Monday, July 15, 2013

100 Ages, A Century of Voices

July 15, 2013 ~ A few months ago I read a post on Facebook from the Columbia Missourian asking for volunteers for a project. The project was spear-headed by Alyssa Goodman and Katie Alaimo and would be the faces and voices of 100 people in Boone County in a project they called "100 Ages, A Century of Voices".

What an amazing experience this was. The girls had you enter into a studio where two different cameras were set up complete with lighting and they would engage in a normal conversation with you. During this conversation they would ask additional questions. I can only imagine how much they learned from each of the 100 people they interviewed and how those stories will be something they will remember. (Seriously, think of the amazing history these people have!)

On July 4, 2013 the complete project was aired to the public! I have taken time to watch almost all of them and I truly enjoyed watching people grow up before your eyes. You see many walks of life and it's interesting to hear their stories from their own mouths. I encourage you to watch the videos and how well they are put together.... who knows, you just might see a few people you know in the process!

(click here to enter the Columbia Missourian Project)

(click on this link to see the videos)

(click on this link to watch my video)

Great job Alyssa Goodman and Katie Alaimo.... 
You girls did an awesome job!

UPDATE:
 July 10, 2013 ~ Just had a nice surprise in the mail today that totally made my day! I don't know who sent this to me but if their heart is as full as mine is right now from such a simple gesture then life is good friends! Thank you who ever you are for making my day a little brighter!

Thursday, July 11, 2013

Montrose, CO ~ Day 5 Heading Home!

July 7, 2013 ~ After 4 wonderful days visiting friends it was time to load up and head home. We put a total of 857 miles on the Chevy Tahoe and we had to give her a bath before returning it. We were going to meet Paul, Whitnee and the kids for breakfast and had some time to kill before that so we drove down on Main Street because I wanted to get pictures of a flag painted on the side of a building that I noticed the other day. (I'm kind of a dork like that)

Montrose, CO is beautiful in the summertime... and love the no humidity too! 
We're gonna miss this place.... until next time that is!

The Spry's! 
Told you this was a really cool flag painting! It looks so real and who ever did this ROCKS! 

 We met at Camp Robber for brunch. We found this little hot spot on our last trip out here. Love their pancakes and fresh fruit! 
"You want to color Shell?"
"Here you go Brandon!"
"I love chocolate milk!"
"You like chocolate milk Brandon?"
"Chocolate milk makes me silly!"
It was fun getting to spend some time with all the kids...
They are growing up so fast! 
Elaine
Connor
Damon
We were ready to hit the first leg of our flights home. We returned the rental car and headed over to get our boarding passes. As I attempted to get checked in they couldn't check me in for some strange reason. The guy told me he would fix this in the gate. We got through security and they had over sold the flight and didn't have a seat for me. (I purchased our tickets a few months ago through American Airlines direct so I don't know how this happened) About 10 minutes before the flight they were able to locate seats for the 4 of us that needed them. Shew! I really didn't want to stay another night if we didn't have to since we needed to be back to the office for work tomorrow.

We finally got the wheels up and headed to Dallas which made us happy! During the flight I began to get the story for my second book which made the 2 hour flight go pretty fast. 
I looked up to see this cool cloud next to us.

We landed in Dallas and had about a 4 hour layover so we took off walking. I am pretty sure we saw just about all of DFW Airport! We ate dinner at Friday's and loaded on the plane at 6:30 PM to fly back home. We had a great flight and was sitting behind Jay and Michelle Lindner who just got back from Vegas for the weekend!
We were welcomed with a perfect sunset when we arrived back to Columbia but the best part... we were only 25 minutes from home! Sa-weet!


Montrose, CO ~ Day 4 Silverton, Mine Tour & Ophir Pass!

July 6, 2013 ~ Since this was our last full day with Paul, Whitnee and the kids we decided to hit the road and head to Silverton, CO! I know I keep saying this but it is seriously some of the most beautiful scenery out there! The mountains are awesome the view is amazing and it's really cool how you can go from 92 degrees and get to 58 degrees in the mountains!
It wasn't a bad drive anywhere we have gone either.
Welcome to Silverton, CO! 
 We decided to take a mining tour! 
Everyone got to try to pan for gold while we waited for our tour. The water was freezing and the kids found a few pieces of copper and silver. (I think they put things in there for kids to find)
Then it was picture time! Imagine that! 
Even Brandon and I got another picture! 
(It's a good thing I brought my tripod this trip or you might not see me in pictures!)
Then it was time to go on the tour! 
What a fun bunch of people! Memories were made right here! 
(Don't be surprised if one of these pictures is your Christmas card this year!) 
We went 1500' back in the mine and our tour guide was awesome! 
(If you know Bob Wagner, Shelly DeVore's dad, he reminded me of him... funny and could tell stories!) He was a miner in this mine many moons ago.
If you ever go to Silverton, CO make sure you stop by this mine tour!
Momma and her babies! 
This cute little guy came to see if we had a good time! 
Y'all come back to see us!

Old Hundred Gold Mine Tour
721 County Road 4A
Silverton, CO 81433
970-387-5444

This little town was really cool!
How could I not get a picture of this guy... 
He was totally saying "Hey blonde, take my picture!"
This ride caught our attention...
It's for a place called "Grumpy's"! 
We ate at a place called Handlebars which was pretty cool!
The bar was covered with pictures of guys with mustaches
We went to an awesome little dessert shop that had funnel cakes and you could put any topping you wanted on it. We ordered one with cream cheese and raspberry filling... OMG! YUM! 
Inside the shop they had a map of where people traveled from.
Seriously Columbia, MO.... no one? 
Have no fear y'all... I got it!

I had to go the World's Highest Harley Davidson store to get my daddy some shirts!
Who knew.... a My Favorite Things in Silverton, CO! 
(Just like Ashley Simpson's store in New Franklin, MO!)
 Then I took a few pictures of some random stuff...
these Columbine flowers are everywhere in Colorado
(at least all the places we traveled to)
They had a really neat train store that had all kinds of cool train pictures/pins/signs.
I thought this little guy was cute!

When we left Silverton, CO we decided to take a mountain pass. It was really cool and the scenery was yet again, amazing!
When we got to the top the boys wanted to play in the snow.
They thought it would be fun to throw snowballs at me!
OPHIR PASS
11,789 FT
It was super windy up there and about 58 degrees!
Super cool to be here!
As we headed down the pass it was pretty much a one car road and if you got off the road you went straight down. (Whitnee and Damon didn't really care for this but was total troopers on this trip)
There was so many trees that had things carved in them throughout the road heading down.
I think Damon was happy to be back on the normal roads!
These tepees are on Ralph Lauren's Ranch....As many of you know when we came out 3 years ago to Paul and Whitnee's wedding we had to drive a public access road that went through his 17,000 acre ranch to get to the meadow where they got married. It's truly impressive and I would love to see his place as Oprah did. (Of course that won't happen but it would be cool)

Here's a link to the video that Oprah has of her tour on his ranch and the tepees.
http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Oprah-Explores-Double-RL-Ranch-Video

As we headed back to Montrose, CO to call it an early evening we drove down another country road.
As you can see these homes out here are beautiful!
These boys were great while I took several pictures of them and then when they were done they hopped the fence and walked away.
We had dinner at a the Red Barn. There rolls are amazing! Prime rib was good too!

After dinner everyone was ready to relax and we called it an early evening. Brandon and I decided that since this was our last night there we wanted to take a ride and see what we could find.

We headed back to Ridgeway, CO to see if we could see some more critters. We head up an access road that lead up to an area people camped out. This was the same place we saw the bear last year so we thought we might get lucky and see him again. 
We had a lot of fun and Brandon was such a good sport at taking the hundreds of pictures throughout the trip. I highly recommend if you go on vacation take a tripod for your camera. It's a great way to capture great pictures with you in them! 
We got to ride through some great country and made it to the Uncompahgre National Forest and saw one little mule deer on our adventure. We road all the way to the very back of this road and there was several campers and hikers. We really were hoping that we would have seen some more wildlife (and if you talk to Brandon he wanted to see a Mountain Lion and a Bear). It was 10:00 PM when we finally called it an evening. (It was getting too dark to take pictures)