Headed West! ...again

In about 14 hours I will be boarding a plane in Asheville, NC to begin what promises to be a highly eventful journey to Pagosa Springs, Colorado to join my family for Thanksgiving.

But first things first!

The original plan was for Mary, Ryan, and I to fly into Albuquerque, NM where my parents and sister Anne would arrive at the airport in our luxurious mini-van to whisk us away to Santa Fe where we will be spending the night before heading to Pagosa.

That WAS the plan.

Unfortunately (or fortunately) my dad has a business meeting at 10AM in San Antonio so the family will not get on the road from TX until about 12 noon to begin the just about 12 hour drive to Santa Fe. Which means Ryan, Mary, and I will be meeting up at the airport, finding a random shuttle my amazing father booked for us and then get dropped off in the middle of Santa Fe to hang out for about 3-4 hours until my parents and Anne arrive. This could be quite the adventure since none of the three of us have spent any lengthy time in Santa Fe and just found out we were doing this about 5 hours ago. I guess we will converse with each other, the locals, and then go and find some Turquoise we like. Oh, and maybe eat dinner. That too.

It could be a crazy fun adventure. Hopefully.

Wednesday morning we will all rise bright and early from our stay in the Casino Hotel that we will all be staying in (don't be jealous) and drive the 3ish hours to Pagosa Springs to meet up with other family. I am foreseeing lots of hot tubbing, skiing, eating, and relaxing in my future.

As much as this trip will be amazing, it will most likely be seasoned in sadness. Pagosa was one of John's favorite spots and we all have many many memories with him there. And throw in the fact that it is the holiday season AND still November and you have a recipe for a few tears along the way, ok maybe lots. But hopefully we will be able to celebrate his life and laugh at the many stories we have of John Noll.

So I guess now that I'm done blogging and studying I should probably go finish my laundry, pack, and maybe just maybe get a little shut eye

At The Top of The World

About a week ago I went to Leadville, CO with John Moss, Marion Chesney, and Meredith Isaacs, a few of my fellow interns at Frontier Ranch. It is about a 30ish minute drive from Buena Vista. It is an old Colorado mining town that rests atabout 10,000 feet. It is a fairly big tourist place but is more off the beaten path than most tourist towns in Colorado.First stop was this place called Melanzana. All of the interns were buying these awesome pull overs that they make there and I swore I wouldn't buy one......but I did. And I do not regret it.

After purchasing the jacket John Moss wanted to take us up to this mind he and another guy had found while they were Geocaching which is like a big scavenger hunt using a GPS.We all hopped in John's black Ford Escape and proceeded to drive up small back country roads. When we finally got to the first stop the view was unbelievable:

I seriously could have sat up there for hours. There was a storm rolling in and it was thundering off in the distance. Off to the left the rain was moving across the valley. It was absolutely gorgeous. The air was clean and crisp. The wind was in our faces. It was so refreshing.

But this was not our final destination. So we loaded up and started driving straight through the woods. The drive was on a small road literally through the trees. We had the windows down and if you weren't careful branches would slap you in the face. We finally parked in the middle of nowhere and then began walking down a steep incline. when we came out of the trees we saw this:

We sat on top of the world that day. As I looked out over the mountains I thought about alot of things. I thought about how right this summer has been. About how there hasn't been one moment that I wished I could leave, or that things were different.

I was where I was supposed to be.

Frontier in June

Headed West!

5 AM in the Asheville airport.

Yes, you read that correctly. I am catching the 5:45AM flight out of Asheville this morning headed to Denver, CO. Eventually I will wind up at Frontier Ranch, A Young Life camp outside of Buena Vista, CO. It was an insane early morning. In preparation for waking up at 4AM local time (2AM Colorado time) I went to sleep at 8pm. It was glorious. I awoke at 4AM super disoriented as to why I was rolling out of bed at such an offensive hour. Thankfully my friend Ben Johnson was kind enough to wake up and drive me to the airport at 4:30 in the morning. Cannot thank him enough.

As much as I have walked around griping and complaining about this early flight I like flying early. Something about knowing everyone else is asleep (or in my case just going to bed) while you are going places and doing things is so fun.

But anyways. I will be spending the next 3 weeks working in the store. I am very excited. I have been to Frontier many many times and it still never ceases to lose it's incredible beauty and excitement.

Many people have been asking for my address while I am there. Well here it is!

for letters:

Amy Noll SS-Session 1

Frontier Ranch

P.O Box 2025

Buena Vista, CO 81211

for packages through UPS/FedEx

Amy Noll SS-Session 1

22150 County Road 322

Buena Vista, CO 81211

This is where I get to spend the next three weeks:

Love you all!

Road Trip

So last night on an episode of The Middle (Wed 8:30/7:30c on ABC) the family on the show went on a road trip. I could not find a video to show you but it was basically the classic road trip scene with kids and much obnoxious but still laughable singing.

It definitely made me think about all of the places my parents took us as kids (hopefully many more places to come. hint, hint Mom and Dad). Every summer was spent hauling our 29 foot travel trailer everywhere across the US and even to Vancouver one summer. Yes, all seven of us would pile into a car and spend hours and hours together in cramped spaces watching VHS movies on our 9 inch TV complete with computer speakers that was strapped between my parents in the front (this was before portable DVD players, at least I think so).

We would drive all day(s) and sometimes into the night to get to our destination of choice. We would get so sick and tired of each other that we would literally kiss the ground when we would arrive at the final stop. One thing about these road trips is that you were never aloud to voice the fact that you had to pee. Stops waste time, the more stops you have the more time you have to spend in the car. I used to think my mother was crazy for it but after doing some road tripping of my own, I have come to realize she is not crazy, merely trying to save every minute she could. To entertain ourselves we listened to many audio something or others including many things from Focus on the Family, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and so on. There was also lots of NPR listening that occurred. If there were places we frequented often, my parents memorized the NPR stations for these areas. Being a kid I did not particularly care for Diane Rehm's voice or Talk of the Nation, or the hourly news. So I would try and listen to my portable CD player as loud as I could. Rest stops were timed and we always ate in the car. Getting to our destination quickly was always the name of the game. Five kids, a dog, and two parents can obviously quickly grow tired of being in close proximity with each other

These road trips are some of my favorite memories growing up. They took us to so many places it would take forever to name them all. A few included Yellowstone National Park, Oregon, Washington, many National Forests in Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Missouri, Oklahoma, Arizona, Georgia, and Vancouver. That's right. We pulled our 29-foot travel trailer from Boerne, TX up through Oregon and Washington right on in to Canada. It was so amazing!

I always loved visiting these places and being able to mark off what states we had visited or driven through. We even had one of those maps on the side of our travel trailer where you could fill in the states you had visited.

Out of all of these places we traveled Colorado was always my favorite. To this day my favorite spot is at a place called Taylor Park Colorado. It is about 35 miles from Gunnison and right over Cottonwood Pass which comes out of Buena Vista, CO. They have a few camp gorunds there and we would spend several weeks every summer waking up at the crack of dawn to fish, hike, explore the woods, and ride my grandparents 4-wheelers. It was always the favorite part of my summer. It was always where I felt the happiest and most free. It established a deep rooted love for Colorado that to this day still exists inside of me. Here are a few pics from over the years:

This is the 2nd of our trailers we had. And Pearl, our diesel Excursion that hauled us across America for many years before we traded her in for a mini-van (swagger wagon)

The greatest place ever. Taylor Park Reservoir

the only "store" for miles. always crazy people here

this is one of my favorite pics. top of the Continental Divide. taken right after we took a "short cut" that led us literally straight up a mountain.

These were times when our family was all together and we got to enjoy just being with each other. Since my brother's death it has been hard to realize that we will not ever all truly be together here on earth. John freaking loved all of these places just as much if not more than I did. Whenever I go to these places I will remember him fondly and all of those times with my family, the good and the bad. the fighting and the laughing. The campfires, timed showers, fishing, agonizing waits to get up in the morning, fighting over the bunk beds and who would get the dog at night, and all those hours spent in the car. Together. Everything and all of it I would not trade for the world.