Mountains get her through the door

This past weekend Rima and I wanted to do a lot of fun things. By things I mean adventures up into the mountains. Now unfortunately the weather goddess decided to make this Memorial Day weekend a bit difficult in terms of planning. Rain at any time during the day was a possibility and cloud cover was the norm. Saturday we decided to go to the Red Rocks and check out Golden Colorado. Now if you have kept up with our blog you probably have read the posts of Rima explaining her daily routine. This daily routine makes it incredibly difficult to leave the house before the hour of 12 for anything basically. Unless of course she has an early doctors appointment. This is not Rima's fault, she has about two full hours of Nebs and chest therapy to do before she can ever start to get ready to go out into the world. Add that with her crummy sleep record, cough attacks, lack of oxygen and low energy, it's really amazing that she even wants to leave the house some days. I'm going to be honest if I was in her shoes we would be doing a lot more home activities than ones that involved leaving the house. Reason 400 why she's a kick ass person and superhero in training.

We arrived to the Red Rocks mid afternoon on Saturday. We parked and got out to walk around the upper area above the concert arena. There were lots of people out and about, typical. We got to an overlook point and people watched for a bit. Lots of humans working out or going on hikes. For Rima this is something she has to watch and sadly not participate in. There are so many cool trails around that area that she wont be able to explore till after the transplant. So many pictures of flowers that will have to wait. It's hard to watch because I know she would be the first one down those steep steps chomping at the persons ankles in front to hurry up so she could get as many photos in before the sun went away. She's also super brave, not giving two shits about what people think of her. Wearing on oxygen machine that's kind of loud at times, walking slowly, and having inconvenient cough attacks. It really makes you see life in a new way. When strangers stare or give strange looks her way, it takes all the will power to not walk right up to them and point out what's wrong with them and their appearance and question if they were raised by wolves.

**Holding up the mountain, she's so strong!!!!**

**Wild flowers, Rima's favorite subject to capture via camera**

We drove around the Red Rock area for a little pulling off to the side of the road to take a few pictures. Rima was on the hunt for some cool floral portraits. We then headed over to Golden Colorado. We had lunch on the main drag of the town. Funny side story. Rima get's full pretty fast, her stomach is the size of a grape again The restaurant we picked had a kids menu, perfect! When our server came to take our order and Rima asked for a burger from the kid's menu she was taken aback. "Only kids are allowed to order from the Kid's menu." she informed us. Oh really, who makes these rules?! We told her Rima can't eat a lot and that she would probably not be able to even finish the burger. She stood her ground. Lady hello, do you not see her wearing an oxygen machine and her size...she's not going to eat a whole "normal" sized burger. After some asking she finally caved. "okay, but please don't tell anyone." she stated and then left our booth. Ah, okay who are we going to tell? Excuse me, can we speak to your manager, you gave us what we asked for, you should get into trouble. As expected Rima was unable to finish the whole burger but she came pretty close.

Sunday our brother Paul was invited to go to a cookout at his friends house in Colorado Springs, Rima and I tagged along. We had a very nice time and made some new friends which was nice. Rima got some solid dog time in also, they have a super cute husky named Blaze. Monday Rima woke up not feeling too hot. She had a horrible night where she barely slept. She felt like poop. It's called a bad CF day. It does not mean you're sick you just don't feel good and you feel like your sick but it's just the CF in your body. She's a trooper and refuses to let that stop her. Like I said before she handles this much better than I would. If I was having a bad CF day I'd stay in bed either binging on TV shows or napping the day away. "I'm going to feel crummy whether I'm here or out and I want to do stuff!" she explained to me when I suggested we do Boulder when she felt better later in the week. So, we shoved off to Boulder!

**Smokey the bear is looking for the culprit who caused this damage**

We drove up to the top of Flagstaff and beyond it. Our destination was the Gross Reservoir. Yes, that's the actual name of it...so strange. I drove so that Rima could site see for a change and she still was not feeling so hot. We got out at a outlook point that had a pretty elevated hike up some rocks to the overview point. Slow and steady Rima won the race and made it to the top. The weather was pretty gloomy but the view was still incredible with our without blue skies. We hung out at the top for a short while, the wind got to us so we headed back to the car and back down the mountain. We then met up with Rima's good friend Kate and had dinner at one of our favorite restaurants in Boulder. The Med, is a tapas heaven on earth spot with the best sangria around! We enjoyed a few small plates of delicious munchies and some prime outdoor seating. Afterwards while walking back to the car we passed a cute dog off the leash. Rima being Rima had a minor freak out about the "floof". "I need to start carrying dog treats with me in the car so that when I see a cute flooff off the leash I can bait it to come in the car and take it home!" Rima explained me to and Kate very rationally. Watch out owners of cute "floofs" in Colorado....Rima's on the prowl for some adorable "floofs" especially if they're a husky...