Summertime Road Trips

We don’t have time for any extended trips at the moment, so we have been taking shorter, weekend trips for the time being. It is a great time of year to hop in a car and find places near you that you have never visited before or perhaps haven’t gone to in a long time. Since travel is often more expensive during the summer months when many families are taking vacations, driving to local destinations is also a nice way to keep costs down. The downside, of course, is often spending hours upon hours stuck in the seat of a vehicle.

Colorful Scenery
Different Geology
On the Road Again

We never used to take photos from the car when would travel to places, but now we often do, just like we now take photos from the window of a plane when flying to a different country. Taking photos through the windows of a moving vehicle doesn’t always produce the greatest results, but capturing the changing scenery is actually a nice reminder of how beautiful some of the places are that you travel through on your way to your final destination.

Plateaus in the Distance
Winding Through the Mountains
Storm on the Horizon

Another drawback to traveling during the summer can sometimes be the weather. First of all, it can be quite hot, which likely means that the windows are rolled up and the air conditioning is on instead of enjoying the fresh scents of nature. Another issue can be rain or, even worse, hail. Driving through torrential rain storms with water standing on the highway can be as much of a white-knuckle drive as driving through a snow storm in the winter. We certainly ran into a little bit of everything during our drive from Colorado to Santa Fe, New Mexico, this past weekend.

Very Menacing Clouds
Heading Towards the Storm
Nowhere to Hide

 

Flying into Frankfurt

The airport in Frankfurt, Germany, is definitely one of the busiest airports in the world. We had flown through Frankfurt before heading there last fall, but really hadn’t given it a lot of thought. So, when we flew into Frankfurt for our extended stay, we took a few pictures from the plane upon approach. It really doesn’t do it justice as there are plenty of little hamlets that surround the city proper and the airport is far enough away from the actual city that you don’t really get good views of downtown. What you do get a sense for is the fact that the area around Frankfurt is covered in forests and rolling hills. Obviously not the dramatic scenery that we have here in Colorado, but it was definitely what we expected to see in Germany. We are flying up to Montana this weekend, but in our hearts we wish were flying back to Frankfurt. For this week’s Cee’s Which Way Challenge we decided to provide some photos of our approach into Frankfurt and what would become our home for half of a year.

The Clouds Began to Break
Undulating Hills
Tiny Hamlets
Factories along the River
View of the Airport
Downtown Frankfurt

 

Cee’s Which Way Challenge – View from the Trail

We had so much fun with this challenge last week that we decided to go ahead and do it again. There is a tremendous amount of diversity when hiking the trails of Colorado. All of these photos were taken on the same hike in Beaver Creek in September of 2010. It was a beautiful day and the scenery was truly spectacular.

Open Meadow
Starting the Ascent
Deep in the Woods
Down to the Pine Trees
Golden Views