After nearly 5 months on the road we finally had our first visitors! My parents swung by Denver for a long weekend and we walked, ate, and drank our way through the city. Since Matt and I had only been in Colorado for three weeks at that point, we were doing a lot of exploring of our own.

We started the weekend off with a visit to The Health Center for some lollipops before heading to the Five Points Jazz Festival. The festival was held in the Five Points neighborhood, which was a prominent performance location for many Jazz greats including Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, and Nat King Cole. The music was great, but Jan’s favorite part was probably the dancing woman in a crop top. We downed some bratwurst and pulled pork, washed it down with beer and a hurricane, and called it a morning. That officially checked off everything Ralph wanted to do during his time here and it was only 11am!

The weather was amazing (it is Colorado, after all), so after a brief nap poolside, we walked miles around the city. Our first stop was at Great Divide for a couple of flights and a brewery tour. The winners were the Titan IPA, Old Ruffian (a barleywine), and the Chocolate Oak Aged Yeti (an imperial stout). The brewery was impressively large; their tank farm is outdoors and you can see if driving or walking by. We walked by Coors Field on our way to dinner, but unfortunately there wasn’t a game that weekend 😦 Dinner was at Park and Co. where the burgers were nice, but the Brussels sprouts were lacking.

Great Divide tank farm

We ventured up to Boulder on Sunday for some hiking and general exploring. Boulder is a quick 40 minute (30 mile) drive from Denver, and very worth the trip. We headed to Settler’s Park to hike the Red Rocks trail; a 2 mile loop that meanders up to some red rocks which are perfect for scrambling and offer some spectacular views. The trail starts out through a valley before climbing up to the rocks. Matt, Jan, and I did some scrambling while Ralph and Snickers hung back and served as our photography crew.

The 2 mile loop was a great intro, but Mount Salinas had us wanting more. Luckily everyone was game, so we began the climb. Despite what Ralph and Jan say, we weren’t actually trying to kill them with the hike…altitude just really takes a toll. This trail was very busy and we passed (or rather were passed) by many people going up and down. The views from the top were well worth the climb, and I think that Ralph may have found his new favorite spot. After the hike, we stopped for some lunch and beers at Twisted Pine Brewery (I hear they have a Ghost Face Killah beer made with ghost chiles that will melt your face off) before wandering around Pearl Street.

The rest of the trip was much more low-key since Matt and I both had to work, but we still managed to squeeze in some fun. Jan and Ralph hit up the zoo, which we’ll have to add to our list of things to do before we leave. We walked to Cheesman Park – one of our favorite places to walk/run, ate tacos at Dos Santos, and gorged ourselves on desserts at D Bar. Seriously, if you like sweets, you should definitely try this place out. We split the prix fixe and the chocolate cake got 8 thumbs up. We couldn’t end the trip without some beer, so we walked down to Colfax and got some suds at Lost Highway Brewing. They’ve got some really neat 32 oz. “crowlers” (cans) that they’ll fill up for you to go. The bartender also made us a chocolate banana brew that was a mix of the Longest, Wickedest Wit and Fourth Estate (a Belgian chocolate stout). The Fourth Estate was like drinking chocolate, but all the beers we had were equally tasty.

Before we sent them off, we sent Ralph and Jan to Voodoo Donuts. Since they didn’t make it out to visit us – and the original shop – in Portland this was the next best thing. We didn’t get anything crazy, but the apple fritter, glazed, and custard filled hit the spot.

Thanks again for visiting us, parents! We really enjoyed having you in town.

We’ve successfully maneuvered the first quarter of 2016! [edit: I guess it’s  technically the first 1/3 at this point] High fives, all around! I’m here to give an update of all things in the work-life spectrum and answer all your burning questions: how is the travel going? how is working at home? is Snickers still maintaining her 20-hours-a-day sleep schedule? So, without further adieu….

Matt’s jet-setting lifestyle is probably more interesting, but until he decides to give an update, you’ll have to settle for mine.

Work

In short, the first three months haven’t been much different work-wise than while we were in Louisville. While I’ve had to post-up at some not-so-ideal locations (I’m looking at you, half table in a tiny Santa Cruz apartment), my boss and job are flexible enough that the transition has been mostly seamless. January was a little all over the place since we weren’t stationary and I also hadn’t yet told my boss that I was no longer in Louisville. Couple that with sometimes spotty internet and it was a little stressful, to say the least. Thankfully it was temporary and with February came Portland and insanely fast and reliable internet all provided by Matt’s company! Score!

Workspace in Santa Cruz – talk about tiny!

Portland apartment

Right now I’m still working EST to keep in line with my meeting schedule. Since I told my boss we moved, she gave me the option of working Pacific time, but ending at 2pm every day just happens to be a nice perk :). I have an office set up in the bedroom, so I pretty much roll out of bed at 6am and log in before walking the pup and brewing some coffee or tea. It’s not the most ideal set up; the desk isn’t ergonomic and the room gets zero natural sunlight, but it works for now.

Life

The biggest adjustment has probably been to apartment living, which hasn’t been easy coming from living in single family houses for the last 5+ years. While the units themselves are pretty quiet thanks to concrete walls and floors, we still experience a lot of outside noise. The biggest offender is the trash compactor, which is right below our unit and tends to run between 4-5am daily; we didn’t really think a lot about the logistics of a second floor apartment when we moved in. Live and learn. Also, since we don’t have a yard we’re having to walk Snickers a lot more. It’s actually not too bad since we were already walking her 3+ times a day, but sometimes it’s raining and the last thing you want to do at 6am is take the dog out for a poop.

Otherwise, life in Portland is going great. Snickers and I have settled into a routine during the week which goes something like: walk, work, eat, work, walk, eat, work, walk, work out, eat, walk, sleep. Sure, we miss Matt while he’s gone, but we’ve found plenty of activities to keep ourselves entertained. I’ve found a great little yoga studio – Yoga on Yamhill – that offers some intense power vinyasa classes, is all donation-based so it’s accessible to everyone, and is only about 1/2 mile from our building! I also stumbled upon a bodybuilding gym (Loprinzi’s) that I’ve been going to a couple times a week. The gym hasn’t been updated….ever, so the equipment (and, boy, is there a lot of unnecessary equipment) is straight out of the 50s. We’ve also enjoyed weekly visits to Mt. Tabor – a park in the city built on a volcanic cinder cone and has lots of hiking trails and a large off-leash dog area, and runs/hikes around Forest Park. The food and beer scene is great! We’ve been trying to hit up all the places and drink ALL THE BEER but we find ourselves going back to Base Camp Brewing for their beer and awesome patio (and, yes, that is a toasted marshmallow on my s’mores stout in the picture below) and Por Que No for the stellar margaritas and tacos.

I could go on and on about the food and beer, but that’s a post for another day.

Our time in Portland has quickly come to a close. It’s hard to believe that 4 months have passed since we said good-bye for now to Louisville and embarked on this Western journey. As you read this we’re making the 1,200 mile drive to Denver, which we’ll call home for the next 4 months. We’re excited to soak in all the sun, mountains, and beer that Colorado has to offer.

Stay tuned!

We can cross another thing off our our Pacific Northwest bucket list…we went to Seattle! After weeks of endless rain, Mother Nature finally bestowed some sun and warmth on us and we took advantage with a road trip. Snickers and I took off after work on Thursday armed with snacks and podcasts for the three hour drive to meet Matt in the Emerald City. The sky was clear, which made for some magnificent views of all the big mountains: Mt. Hood, Mt. Saint Helen’s, and Mt. Rainier. Those views made sitting in Portland traffic a little more bearable.

We made it to Bellevue just outside of Seattle before dark and met Matt at the hotel. We chose to stay in Bellevue Thursday night to save a couple buck on hotel and parking since we both had to work on Friday. We wandered around downtown Bellevue Thursday night and Friday afternoon in search of food and parks and found some surprisingly good options – Mediterranean and smoothie/sandwich shop. Matt and Snickers even ran around under the cherry blossoms at a local park at lunch.

Finally work ended and we could head into the city. Since the weather was so nice – 65 and sunny…hallelujah! – our first stop was at gas works park. The park was the former site of Seattle Gas Light Company’s  gasification plant and contains remnants of the only remaining coal gasification plant in the US! Cool! Here is Matt moodily displaying some of the equipment. [Matt- this was the Gas Works Park just north of the city, and an awesome place to explore on a sunny day!]

Gas Works Park

Downtown Seattle

Matt playing acrobat!

They had lots of equipment around that you could touch, which they’ve since painted and turned into a children’s play area. We didn’t really see any children playing, but it’s apparently also a good spot for teenagers to take very suggestive photos.  [Matt here- yeah, that was weird, but we don’t want to judge in a new city!  And I had fun playing Acrobat on whatever that yellow thing was- I found out I am really good at climbing!] We mostly enjoyed walking around until we wore ourselves out and needed some sustenance. We went to Din Tai Fung for some dumplings and stuffed ourselves silly. This place was good! If you’re in the mood for potstickers, dumplings, and wontons I’d highly recommend a stop here. [Matt here- it’s the only location in the US and it’s easily worth a stop, it’s fast and hearty.]

Most of our time in Seattle involved walking aimlessly around the city. We were able to walk all along the waterfront – though they were doing a lot of construction so we weren’t able to walk along the actual water – and caught the sunset over Olympic National Park across the Puget Sound.

We strolled through Pike Place market Saturday morning and witnessed some fish throwing and rows upon rows of fresh tulips. Nothing screams springtime quite like tulips. We stopped at a couple of places in the market to grab some breakfast; Russian piroshky’s at Piroshky Piroshky and coffee at Seattle Coffee Works.

The weather was still cooperating on Saturday so we took advantage and put some miles on our sneakers. First stop was Volunteer park, an Olmsted park right in the middle of the city. It was reminiscent of Cherokee Park in Louisville, and we loved it. There was an old water tower that you could walk up and had amazing 360 degree views of the city as well as a conservatory which was filled with plants galore. They even had an original wading pool that’s like the 1900s equivalent of the modern splash pad. We loved it; it was probably our favorite stop of the trip.

Water tower at Volunteer Park

Inside the water tower

We continued our adventure down to the water after stopping at Portage Bay for brunch and a beer. It wouldn’t be a trip to Seattle without a stop at the Space Needle. We took our obligatory photo, but skipped going up because of the long line and also…we just didn’t feel like it. It was right next to the sculpture garden so we checked that out on the way back to the hotel.

Our dogs were barking (figuratively, not literally. Snickers doesn’t bark 🙂 ) so a nap was in order. [Matt- that was about 12 miles of urban hiking by my FitBit estimates!]  We were able to drag ourselves out of the hotel once more for pizza and beer. Everyone has time for pizza and beer. Our brewery of choice was Rooftop Brewing, which had a nice outdoor area that was covered and heated for the cool night. The beer was great and we had a couple of pints while waiting for our pizza to be delivered from the local chain Pagliacci. [Matt- the beer really hit the spot and Rooftop is in a quiet area near the river, just outside the main hipster part of town, and the pizza had some fresh, local ingredients that really nourished.]

Sunday we planned to hike around Mt. Rainier since the weather had be so great all weekend. [Matt here- we started Sunday with a quick trip to the ultra-premium (expensive, hipster) donut shop, General Porpoise (awesome name!).  Only 4 kinds of donuts, all filled with some delicious goos, but at $4 a donut, you’ll want to choose carefully and avoid the marmalade!]

Unfortunately, this is the PNW so good weather doesn’t last forever. It was so overcast and rainy that we couldn’t even see the mountain. Whomp whomp. We didn’t let that stop us from hiking, though. The original plan was to hit up a 6-ish mile trail on the north side of the mountain then circumnavigate around the eastern side on the way home. What we failed to research was that they close the mountain passes in the winter and don’t open until they feel like it, which is maybe sometime in May. Luckily the trail we planned to hike was before the closer to at least we got to hike. It was right near Crystal Mountain Ski Resort so we even got to see some snow! The hike was moderate and climbed up to waterfall before looping back to the parking lot.

[Matt here- We tried to take the 410 and 123 to circumnavigate Mount Rainier on our way back to Portland; however, we made it as far as Crystal Mountain Ski Resort before we ran into road closed barriers.  Apparently the pass closes between Nov and April-May or, as the local shop keeper we asked said “whenever they get around to opening it.” — Thanks, shop keep.  We were so close to Mount Rainier, but the clouds that day made it impossible to see!  We’ll have to try to get some shots of that 14k ft splendor some other time.]

We had a long drive back to Portland since Matt decided to take the scenic route. This also led to a bout of carsickness on my part, but we made it back in one piece.