Ojo Caliente

Nikki and I drove down to New Mexico this past weekend to spend Memorial Day relaxing in hot springs. We really liked the resort. It was quaint and very enjoyable. Our time was spent between soaking in the hot springs, getting massages, reading by the fireplace and eating at their restaurant. They have 4 different kinds of hot springs: iron, arsenic, soda, and lithium. Unfortunately, since it was a holiday weekend, the pools were a little more populated than we would've liked.

On Sunday evening, we both got massages that we really liked and rented a private pool for afterwards. The private pool was great. The arsenic mineral water was nice and toasty and they have a wood-fired kiva fireplace out there. Unfortunately, about 10 minutes into our 50-minute time, lightning and thunder descended upon us and we had to leave the pool (and get refunded). That was a bummer because we were really enjoying the private pool. No worries though. We headed back to our cottage and started up our own fire.

The restaurant on-site was really nice, too. I got mexican food for each meal and they didn't disappoint, living up to New Mexico's reputation for serving good and spicy mexican food. I think the green chilies were a bit much for Nikki at times, but she really liked the meals she got, too. Her french toast on Monday morning was super rica!

Here's a shot of the back of our cottage

St. Mary's Glacier

This past Labor Day weekend, Nikki and I went hiking at St. Mary's Glacier with Tyson, Hannah, Tasha, Sean, Brian, and Kat. We had a great time, perfect weather, and amazing views. Okay, so it's technically considered a "permanent snow field" and not a glacier, but it was fun to go out and slide around on the snow. There were some people who brought their skis and poles, but that's much more work than I'd want to do. I prefer lush snow and chair lifts! :)

Click here for more pictures

Mount Sanitas

Last Saturday, Nikki and I went hiking with Tyson, Sean and Tasha.  We were in Boulder, CO again, but this time we hiked the Mount Sanitas trail.  It was a tiring day because Sean, Tyson and I had hockey lessons earlier that morning and were playing hockey later that evening.  So we ended up coming back down before reaching the top.  But we made it pretty far, nonetheless.  It was a gorgeous day; hardly a cloud in the sky and the temperature was great.

[More pictures from the hike on Flickr](http://www.flickr.com/photos/mparrish/sets/72157604640449894/)

Royal Arch - Chautauqua Park

We recently went hiking at Chautauqua Park in Boulder.  The park is beautiful and offers a lot of hiking trails.  We decided to hike to Royal Arch, which is a cool rock formation shaped like... wait for it... an arch!  The trail was about a mile long.  The weather was great, the sun was shining and the air was crisp.





The higher we climbed, the cooler it got, and with just a little bit more to go before we got to the arch we encountered some icy trails.  This definitely made our hike just a little more interesting.  I was pretty much on my hands and knees crawling up the trail.  Going down was a lot of fun.  We squatted and used our shoes like skis and just slid down the trail.

We ended up hiking for about three hours - we were so tired!  With all those calories burned we figured we had earned ourselves a big dinner.  We stuffed ourselves with pizza and chocolate mousse from Pizza Colore in Boulder - so, sooo yummy!  Tyson has a grand plan of us all hiking a different place each weekend this summer - we'll see how that goes! :)

For more Chautauqua Park pictures click here.

Photos from Phoenix trip

Nikki and I just got back from Phoenix a couple of weeks ago and I put the pictures up on Flickr.  You can see them here.  These pictures are of us hiking Camelback Mountain, which was a lot of fun.