Cozumel - Revisited

When we were dating back in January 2007, we decided to go to Cozumel together. We had such a blast (and now of course we are married!) so we decided it was time to go back. Last December (2011) we visited Cozumel for 11 days. We went SCUBA diving, snorkeled a TON, and did a lot of excursions and adventures.

Our hotel was the Sabor Resort on the beach. Decently priced and nothing over-the-top (but still very nice), it was the same place we stayed at in 2007. Our room was literally right on the beach and it was about a 100 foot walk until we were wading in the ocean. The snorkeling was fantastic! It was actually better here at the resort than many other places we went to away from our hotel. We saw a flat fish (sort of like a Halibut), lots and lots of rays, and of course lots of interesting and brightly colored fish.

The diving was also great! We went back to our favorite diving spot, Palancar Caves. It was so great to see these wondrous things again. We had planned on diving for 5 days and doing a night dive as well - but for some reason we both were having severe ear issues (even bleeding a little from the Eustachian tubes) so we decided it'd be best to take the money we had put aside for diving and go do some other fun excursions with it.

I'm really glad things worked out the way they did. We probably wouldn't have gone on the Tulum XTreme Adventure if we had continued diving - and the Tulum adventure was my personal favorite!! We visited the ancient city of Tulum (which is on the mainland) and we also rappelled, did the zip line, and swam in a cenote (an underground river that's in a cavern). Since we needed to get from the island of Cozumel to the mainland, we needed to take a ferry early that morning. It was hot and stuffy in the cabin where we were and the windows were all fogged over so I really couldn't see out very well. Of course, the waves were particularly high and choppy that morning so naturally, I became very queasy. Brian is such a gentleman... he held my puke bag for me while I hurled all of my stomach contents into it! Ugh, that was not fun. But I have to say, the Tulum adventure was SO AWESOME that it was totally worth throwing up for!! Rappelling is my new favorite thing to do and I can't wait for Brian to teach me more about how to do it.

Brian's favorite adventure was the Dolphin Discovery. We got to swim with 2 dolphins (literally SWIM with them!), pet them, kiss them, dance with them, and hold them. We did the dolphin "tow" and "push" where you hold on to their dorsal fins as they pull you through the water, and then the "push" where you stand on their noses as they push you up and out of the water. We also got to pet a manatee and nurse shark and see the very fun Sea Lion Show. After the Sea Lion Show, we got our picture taken with Carla, the youngest sea lion performer. She was adorable and her whiskers felt different than I had expected. Such a sweetie! Sea Lions are, in my opinion, the marine version of Golden Retrievers! :)

Another adventure we went on was the XRail. It was pretty good - but definitely not our favorite. The best part was seeing the light house and learning its history, seeing more ancient Mayan ruins and learning about those, and holding a baby crocodile. The off-road adventure was also fun and Brian drove the "ATV" very well... we even caught some air on one of the jumps.

The food was good and we spent quite a bit of time downtown. I met a very nice artist lady and bought 2 of her paintings and will frame them soon! We ate at La Mission and La Choza - two very excellent restaurants. La Choza will always be my very favorite for the ambiance, food, and friendly service but I also really enjoyed La Mission!

A few days after we got back from Cozumel, Brian had his shoulder surgery. We had planned this fun excursion to be a pre-surgery fun time, and we are so glad we went! Brian's shoulder is SLOOOOWWLY getting better and he begins physical therapy this week. I know it will be worth it in the end - and recovery is always the hardest part. We are just glad we have all of the happy memories of Cozumel to help him get through the pains of recovery!

I'm thinking that we will be back again as soon as we can make it!! It was a BLAST! Please check out the videos from our excursion as well: http://vimeo.com/user5882769/videos

Our Ouray Adventure

It's been a few months since we visited Ouray and backpacked/camped, but I thought I'd take a second and write about it... Ouray is about a 6 hour drive from where we are located here in Colorado Springs. After driving for a couple hours, we stopped in Gunnison (a beautiful little town) and had some breakfast at a quaint little restaurant that served us a delicious meal. We continued on and made it to Ouray a few hours later. Ouray is much smaller than we thought it'd be, but absolutely gorgeous. The mountains there are a different "breed" than the ones here int he front range. They are so much more jagged and rugged - they call it the Switzerland of America and I can sure see why. We drove on the Million Dollar Highway (which was a bit scary and it wasn't even bad weather!). Waterfalls galore surround this pretty place! We drove on to our "base camp" site a little out of town and when we parked, I heard a funny hissing noise coming from under the hood of my beloved little car (whom I affectionately have named "April"). We popped the hood and saw steam immediately. That's not good! Upon further investigation, we determined that my radiator was cracked and would need fluid and a quick fix. Ugh... it was about 5:00 and all the little shops around would be closing soon. This was not good! Fortunately, we were able to drive a few miles away and into another town that was close. We picked up some coolant and epoxy (thank you Dad for being available to offer your wisdom over the phone when we called!). We returned to our "base camp" site and made camp that night - trying to put away our fears and disappointments about my car having a mishap!

We woke the next morning and broke camp after some small breakfast. Having let April's engine cool off overnight, it was time to put some epoxy on the crack. Brian took care of the epoxy while I tore down camp and soon we were off into the mountains.

Wow, what an incredible hike! It was steep - but VERY pretty. Waterfalls here and there along the way made the walk more enjoyable and I couldn't believe how GREEN everything was. It was so beautiful. After some tricky river crossings where the water was just above freezing (it was pure snowmelt!), we decided to make camp at the base of the most beautiful waterfall we had ever seen in our entire lives. I think that's what heaven must be like - the place where we camped was surreal. (The picture of the waterfall with the rainbow was taken on a hill just above our campsite.)

The next day, we hiked all the way up to Ice Lake and beyond - we found an old abandoned building that appears to have been a research station of some sort a decade (or three!) ago. It was really neat to wander around inside and see all the broken down and rusted beds and other equipment.

The trip down was a little easier since we were no longer climbing UP, but the river crossings were even more tricky! This time, we gave up on trying to keep our feet dry and we just waded across the river with our boots on. It was sure nice to get a clean pair of socks and shoes on when we got back to the car!!

Here are some pictures from our adventure. Enjoy!

We are Tough Mudders

On June 25 we earned our bragging rights for finishing the Tough Mudder race in Avon, Colorado (near Vail). It was an absolutely gorgeous morning when we started out - warm, but not hot and just a light breeze in the air. We were surrounded by mountains and Aspen and Pine... absolutely the prettiest place to have a hard-core race like this!

Just a bit about the Tough Mudder: it's a 10-mile race up and down hills and through forests with 25 obstacles interspersed within the course. Some obstacles were not that bad and others were nearly insane. Actually, on second thought, they WERE insane! We were glad when we got to a not-insane obstacle so that we didn't have to worry about DYING. :) If you go to the website you can learn a bit about the course and see a video, etc. http://toughmudder.com/ (copy and paste link in your browser.)

Let's see... highlights of the race... Well, we started out huffing and puffing up a steep hill. Thank goodness for doing the incline so often! We were able to pass a lot of people who weren't used to the altitude. Then we came to the Berlin Walls - two vertical walls that were about 8 or 9 or 10 feet high (heck, it seemed like 15 feet high for us not-so-tall people). I was glad I've been working on my pull-ups because once Brian got me up to where I could reach the top of the wall I could pull myself up and get over. Dropping down over the other side was always a nice awakening to the joints in my legs, haha. :) There were also 4 more of these walls at the end of the course. In a row.

By far, the most difficult obstacle was the one where we had to swim/wade in 36 degree water for about 30 feet to cross a little "river." If that wasn't bad enough, we got to walk about 100 yards (just enough time to start to warm up) and then we had to cross the same river. This time, however, we had to swim under barrels that were floating on the top. We had to dunk ourselves completely under the water and keep going. That water was beyond ice cold. I was shivering so bad that I couldn't even really breathe and my muscles certainly didn't want to work! The thought of holding my breath (even for a second to get under the barrels) was a bit scary. Finally, I made it under the barrels then had to just keep swimming to the shore. By that time, my muscles had nearly locked up completely! Brian was kind enough to pause and turn around and extend his hand to me. When he did that, though, he whacked his right ankle on a rock below the surface. Of course, his body was so numb at that time that he didn't really realize what he had done until we "thawed out." His ankle swelled up so badly that I couldn't even see his ankle bone (more specifically, his medial malleolus!). We still had 6 miles to go at this point.

Immediately after the water, we were handed 20-30 pound logs to haul up a muddy hill and back down. That was crazy - cold water then heavy lifting!

The only other injury Team BS (yes, that was our registered team name) incurred was my knee injury when I went down in a mud puddle. When my left foot slipped I went down on my right knee and whacked it squarely on the kneecap (er, patella). After pausing for a moment and uttering only one bad word, I got back in. With Brian's help, I finished the rest of that obstacle. My knee hurt SO bad. It was bleeding and it swelled later. It's been over a week since the race and Brian and I still even have a little bit of swelling/bruising on our injury sites! This picture was taken as I told Brian I was okay to get back in the obstacle - you can see how he is taking such care of me and letting me lean on him. There was also another guy who stepped in to support my other arm - that's what's cool about this race. It's totally about team work and helping others.

Other than that, nothing too extraordinary happened. Just walking through some electrical wires with our feet in water and climbing up and over cargo nets and scrambling up icy snow with no clearance between you and a cargo net so we got tangled in the net...

Good times! We're making plans for how to train for next year's race!

We finally went to Moab together!

Now that I finally have the time to blog about our trip to Moab, I'm finding it difficult to remember every detail! Anyway, we went at the end of March and the weather was absolutely perfect. We got there and pitched our tent at Moab Valley RV (a great place with RV hookups, cabins, and tent spaces for pretty good rates...) . We got there fairly late so we didn't do much on the first day...


The next day we got to go whitewater rafting! We had a BLAST! The water was frigid cold but the sights were breathtaking. Our river guide, Ian, was pretty fun and he pointed out faces and animals and other things you could imagine the shapes on the rock walls to be. I saw a standing bird on one of the rock faces (pretty clearly) and neither Brian or Ian could see it.

The next day we went for a bike ride around Gemini Bridges and around that area. It was so good to be back in a familiar place! I hadn't been there for about 5 years and I always love it there. It was so fun to show Brian around - and he and I discovered some new trails in that area that neither one of us had been on. Those were very fun downhill sections!

Brian went for a solo ride the following day (over some stuff I didn't really feel a need to go over) and I spent some time studying my beloved anatomy and physiology (I had a practical and test only a couple days after we were to return). I also went for a jog on a new trail (new to me) and did a little yoga on a big flat red rock. It was awesome.

When he got back, we lounged by the pool and soaked up the sun. It felt nice to be so warm there when it was so cold at home! Oh, and we had a great dinner that night! We ate at a Mexican restaurant and the food was delicious!

We spent some time hiking through arches national park and I saw some arches I had never been to before. It was nice to see some new sites with the man I love!

The day we left, the weather turned very crappy! (Good timing!) The last night we were there in our tent, the wind picked up and was gusting to about 40 mph (no joke). We didn't sleep much at all that night! In the morning, we got pelted in the face by a mix of drizzle and sand as we ran into a restaurant to grab some breakfast. Visibility was about 100 feet and there were massive tumbleweeds rolling across the road. Wow, we were happy were weren't staying that day! We left at a good time.

It was a great trip and I know we'll be back again soon... hopefully it won't be 5 years before we return. ;)