For the last year of her life, my good friend Amber Ferrell has been in Budapest, Hungary teaching young children, and from what she's told me has had the time of her life. Almost monthly, she would send e-mails to a long list of friends and family with pictures and experiences that many of us could only dream of.

In an e-mail upon her return, I wrote that I was "unapologetically jealous" of everything that she's been able to see, the cultures she now has first-hand knowledge of, and the places she's been able to discover. She's begun detailing her experiences (and crazy left-wing ideas) in a blog that I'm happy to call one of my new favorite sites.

Luckily, that very weekend, my future brother-in-law asked Rebecca and I if we'd like to join he and his fiance for a weekend of camping in the mountains. Thankfully we said yes.

It was this weekend that I realized how much beauty we have sitting in our own backyard. I love Denver, and while I make snide comments about some of my troubles with my new home, the beauty of the Rocky Mountains makes me realize how fortunate we are.

Back home, we would joke about waking up to a cold morning, only to realize an unbearable heat by noon; for the first time in my life, however, I played in snow on top of a 14,000 foot mountain, only to return to 100 degree heat in downtown Denver that very same day.

We tried our best to capture some of the beauty of Mount Evans (which includes the highest paved road in North America), but pictures do no justice.

Click an image to see a larger version...

Labels: Denver, Family

Posted by M. Derrick Davis on Thursday, July 5, 2007 at 11:19 PM | Permalink