A few weekends ago, I went on a little adventure with some friends to explore some of Colorado’s natural beauties. It was about time too, because summer is coming to an end which means snow is coming soon! I’m pretty excited because this is only my second winter in Colorado and the winters are so mild and awesome here. I can drive 3 hours and snowboard in poofy white fluff to my heart’s content, but I hadn’t ever made the drive into the mountains in the summer.

First, we tried to go up to Piney Lake, which I’m convinced is impossible. Apparently, they have weddings and events up there, but it’s a crazy steep and uneven dirt road straight up the side of a hill. Are you kidding?! No. Not happening, even in my all-wheel drive SUV (whose name in Selena, I know you were wondering).  Instead, we drove a few hours west to Hanging Lake, which was a nice hike up to a pristine, turquoise pool.

We finished the hike and headed south to grab some food and rest up for our next day of white water rafting! If only I had a waterproof camera, because we rafted the gorgeous Royal Gorge aaaaaaaand it was gorgeous ( see what I did there! ). I’d love to do that again next year because it was a little late in the season for the real action.

The last stop on our trip was the Great Sand Dunes National Park. That place was so bizzare. There are fields on one side, mountains on the other and a huge pile of sand in the middle! Weird, but so beautiful! I was too afraid to bring my camera along, which is sad because it would have made for some beautiful photos but I did snap a few with my phone. We rented a sand board and a sand sled and flew down those hills and in case you were wondering, sand boarding does not feel anything like snowboarding, especially when a wind picks up and sends a million tiny sand granules flying at you at approximately one billion miles an hour. Ouch. Once we had our fill of the sandy goodness, it was time to head home to Boulder when I became totally enamored with the sky. It’s no big Texas sky, but there were some pretty crazy clouds a brewin’.