The land of the calf muscles!

South Carolina is full of palm trees, and Colorado is full of fit people. Seriously no overweightness. anywhere. 

And if South Carolina is the Palmetto state, I think it is safe to call Colorado the Calf Muscle State.

Because hot dang. These people are all kinds of fit, and all have exceptional calf muscles. But I'll talk more on that in a later post!

------

So as most of you know, I spent the greater part of my break from school with my parents going to visit my brother, Stephen, in Colorado. He is working there as a law enforcement park ranger out at the Curecanti National Recreational Area. The major attractions of this park is that it has three reservoirs and three big ole dams. The park is pretty popular in CO because the Blue Mesa Reservoir is the biggest bod of H2O in Colorado. So Colorodians go there a lot for boating and fishing. 

Stephen gets to live in an apt right by one of their reservoir marinas. This is basically the view from his window!

(And PS - all these photos are courtesy of my dad.)

Gorgeous view, eh? I don't know about you, but my bedroom view consists of a parking lot and neighboring condos. So this is rather impressive!

Here's Mom trying on Stephen's bullet proof vest! He has to wear that every time he is on duty. Pretty dang intense. He also has to wear that utility belt all the time. Like Batman. It includes mace and a taser and a pistol. or some other gun of that nature. I'm very knowledgeable of this whole gun subject. Okay, maybe not, but I have shot one once! Here's what happened to Hector the hostile hater after I got through with him:

Okay, sorry, I'm getting distracted! Back to Colorado!

This location you see above is the actual site where Stephen performed his rescue of some kayakers that I aforementioned in this blog. The water was much higher and rapid-y then. Stephen said the water can sometimes get above that bridge!

This is the Morrow Point Dam. Sometimes Stephen's job includes guarding this and the other dams. From terrorists. And other wayward dam haters. Also, this dam is the first double-curvature dam ever built... at least in the US or maybe ever? See, I learned so much on this trip!

Here we are at the East Portal part of the Black Canyon! This is the entrance to a tunnel that takes water from the Gunnison River here through a mountain to a valley on the other side! What is crazy is this was built on in the early 1900s, its almost 6 miles long, AND the workers started on both sides of the mountain and met in the middle. I don't even think I can close my eyes and have two fingers meet in the middle.

Here is the site of our first picnic!

Dad and I fed the yellow jackets turkey, even though Stephen said we weren't allowed to feed animals. But in the name of science, Dad and I conducted an experiment. We also stuck some pineapple in that tray to see what the yellow jackets liked better. They actual liked the turkey better and didn't even touch the pineapple. We were impressed. Though I think Stephen was a little disappointed that we so blatantly ignored his park's rules.

We then went on the explore the Black Canyon further. First, we ran into Bambi!

Here we are at a lookout at the Black Canyon. If you squint, you can see that Mom, Stephen, and myself are actually posing for this picture!

Here is another shot of the Black Canyon with the Gunnison River running through it! In the mid to late 1800s, they actually tried to put a railroad down through there! Pretty wild! They only succeeded in part of the Canyon though. They didn't make it all the way through here. Does is look very railroad friendly to you down there? I didn't think so.

Here I am in front of Painted Rock! See that multi-colored rock in front of me? That's the one! Also, I'm repping my OT shirt and "living life to the fullest."

What is this? I don't even know. When you go on trips with my dad, you often have to stop and take pictures of the diseased plants. Actually though, I think this is some kind of moss. And I don't even think its diseased. But really I have no clue. I'm not very gifted in the world of plants.

Well, that concludes Day 1! Ha! This taking longer than anticipated. But let's press on to Day 2!

In the morning, we rented a boat and explored Stephen's biggest reservoir, the Blue Mesa. This is the one where he gets to do his boating patrol!

In case you've ever thought I was a little bit nerdy, please see that this is the man who gave me 50% of my genes.

This definitely one of my favorite photos from the trip. And now you know who taught me to be so trendy!

Stephen let me drive the boat! I'm pretty much a pro except for that fact that I kept veering towards shallowness of the water's edge. But that kind of stuff is a mere detail.

We did some glorious fishing for some lake trout. Every time I'd cast out, a dang fish would hop up out the water like 10 ft away from my line, just gloating. Fish are jerks.

Here's Dad reeling in a big catching!

Okay, actually he's pretending. There were no big catches. We're not actually fishing pros.

But look how cute they look fishing! Even if those fish were jerks!

After we had to turn the boat back in, we spent the rest of the day frolicking around Gunnison! It is the town Stephen's park is closest to, and it's where we stayed for the week! Gunnison is adorable. It has a baby Wal-mart, a baby Kroger, a hardware store/ice cream shoppe, a gas station that makes ballin' burgers, and a super cute downtown with lots of lil shops! I think I would move there right now, if it wasn't for the fact that winter is coming and soon that little town will be covered with more snow than I could ever imagine! I'll stick to my toasty beach town.

Here's the outside of one of the shops in Gunnison.

And here is the inside!

Overwhelming much?

Well, that gets us through the first two days! I'd add more, but its almost time for class! Boo.

Speaking of class, today, we divided into partners, and I got to pretend to be a patient so my partner could do an occupational interview on me. It's called the Canadian Occupational Performance Measurement, if you want to get fancy-schmancy.

Anyways, here's the description of the patient I had to be:

A 21 yr old girl who shattered her wrist. Why? Because she punched a window because her fiance dumped her!

Hope I don't have to treat too many window punchers one day. She sounds like she needs anger management more than OT!

I'll be back with more Calf Muscle State recaps soon!