Happy Hour(s)

Colorado is beautiful.  I'm in love with it here.  I was so fortunate to have Keri pick me up at the airport in Denver and play tour guide for a few hours.  We went down to Colorado Springs and saw the Garden of the Gods.  If you have never seen it, you need to!  I am literally dying to get back there as soon as I can with my bike, a horse, and some rock climbing gear.  We also drove through Cheyenne Canyon which is completely breathtaking.  It's like a cross between the Appalachians and Valley of Fire in Nevada and the Guatemalan Highlands, not the best description I know.  I have never seen an ecosystem or a landscape quite like the one here.  I'm a loss for words (really convenient for a blog, right?) so I just attached some pictures...

(They call this one Kissing Camels!)

BOULDER! We made it!  After checking into the hotel, Keri took me over to the Municipal Airport where CSWR (Center for Severe Weather Research) has their office and a hangar for chase vehicles.  And what do you know, we just happened to pull up for happy hour.  Although in truth, it should have been called happy evening.  There were about seven team members sitting around drinking whiskey and beer watching the virga move in off the mountains, quoting Twister, story telling of a certain other popular storm chaser who shall not be named, and ragging on each other.  I was the first "newbie" to arrive (a fact they weren't shy to remind me about) but I haven't laughed that long in awhile.  The happy hour shenanigans included the "readings" of a team member's personal journal entries (written by pretty much everyone else there except that actual team member) and a rousing game of kicking animal crackers off someone's boot into another person's mouth.  It was a little out there...but so chill and relaxing.  We were chased inside the hangar at one point by rain but when we came back out, the cloud to cloud lightning off in the distance over the mountains was beautiful!  Inside the hangar is a little overwhelming.  There are tools all over the place and whiteboards hanging on the walls with grease smudges and checklists for each vehicles...and oh the vehicles...SO BIG!  I couldn't stop staring.  I didn't really learn much about anything yet (vehicles or project or my responsibilities) but I'm sure I'll have more later tonight!