2021: A Year In Review

Every year it blows my mind how fast time goes by. What’s the saying…”the days are long, but the years are short”? Sometimes that’s how it feels – bogged down in the day-to-day monotony of errands, day jobs, keeping the house clean, exercising, walking the dog, trying to eat healthy, wash my face, keep up with the news, and stay current on tv shows and movies …. but looking back, there’s SO much more that happens that fills me with utmost joy — traveling! Donovan jokes that I have the most expensive hobby with traveling – I mean, he’s not wrong – but it truly does fill me with so much joy and spark my creative nature to see new places, interact with new people, and try new things. So – let’s take a look back at 2021!

We started 2021 out with a bang by celebrating New Years in Denver, Colorado. On New Year’s Day we drove up to Estes Park for the day to do some hiking and get some fresh air. Much to our surprise, Sprague Lake was completely frozen over, and we spent much of the day slipping and sliding all over the lake – it was so much fun! I had never walked on a frozen lake before. I will say, it cracked once and both Dono and I ran for the side laughing so hard. It was such a great day and a fun way to kick the year off right!

Once we returned home, I decided to give my home office a facelift. Dono and I had been sharing an office for most of the pandemic while working from home, so it was relatively functional, but not pretty. We eliminated the corner shelves and bought a new credenza and bookshelves from Ikea to help try to maximize storage space. I’m really pleased with the outcome, and now it looks great on all my zoom calls!

At the end of February, we drove down to Austin to visit a construction site (aka: the new Tesla Gigafactory). Dono is practically obsessed, so we spent quite a bit of time flying his drone around the site. Since he tortured me into going to the Tesla factory, I tortured him by checking out a few places we’ve never been, including Jacob’s Well in Wimberly, Texas. Jacob’s Well is this massive hole in the ground inside of a creek. You have to hike about a half a mile back to it, and in the summer you can swim in the creek. It was pretty cool to see!

In February, we had a crazy ice storm hit Texas. Many of our friends and family were without power or had burst water pipes. We were fortunate and didn’t have any damage. It was fun to get out and play in the snow for a bit though!

In March we started (more) house projects – this time renovating the kitchen. This was QUITE the project, but something that we needed to tackle pretty badly. Dono is pretty handy (and by pretty handy, i mean VERY handy) and did most of the work himself. I, of course, play “gopher” and just ran back and forth to the garage to get tools. I’m also very good at cleaning up as we go which (sort of) helps to limit the mess.

We also got vaccinated! I know this is a highly controversial topic, but we were glad to get our vaccines – especially since we both travel quite a bit and are out and about. While there’s always still a chance we can catch something, every little bit of protection helps!

In April, we got to bring home another surprise – our new puppy Shadow! Shadow is a silver labrador that we got from Hargrove Heaven Labrador Farm in East Texas. I never thought I wanted to have a dog, but Shadow has brought so much love and laughter into our lives….also a lot of sleepless nights, but that’s a topic for another day. We can’t wait til Shadow is old enough to go hiking with us!

In May we took a trip to Salt Lake City, Utah for Memorial Day weekend. We had zero plans except to get out there and explore! We took a drive up to Bear Lake, Idaho — apparently it’s called the “Caribbean of the Rockies” and I can see why. The water was so blue!

From Bear Lake, we headed up to Jackson, Wyoming to see Grand Teton National Park. It was such a beautiful drive, and of course, I always love to see the mountains!

The next day we drove over to the Bonneville Salt Flats which was a pretty cool experience. You can read our blog post about the Salt Flats here.

We also took a drive to the Great Salt Lake, but I’ll post about that another time. Let’s just say…it was not the highlight of the trip.

In July we returned to Colorado for our 3rd annual 4th of July weekend trip to Telluride. It has seriously become our favorite 4th of July spot! The weather is great, and there is never a shortage of things to do. This year, we decided to explore a bit more and drove a few hours west to see Monument Valley – one of my bucket list items! It’s hard to believe that this desert valley floor is only about 3 hours from the lush green mountains of Telluride!

On our way back, we drove through Shiprock, NM to see this really cool rock formation called Shiprock. The town itself was not much to see, but this rock was pretty dang awesome.

Back in Telluride/Ouray, we rented UTVs for the day to do some high altitude exploring. While we love hiking, sometimes feeling the wind in our hair is much more fun!

We also took a drive over to Pagosa Springs and spent an afternoon the hot springs. I hate to be negative, but this place was not all it was cracked up to be….or may be we’re just too bougie these days? I’m not really sure, but neither of us were very impressed. More on this in another post later.

In September, we traveled to Santa Fe, New Mexico for Labor Day weekend. On our first day, we spent the morning at Ojo Caliente in Santa Fe. We had been to the original Ojo Caliente, but it was closed due to a recent fire, so we went to the one in SF. It was super relaxing – not a lot of people – and we just enjoyed sun bathing, dipping in the pool and hot springs, and taking naps!

While in Santa Fe, we spent a day in Taos piddling around. I had seen a video on Tiktok about the Black Rock Hot Springs, so we went to check that out. Of course, no one told me that it was a place to be nude, so we were in for a rude awakening when we showed up and several people were naked. It was a bit awkward, so we didn’t stay long. The hot springs were pretty though, and it was cool to be able to put one foot in the hot water, and one foot in the Rio Grande River (cold!!).

One of the days we took a drive up the Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado. Neither of us had been here either, and boy, we were not expecting the sand dunes to be so majestic! Because we had arrived so late in the day, we didn’t get to spend much time at the dunes, but it would have been fun to do some “sand boarding” and explore some of the dunes.

In October, my cousin Colleen and I took a girl’s trip to Zion National Park in Springdale, Utah. Neither of us had been to this national park, and I had been dying to do The Narrows hike – another bucket list! The photos just really don’t do it justice. We had a lot of fun in Zion – hiking, biking, and a quick trip over to Bryce Canyon National Park!

Bryce Canyon National Park was really cool, and I wish we could have spent more time there. I can’t wait to go back some day and explore the hoo doos!

In November, I got to ride JSX Airlines for the first time! I had been getting ads on my facebook page for them for quite awhile and figured we needed to go try it out. The planes are small – only hold about 30 people total. There’s no TSA security and you can arrive 15 minutes before your flight leaves! It was a very enjoyable experience, and we’ll definitely be flying again soon!

We flew JSX to Houston Hobby where we traveled to see my nephew for his first birthday! It was a lot of fun to see him again, give him a zillion toys and truly spoil him.

If our year wasn’t crazy enough, in December, Donovan bought a Tesla! He is very excited about this purchase and has been driving us everywhere! He has worked really hard for his new car, and I’m so proud of him!

Our last major trip of the year, we went back to Denver and Estes Park, Colorado to do some hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park. Unfortunately, both of us had to do some work on our day jobs while traveling, so we didn’t get the full travel experience, but we did have some fun getting outside for a bit.

As I type this blog post, we’re checking in for our final trip of the year – Chicago! We plan to ring in the New Year in Chicago this year. Neither of us have actually spent time there – only flown through – so this will be a true luxurious treat to wind down the year. I can’t wait to see what 2022 has in store for us!