i am in fake world. its almost like i am living in the truman show with jim carey.

let me explain. i am from the east coast and have never been to the west cost except to for a little trip to vegas. i am used to seeing really tall buildings and lots of traffic and not much green stuff. here all you see is everything in front of you and then BAM the rocky mountains. its pretty cool. i think it feels so different for me because everything just looks brand new.

everything is a superstore...target...DILLARDS...walmart..but all so nicely settled in alot of green. ohh and there are the cutest little bunnies running around everywhere.

tottles till tomorrow.
ck

My New Home

MY ROOM

YOUR ROOM

MY BATHROOM

ENJOYING SOME BUBBLY WITH MOM

Momma's additions: not sure I should call it an addition since I'm starting this entry while Eliza sleeps soundly in her new bedroom. I was up early with the light and birds chirping, looked out the guestroom window and saw masses of bunnies; came into the LR which is almost pulled together and caught a great view of the mountains before they became enshrouded with gray mist-laden clouds. 

We officially moved in yesterday, a BIG day with cable hook-up and furniture deliveries, unwrapping, unpacking and assembling much of furniture. We are pros now. The first dresser took 3+ hours, the second was finished in an hour. There are 3-4 items left to put together and 1 and 1/2 walls left to paint but today we are taking a break and going to Colorado Springs to visit an old friend from Brussels. All in all, we've had fantastic luck and a great time: good breaks and deals on furnishings and we are so in tune after this concentrated time together that we gravitate towards the same items without any "no, really, what are you thinking" choices. 15 years ago that was not at all the case when Eliza wanted to paint her room black and I still wanted  (probably) pink rosebuds. The apartment looks wonderful, all guests will be most comfortable. Two contacts have become friends and the guys living below are pretty agreeable. Eliza will be making them cookies before too long. But come one and all and keep my girl company while she looks for a job and settles in.

Apartment Searching

There's only so much to write now as the road trip has ended, but alas there is another adventure ahead of us.

On Sunday we looked at some potential apartment and townhouse communities and then ventured into Boulder. It was about 85 degrees and sunny and gorgeous yesterday. We wandered around Pearl Street, watched the street performers, did some shopping and sat outside and had a wonderful dinner. We were exhausted, probably from the walking and the altitude and headed back to the hotel at 7pm. Earliest dinner we've had yet! But it was smart to go to bed so early because we had a long day today!

I woke up early this morning with a migraine and proceeded to throw up. Fantastic....I'm sure it was a combination of being excited about searching for a place to live and quite possibly the altitude!

Anywho besides all of that we went on a tour of Horizon's at Rock Creek, which is a community of apartments and townhouses. Mom and I instantly fell in love. My one requirement being that I have a view of the Rocky Mountains. We looked at a number of apartments and both of us fell in love with one. We decided it best to look at a number of other places so that we had something to compare it all to. Unfortunately NOTHING compared to what is now , what I would like to call MY NEW HOME!

By Friday May 22, 2009 I will be living at the Horizon's at Rock Creek! I don't want to give you all my address yet because I don't want to jinx anything but as soon as I have signed the lease I will absolutely be sending out my new address!

We also had high tea at the Dushanbe tea house in Boulder and had yummy tea and crumpets (or just finger foods). The tea house is so beautiful!

Here are some pictures of the Rockies and the past few days.

View of the Rockies

Outside of my new apartment!

Kitchen/Dining room. Light fixture to be replaced

Terrible picture of the living room with a fireplace!

My bedroom

Street performer in Boulder. The most flexible guy I've EVER seen!

May 16, 2009 NOUS SOMMES ICI !!!!!!!!

We are here! We made it! It's beautiful and perfect and we're here!!!!

Today we left Laramie, Wyoming on a beautiful day and arrived in Boulder, Colorado (an hour away) on a cloudy day! The drive probably would have been even more beautiful but we were transpoting through a cloud of fog most of the drive.

We first stopped in Fort Collins to visit Nancy Schwartz. Nancy and her husband Dan lived in Brussels with their two daughters Erika and Katie. Katie was in my grade and we were great friends. I haven't seen Nancy since I was in Brussels and it was great to see her and her home and have a nice (and tasty) lunch.

We then headed to Westminster where we are staying at La Quinta Inn and Suites. We hung around our room for a bit which has beds as comfortable as our beds in DuBois, PA. We drove up to Boulder to walk around a grab some dinner, but realized that it must be graduation weekend there because it was extremely crowded. So we drove to the town of Lafayette and had a fantastic Mexican (yes again) dinner. We drove around the town, which is adorable and then the town of Louisville, equally as adorable. Both towns have a fantastic view of the mountains- my one requirement when looking for a home.

Tomorrow we will do some more exploring (avoiding Boulder until the college kids leave) and try to relax before we go straight to work on Monday!

Not many photos today because of the weather but the sunset was still breath-taking!

Not so beautiful when we arrived!!!!

Drive to Fort Collins on I-25

Small detour on CR-72....very weird

Rocky Mountain Sunset

Momma's addition: we crossed the border under a cloud which to me mirrored some of the mood descending on me as it sunk in that this was to be Eliza's new home. Thank God for airplanes and FF miles. It's beautiful and what I've seen combines culture, nature and a diversity of settings all without the "edge" we hate and prize in the NE. I think Eliza will be very happy here and we will be happy for her. Now, where to start? We have to case the neighborhoods today, for potential condos and town centers, the criteria: mountain views, good coffee shop, pet-friendly neighborhood, between Boulder and Denver... this does NOT narrow things down much but it will be fun.

Road Trip Day 11 Yes, Still in Wyoming

I cannot imagine doing this trip that we've done in less than a week! I can't imagine passing by some of the things that we have seen without stopping to soak it all in.

Today we just hung around in Laramie. We went into town and had breakfast, then decided to treat ourselves to a manicure for mom and a pedicure for me. Well if anyone is in Laramie, Wyoming and needs their nails done, DO NOT go to NT Nails!!!! The girl who did my toes made my feet bleed and the girl that did mom's nails made them look like talons!

Then we drove up the Snowy Range Scenic Byway...well, not really. We actually could only go up about 7 miles because there was still so much snow on the ground. I was very happy about this because the elevation goes up to about 10,500 feet and my track record with high altitudes is not great. The drive was however absolutely breathtaking!

We headed back into town and went to the Wyoming Territorial Prison where Butch Cassidy was imprisoned. It was impressively well preserved and layed out for tourists and we spent a long time walking around. It was especially interesting because it was supposed to be high security however they were extremely lenient with their prisoners, releasing them years before their time was up, allowing such luxuries as pets, fine meals and even vacation time in which they were allowed to go out of the prison for weeks on end.

We returned back to Laramie where we went to Walmart and picked up some things to fix our nails and went to a store where mom bought the best pair of cowboy boots! I'm so proud!

The rest of the night we stayed in our hotel room, did laundry, ordered fantastic Mexican food that delivers and watched TV and hung out. It's nice to just hang out and stop for a while when you've been moving, moving, moving for the past 11 days!

Tomorrow Boulder. We will stop and have lunch with Nancy Schwartz who is the mother of an old friend of mine from Brussels who I haven't seen in more than 10 years! It will be nice to see a familiar face. It will also be nice to have a place to stay where I don't have to pack up my suitcase every morning! We are supposed to be staying at La Quinta hotel in Westminster because it's damn cheap, for the next two weeks, but HOPEFULLY we'll find me a home during those two weeks ( cross my fingers)!!!!! So ta-ta for now!

Oh and we figured out the weird billboard signs too! Today we saw one that said "It's like beating a secondhand smoking horse". One of the others said "Curiosity secondhand smoked the cat", they're substituting the words "dead" and "killed".....now it's a little more genius...

Driving to the mountains

Timber truck....we stayed pretty far behind

Jess, every time I see these open plains with horses (and lots of foals) I think of you! Come and see me so we can go riding!

Wyoming Territorial Prison

Sunset from our hotel room

Road Trip Day 10 Still in Wyoming

Today we woke up in the freaky hotel, had one of the better breakfasts I've had on this trip and got started on our day. Yesterday when we were driving a little light came on in the Prius (now called Princess) indicating that we had low tire pressure, possibly due to the drop in termperature and gail-force winds. So we went on a trek to figure out how to put the air in our tires because we both decided to go on this trip without knowing fully-well how to put air in the tires, yes a little embarrassing but now we're pro's so SHUTUP!!!

Once figured out and completed we high-fived each other and headed back towards Devil's Tower. We drove down a hilly and windy road, where the speed limit was 65 and the mack trucks were hauling ass. Of course with this bag on the top of our car it feels like it could probably still get some air and be lifted off of the ground so I had a hard time going 65mph (yes, I know you all find this hard to believe).

You can see Devil's Tower from miles and miles away and already it is something amazing before we've even gotten close to it. It is by far somethign that should be deemed one of the 7 Wonders of the World. It's huge and strange and mysterious and it sits on these long plains of open fields. We took a ridiculous amount of photographs and walked around the base as rock-climbers braved the winds up to the summit. The Kiowa Legend of how the Tower came to be goes like this:

Before the Kiowa came south they were camped on a stream in the far north where there were a great many bears, many of them. One day, seven little girls were playing at a distance from the village and were chased by some bears. The girls ran toward the village and the bears were just about to catch them when the girls jumped on a low rock, about three feet high. One of the girls prayed to the rock, “Rock take pity on us, rock save us!” The rock heard them and began to grow upwards, pushing the girls higher and higher. When the bears jumped to reach the girls, they scratched the rock, broke their claws, and fell on the ground.
The rock rose higher and higher, the bears still jumped at the girls until they were pushed up into the sky, where they now are, seven little stars in a group (The Pleiades). In the winter, in the middle of the night, the seven stars are right over this high rock. When the people came to look, they found the bears’ claws, turned to stone, all around the base.

The rest of our day we drove down to Laramie (past Cheyenne) where we are currently staying for the next two nights before we get to Boulder. The drive was long but really cool. We would drive for miles and miles down these straight and long roads and even though it was mostly flat it was amazing to look at. AND WE SAW TUMBLEWEEDS! Not one but tons of them! The first one I saw scared the $hit out of me! It is an amazing drive and everyone should do it! You just can imagine the Native Americans standing on the tops of these peaks with there horses or settlers coming in wagon behind wagon through these plains. However these thoughts are quickly squashed when you read the endless number of ridiculous billboards and I am quoting these so that you can just imagine these huge billboards with these insane captions: "Save your child, be sure your child's daycare is smoke free" (this one was actually in South Dakota where they smoke like crazy), "Secondhand curiousity killed the smoking cat", "It's like secondhand beating of a dead smoking horse". I tell no lies.... this is what we are teaching each other in "God's Country".

So here are the pictures. It's 11:15 and I'm tired. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow and I'm ready for bed. Goodnight!
Old farmhouses

Devil's Tower

Yes because I was planning on going up to a poisonous animal and saying "hey little fella, you sure are cute". SERIOUSLY?!

We love our side-mirror shots!






I can take no credit for this photo. This was all Mom

Momma's additions: to me car maintenance has always meant getting the car serviced on schedule, maybe a little more prep work is advisable before setting out across this country; sure, in Japan ( it's a Toyota ) when the warning symbol lights up and the book says "pull over immediately and check tire pressure" there's someplace close to do that; in this land there's nothing for a hundred miles! Panic. It's beautiful, almost untouched, huge blue, blue skies with spectacular cloud formations; the range is dotted with sage brush, almost treeless for as far as the eye can see, what trees there are sit below the horizon in deep trenches that are dried up creeks since the Midwest has suffered a drought for a few years. Cows and antelope and buzzards above are the only sign of life except for the slight traffic that shares the endless road. Devil's Tower is astonishing and the odd butte of red clay breaks the range as we drive for hours taking the natural beauty in. This is not a land to drive in on half a tank.

 

Road Trip Day 9 S. Dakota and Wyoming

Ok, well before I start anything I have to first say: Holy Shit JoAnn, you did it....I'm sure you did it with the help of Jessica by your side or maybe she just did the whole thing for you but there you are with you name on my list of "followers". Oh I'm so proud of you! HAHAHA!

Well today was another interesting day to say the least. I think Mom's definition of "God's Country" is pretty to the T. And then we witnessed another part of this sacred country that we weren't expecting, but I'll get there in a second.

I have some pictures from last night that I forgot to put up, maybe because it was 2am, so there are some of the town at night. We did our gambling and shyed away from the signs warning against bringing in switchblades and firearms. The scary part being that there needs to be an actual sign for that!

We got up early this morning to go for a walk and it was insanely windy and freezing! But we blustered on! We walked through town and went to a museum (the name escapes me now), that was a tribute to the history of the town and also to Mr. Wild Bill Hickock and Calamity Jane. Once again we were asked not to take pictures and for the most part I didn't but then I saw something that I had to take a picture of (scroll down). We continued our walk through the cold and suddenly I noticed some familiar moisture in the air and then before you knew it we were in a full-on blizzard/whiteout! So our walk ended shortly but we got a few photos in.

We decided that we better high-tail it out of there ( sorry, I couldn't resist) and get into Wyoming. We had planned on seeing Devil's Tower today but it probably would not have been much of a sight to see, since we could barely see infront of us. So we will have to go back tomorrow. Then we thought we'd stay in the town of Sundance which is only a few miles West of the Tower. Well, when we drove through the town we thought best of it and decided that we'd continue on to Gillette which looked like a bigger town on the map..... WELL, it IS a bigger town..... as we approach the town coming over rumbling hills we are bombared with factories and oil mines. Apparently Gillette is a big coal and oil town. No harm, the town looked promising for maybe a decent meal and an opportunity for a manicure.....maybe.

So we get our hotel room and are walking into the building, to which we have to pass a big fat guy with a bull-ring in his nostril to get into the door.....awesome. We get ourselves settled and I decide to go back to the car to get some more things and then get whistled at by a group of Latino guys (yah, I don't care what you say, it freaks everyone out). So I grab the pepper spray out of the car (the guys are long-gone by now) and go back to the room.

The woman at the front desk recommended the restaurant in the hotel (of course she did), and we figured well the less time we have to be out of the hotel and out of our rooms the better. So we're walking to the restaurant and we pass by a ton of older guys who are covered, hand and foot in black coaly soot. And we're thinking.....well, we may be the only women here. Of course then two old broads came in and mom said outloud "Oh, Good". HA! Well, now maybe we're only 2 of the 4 women in this hotel. We also passed by a midget cowboy who has now been coined "Mom's new boyfriend". Oh I also forgot to mention the uncanny-ness of the fact that tonight we had our best dinner since being on the road. So good, mom took pictures!

Well I'm not going to write more because I'm exhausted and mom has a hot date with her new beau: Mr. Tall. But I promise I will be cuddling with my pepper-spray tonight! Hey, maybe if mom snores too much I'll give her a little spritz!

9:44 pm. My mom and I are watching a movie and she is putting on body lotion. I comment that it smells good and she says that it's the hotel lotion.....upon further inspection she realizes that it's Pantene Conditioner.....ALL OVER HER BODY!


The bar that serves Bull's Balls (no we didn't eat any)



She's a natural! We didn't win squat!


Old courthouse


THIS IS IT! An invitation to a hanging! What happened to that? Why don't we send out invitations to executions anymore? I mean look at the stationery! It's beautiful!


Saloon 10 where Wild Bill Hickock played his last game of poker, had his last sip of whiskey and his last breath









So this is why they call it "God's Country".......ohhhhhhh


This is the slime factory. Sounds gross but it's actually where the miners would sift and clean the gold.


The blizzard we drove through


Mom's excellent photography skills


Wyoming

Sorry no picture of Mr. Tall.....he's shy

Momma's additions: we had really high expectations today: another State, the Devil's Tower and Keystone National Park, maybe the Bighorn National Forest... then we saw our first a flurry which became a blizzard. Remembering last night's story by a visitor about being snowed in for days in Deadwood we decided to move on after a quick brunch ( during which we concluded that bisquits and sausage gravy in the Midwest don't hold a candle to the South, for that matter nothing edible here does and I use that term very loosely ). After battling snow, rain and gale winds we decided to pull into Gillette (pronounced like skillet), have a "beauty day": do our hair, get our nails done, generally take it easy and double back tomorrow. The parking lot is full of pick up trucks, major piercings are popular and I'm guessing it's really easy, even for a dog face to get a date around here. We had even planned to use the hotel pool but wisdom, caution and common sense derailed plans to explore this mining town and we've opted to watch movies in the room instead. Slumdog Millionaire definitely deserved the Oscar, Confessions of a Shopaholic probably doesn't but it will be fun to watch together behind our double bolted door.

ps: 9:47 pm: I'm a little mortified but my body frizz is under control...