Southwest Road Trip · Part One · Minnesota through Colorado

In the spirit of keeping it real and keeping this blog (and life) transparent + authentic, I wanted to share some personal images from a road trip that Jeff and I took from Minneapolis to Phoenix. Jeff and I met late last year on a road trip to Texas, fell head over heels in love shortly after that, and spent the rest of the winter going on mini road trips around the midwest to escape the frigid elements, play some disc golf and just have a boatload of fun (always). In April a bunch of my friends rented a house in Phoenix (thank you, airbnb!) for a long weekend. Instead of flying down with everyone else Jeff and I decided to take some extra time to drive down there so we could adventure through Colorado, Moab, Arches, Zion, the Grand Canyon, etc. It was the Best. Freaking. Decision Ever. and I know those adventures will stick with us forever. 

We left Minneapolis on a snowy April day, which ended up being the perfect send-off (read: THANK GOD WE'RE GETTING OUT OF HERE). The first day, through Iowa and Nebraska, were just as exciting as you'd imagine. We drove as fast and as far as we could to make it to Colorado (and elevation. of any kind.) as quickly as possible, sleeping in the car somewhere in Nebraska. As we got closer and closer to Colorado, and to the mountains, I started freaking out. Living in the Pacific Northwest for a couple years made me love the mountains so much (especially that dreamy volcano. Looking at you, Rainier!) and being surrounded by them again felt like home. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way I caught a crazy cold, but I wasn't going to let the delirium get in the way of our mountain adventures. We'd been trapped in the car for a day and a half and I was ready definitely ready to run around, so we looked up a disc golf course in the mountains and spent the next few hours chasing our discs up and down the mountain, breathing the mountain air, and getting lost in the giant trees. 

Once we made it to Denver we were able to meet up with a couple of Jeff's great friends and spend the next day catching up with them before we made our way further west towards Moab. Along the way we stopped at another course to run around and it ended up having the most gorgeous view in the world, forcing me to start looking up homes for sale in the area. You know, just in case. ;) As I was searching around on the map I noticed that we were right by where one of my Vagabondbond cohorts, Carl Zoch, lives so I shot him a text and by pure magic he was actually on his way home from Moab and we were able to meet up for a quick beer + high five on the road. 

Photos of these couple of days are below and coming up next will be Moab + Arches National Park! <3