We stayed at a friends beautiful home in Crestone, and spent a couple days watching hippies dance and hiking the Rockies. 
Crestone is a sweet little town with an eclectic population and mountain access just outside the city.
Then the girls joined us and we will all travel together until Portland, OR.
Today we watch France v Belgium, then on to our next stop, Fruita, CO for some mountain biking.
It’s windy, the roads disappear on the horizon and the first town we came to in Colorado had a recreational marijuana super store. We’re at the base of the SAN Juan de Crysto mountains in Crestone, Co, home of more spiritual centers per capita than anywhere else in the country.
I’m taking a Sami immersion course of course. But seriously folks I’m rubbing crystals together as I watch Russia v Croatia at the Elephant Cloud Tea Shop, Namaste.
Darlin’, is this a trailer park? 
We rolled into Santa Fe early this afternoon and went straight to our trailer, I mean camp site. It’s right in the middle of Santa Fe so super convenient. We had lunch at The Shed, really good tamales, and then we did a little car repair; Kanye needed a new house battery.
Tomorrow we explore the terrain around SF and then on to Colorado!
As soon as we crossed into New Mexico it started raining and the temp dropped 20 degrees.
From the triple digits in OK and TX we are now sitting in 80 degrees with a good breeze, so much nicer. The dog, Solomon, has certainly enjoyed the change.
Now we enjoy the fourth on a fireworks free lake in what was once native land, and then part of Mexico, and now…
Somehow, it managed to get hotter, somehow. Yet once again, we find ourselves by a body of water. Kind of a hot tub filled with boats but a body of water none the less. I went on a little ride and found a cemetery. So many had died young, many of them obviously Native Americans. I’m determining this based on names and tombstone symbols… But then there was Chief Littleface, 99 years, who lived during what I can only imagine were incredibly tough times in a desolate place.
In middle school I was in a play called Oklahoma, now I know what all that singing was about, it’s hot as hades here. Wisely, we mapped out lots of water on the trip.
After five years in music city, with one PhD and two high school diplomas earned, and my honorary degree in holding on by the slimmest of margins, we have hit the road! First stop, somewhere outside Lil Rock, AR, in a place called Lake Catherine State Park. There are screaming babies and gun shots in the back ground which is how I know I’m really in Arkansas. Tonight, beers with mosquitoes, tomorrow…Oklahoma!
We started with a maple tree a few years back, it had developed some rot and was at risk of following towards one of our buildings. Gist Tree Service here in Nashville dropped the tree and stacked the logs for us, we painted the ends and let them dry for a bit. This August we loaded a couple up and took them to Andersen Tree Service on the north-side who have a saw mill.
Monroe Harding maintenance coordinator, Brent Steffek, and I then hand planed the book-matched slabs so that they were relatively flat, then we jointed them together. There were a couple of checks in the ends of one of the slabs so we used a bow tie, or butterfly joint, to keep those cracks from expanding.
The table sold at auction, as a fundraiser for Monroe Harding, and made $4k with the agreement that we make another for that same price for the other bidder. We didn’t want one of the two competing bidders to go home unhappy. Recently, Brent and I cut up into 8′ lengths a Black Walnut tree that fell on property, we’d be happy to turn it into a beautiful and unique piece of furniture for your home or office, just shoot me an email if you are interested. #resaw #liveedge #salvage #reuse #handmade
Since we had to create a ton of dust for the bathroom we figured, why not just do the closet too. Originally it had a small single door into the closet, a 24″ wide door, and then the space was about 5′ wide so you had to kind of crawl in there to get anything tucked away in the back. So we decided to open it up and put some drawers in as well. Room for two wardrobes.
The drawer faces and shelf trim are made out of the oak pallet that the shower walls came in.
Lauren Varney 