Life at 5280: Yellow.

Going to the Maroon Bells during the fall has been *starred*, underlined, and bolded on my Colorado bucket list for quite some time now. Like, I've REALLY wanted to go.

So I've been keeping tabs on the aspens and watching for the peak of their color so that we could maximize the spectacular-ness of the Bells. We decided that this weekend would be perfect, that we'd set out Friday night, car camp somewhere along the way to Aspen, and get to the Bells early in the morning before the throngs of tourists arrived.

Usually I'm an excellent trip planner (it's in the genes I think), so I had no worries about the overnight trip. Until I did something very stupid, which I didn't realize until we were about 45 minutes outside of Denver.

I. Left. My. Camera.

I immediately started bawling in the car, because it had already been a long week, and I had asked Mike to go running around Denver grabbing the extra things we needed for the trip (gallon of water, Everything bagels, fill up the car, etc.). So I felt terrible for inflicting such annoyances on Mike in a rush to get to the Bells, when in the end I was the dumb one. And I knew I couldn't go to the Bells without my camera, with it being the most photographed place in Colorado! Mike was super sweet though, somehow managed to stop the tears, and convinced me that it would be much better if we just left early in the morning and grabbed some delicious Winchell's donuts and coffee for the car ride to Aspen.

He was right :)

We woke up at 4am, were out the door by 5, with deep-fried apple fritters, donut holes, and coffee in hand. We arrived at the Maroon Bells at 8:30, and the rest of the day was history. The aspens were indescribably yellow -- one of my favorite parts of the day was just walking on the path through the trees, feeling like I was drenched in yellow. The Bells were spectacular, majestic, incredible, and every other synonym of those words I can think of. It was definitely worth the starring, underlining, and bolding I did on my list. :)