Last Trip to Gunnison

Last weekend Dylan and I went up to Salida and Gunnison to visit Dylan's aunt and uncle and to visit my sister in Gunnison one last time before she graduates!

Since my sister wanted to take the puppies to some off lease areas, we also brought the dogs. This was our first time traveling with them besides to Dylan's parents house and camping at Lake Mac. It was definitely a new way to travel, but it actually went pretty well!

Friday night we drove into Salida and hung out with Dylan's aunt and uncle. We had told them around Thanksgiving about the baby, so even though we weren't telling them for the time, it was the first time we had seen them since getting to tell them and they were both very excited of course. The puppies did pretty well while we were chatting and eating. They didn't wrestle too much or hopefully shed too much (Ares is super blowing his coat, and brushing him the night before made it worse I swear).

That night we stayed in a pet-friendly motel which was on the small side but a very nice place to stay.  Freya was very happy to sleep on the bed with us. Ares on the other hand, had WAY too much energy. We eventually realized he had been sleeping for like 30 hours (the night before, all day, and the drive up) and he hadn't really gotten to run around much. So he spent all night pacing the room. I kept worrying about him peeing on the floor, since he was refusing to outside. He is not used to having to potty while on a leash, since he has always lived in our house with the doggie door. Freya is great since she spent like a year living in our townhouse and always went out on a leash. I think Ares got more used to it by the end, and he probably couldn't keep holding it any more.

In the morning we headed back over to Dylan's aunt and uncle's and left the dogs in the yard so we could go out to breakfast. They whined when we left, but they stayed in the yard until we got back. We went to this delicious breakfast place, The Patio Pancake. They have a whole section on their menu for hash browns. Definitely my kind of place.

After breakfast we drove over the pass to Gunnison. There is pretty much no snow up in the mountains. Which helped us have basically no traffic the entire time we were up there, but overall it was very depressing for the beginning of December.

We met up with Goose and her boyfriend Brandon and took the dogs to some open public lands where they could run around for a bit. They had a blast and were worn out enough to only whine for a minute when we left the in the car to go get Chinese for lunch (Don't worry, it was only 45 degrees out, they were in the shade and we left the windows down, and being cold weather dogs we weren't worried about them being cold). Then we went to visit Goose's apartment and hung out for a bit. It is a super cute place! It was one of the on campus apartment buildings and was just opened this year.

After chilling for a bit, watching random YouTube videos, we headed out to Hartman's Recreation Area where we went on a really neat hike. There were a lot of fascinating rock formations and Goose and Brandon were hilarious to hang out with.

Afterwards we headed to the store so Goose could cook us dinner. She made a chicken creamy pesto pasta that was DELICIOUS! Hooray for her getting into cooking :) I told her she has to cook for us when she is down in Denver before she heads up to Billings for her new job. Once dinner was over, we played some Skipbo and then headed over to Dylan and I's hotel. We hung out there for a bit, saw some of the awful Nebraska-Wisconsin game, then we watched How to Train Your Dragon on TV, which is one of our favorites. Goose and Brandon headed out after the movie. Ares and Freya both slept well; I think all the running around finally wore him out!

In the morning, I was obviously up pretty early compared to everyone else, so I went and got some free breakfast at the hotel. After Dylan and I packed up, we decided to take the dogs over to the same open space we went to the day before. Goose and Brandon ended up meeting us there. We grabbed some breakfast before heading out of town (second breakfast for me, pregnancy definitely has turned me into a hobbit!).

It was a great trip and we had a lot of fun bringing the dogs with us. Once they both got into the swing of it and could handle being left alone, knowing we would come back, that made things a lot easier. You definitely have to plan to be doing stuff with your dogs for most of the time. And for us, off-leash is key since it makes it more fun for everyone when you aren't being pulled along.

We also had a great time visiting with Dylan's aunt and uncle. We definitely want to keep making an effort to go up there even when we won't have Goose to go visit. Salida is such a cute town and they know everyone there!

And of course it was so much fun to see Goose. It is very interesting to see someone at that stage of life -- graduating college, getting ready to head off to a great job, but dealing with leaving (temporarily) a boyfriend and hoping they can work things out. For a good while, my sister and I were able to relate to each others place in life very well, but I do feel like we are now at very different places. Obviously me getting ready to have a baby puts me into a whole new life style, but even without that, I have already been through a lot of growing up (always in process though!) and she is just getting ready to start a big phase it. And she keeps claiming she doesn't want to get married for 5 years, blah blah blah... I may be having issues with her not being on the same timeline as me (like I said, growing up is always a work in progress... I may still need to learn to accept my sisters choices in life)

Definitely a great weekend and I will miss Gunnison! Not that we can't go there again, but there are so many other places to go in Colorado!