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Hiking Treasure Falls: Pagosa Springs CO
For those of you who have never been to the Western Slope of Colorado – I just want you to know you’re missing out! My favorite area of Colorado is that southwest corner that includes Pagosa Springs, Durango, the Million Dollar Highway, Ouray and Telluride! So if you’re thinking of visiting Colorado, I strongly suggest looking into this area!! Treasure Falls is located about 15 miles east of Pagosa Springs – one of my favorite small towns in Colorado! It falls an impressive 105 feet and is less than a half mile from the parking area, which makes it pretty accessible without taking too much time from your day! Once…
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Helen Hunt Falls & Silver Cascade Falls: Colorado Springs
Hello again everybody!! Sorry for the long silence, I have spent the last several months dealing with first trimester nausea and all around fatigue!! ….did I mention I’m pregnant?? Well I am! I’m glad we cleared that up 🙂 Anyways, I wanted to post about one of Colorado Spring’s easiest to access waterfalls! For those of you who know the area, you know that Seven Falls is the better known and more touristy of waterfalls to see. It also comes with an admission price and a shuttle bus. Helen Hunt Falls is not nearly as tall or impressive of a waterfall as Seven Falls. Despite this, I’m more into free…
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Must-See Attractions along the Beautiful Oregon Coast!
I feel like when I tell people about Oregon that I’m giving them a little gold nugget of travel advice, and they’re just like, “Oh, that’s nice” – when in real life no one would ever throw away a golden nugget!!! Do you feel me??? Anyways, today’s Oregon topic is obviously the Oregon Coast, which coincidentally is one of the 7 Wonders of Oregon! A quick recap for those of you who don’t know, the 7 Wonders of Oregon are as follows: Mt Hood The Oregon Coast The Columbia River Gorge Painted Hills Smith Rock State Park The Wallowas Crater Lake It’s my dream to go back to Oregon and hit…
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Colorado’s April Fools Joke…Welcome to Spring!
I have been very excited these last couple of weeks, because Spring has been in the air! The trees are starting to bud and the weather has been increasingly warmer – it even got up to the 80’s a couple of weekends ago! So imagine with me, if you will, my dismay when a blizzard rolled through Colorado Springs today! It feels like some sick joke! Of course “blizzard” is a little too strong a description for the snow we got, but I’ll put it to you this way – if this snow had happened in Dallas/Ft Worth they would have shut the whole city down, so you could say…
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Manitou Spring’s Graffiti Falls
Ahhhhh the beginning of spring! The trees are budding, the weather is perfect, and the wind is fresh with the smell of…spray-paint? Well, it might be if you take a hike down to Manitou Spring’s Graffiti Falls! So, I’m just gonna send this disclaimer out there right off the bat…I do not support the defacement of nature. It makes me sad when people don’t respect nature, and I try my best to “leave no trace”. That being said, I take exception to Graffiti Falls. This waterfall in Manitou Springs has the official title of Rainbow Falls. “Graffiti Falls” is the nickname the locals gave it, due to the obvious heavy graffiti. In…
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Oregon’s Beautiful Proxy Falls
Guys, if you have never been to Oregon, lemme just tell you: You need to go at least once in your life…for real!! My sister and I went to Oregon a couple of summers ago, and it was still one of the prettiest places I have ever been!! We had a jam-packed travel itinerary, but out of the many things I could write about today, I really want to share our adventure at Proxy Falls! Proxy Falls is a beautiful and well known/well-photographed waterfall. As it turns out, my sister had a screensaver of this very waterfall years ago without knowing anything about it. When I showed her pictures of Proxy Falls and…
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Santa Fe’s 3 Must-See Historic Churches!
I pretty much have a love/hate relationship with Santa Fe, NM. In one breath I’ll tell you about how I hate the people because they can’t mind their own business (and how they were gonna call the cops on me for leaving my dog in the car for five minutes with the air conditioner on), and in the next breath I’ll tell you all the things that are worth seeing if you go. Like I said…Love/hate. One of the things I do like about Santa Fe is that it has a lot of history and an awesome Downtown area. The whole city is themed in the Pueblo/adobe-style architecture, so walking around the downtown shops,…
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Oregon Coast’s Heceta Head Lighthouse
I don’t know about you guys, but I personally think it would be so awesome to spend the night in a lighthouse. If I were to actually lose my cheapskate ways long enough to pay for that dream, I would stay in Heceta Head Lighthouse near Florence, OR. I had the pleasure of visiting this Lighthouse in 2015. We kind of made a mad dash to it after spending a long day exploring the Coast. We were staying in Yachats, and after a late dinner we decided that the only acceptable place to watch the sunset was at this particular Lighthouse, which was 20 minutes away. The problem we faced is that…
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New Mexico’s Roadside Attractions: Smokey the Bear
As my husband and I were driving, quite literally, in the middle of nowhere, we happened upon a curious scene. You may wonder at what a random (but sturdy) cut out of Smokey the Bear is doing on the side of the road near Lincoln, NM. I wondered too…until I discovered the most amazing random fact! The mountains behind this cut-out is where the real Smokey the Bear was found over 50 years ago!! I’m sure many of you historically savvy people out there who read my blog already know all about the story of the real Smokey the Bear… but for those of you who don’t, below is a…
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Climb Daring Heights at Bishop’s Castle, CO
Ever since I moved a couple of weeks ago, I’ve spent most of my spare time driving all over the surrounding areas: Buena Vista, Salida, Woodland Park, Divide, Florissant, Cripple Creek, Eleven Mile Lake, Westcliffe…you name it, I’ve driven through it or close to it! However, even with all our driving we really didn’t do anything post-worthy until we visited Bishop’s Castle near Westcliffe, CO. I’d heard of Bishop’s Castle when I lived in the Springs several years ago. Bishop’s Castle is a nice little day trip from Colorado Springs (approximately a 1.5 hour drive), and is certainly an unusual and interesting place to visit! This castle has been entirely built by…
