Claudia, Meet Colorado!

A few weeks ago, my friend Claudia, traveled to Denver for a teacher's conference. Claudia lives in Arizona and we rarely get to see each other so I insisted she stay a few extra days and spend the weekend with me in Colorado Springs.

I drove to Denver on a Saturday evening to meet up with Claudia after the conclusion of her conference. As luck would have it, two of my closest friends from Texas Tech were hosting their Birthday party just a few blocks away from Claudia's hotel. If Claudia were to meet any of my friends from college, I would want her to meet Kristine, Blake and Matt, so I was pretty excited for her to have the opportunity to do just that.

I met Claudia in 2008. We spent one, crazy summer together doing camps for Student Life.

Some of me and Claudia's best stories come from the thousands of miles we traveled that summer. Imagine a cross country road trip with 2 vans, 2 pickup trucks, 3 Penske trucks, and 24 people between the ages of 19 and 27. The stories that came out of those miles are the kinds of stories that we can laugh about now only because we are 4 years removed from the whole situation. Claudia and I were in van world which means we traveled with the vans, pickup trucks, and the majority of the team. There were plenty of times that Claudia would be driving one van and I would be driving the other, and I kid you not, every time that scenario occurred, it would start to rain. And when I say rain I don't mean a few drops; I mean a downpour - the kind where you can't drive faster than 30mph. It became quiet humorous actually because the downpours only happened when I was driving.

I guess I should not have been so surprised when Claudia and I got caught in a snow storm on the drive from Denver to Colorado Springs. For Claudia the Arizona girl, it was a horrifying experience, but we couldn't help but to laugh that after all of these years, our curse lived on.

Sunday I was excited to introduce Claudia to my church family. Of course one of the kids in the nursery pulled the fire alarm right in the middle of worship resulting in a very awkward ending to the church service and the sad fact that Claudia didn't really get to meet any of my church family.

Determined to find an adventure, Sunday afternoon Claudia and I set off for the Cave of the Winds, a tourist attraction in Colorado Springs. Claudia and I affectionally called it the Cave of Wonders. Pretending we were part of a scene from Aladdin distracted us from the painful awkwardness of the high school aged, tour guides in training who were leading our group.

 Does this not remind you of LOST?

 According to our trusty tour guides, there was something about rubbing this rock for good luck in order to make it up the staircase without falling to your death.

 I lost track of the number of times we got in trouble for falling behind because we were so busy making jokes and taking funny pictures.

After the Cave of Wonders expedition, I took Claudia to Glen Eyrie, a stretch of beautiful property that my office building sits on. The south section of the property is also used for conferences and events. I took Claudia on a self-guided tour of the castle and property. The big horn sheep were outside when we pulled into the parking lot. Imagine Claudia's surprise when we turned around to find these guys were just a few feet from us.

Before taking Claudia to the airport, there was one more thing I was determined for her to see - my Colorado family. A trip to Colorado Springs just wouldn't be complete without paying the Bhatt's a visit. Izzy and Liam anxiously waited for us by the door!

It was a quick weekend and I would have loved more time, but I have really learned to cherish those special days with special friends. Thank you Caludia for being my friend in real life!