When Pie and I lived in New Mexico, the one fall activity we looked forward to the most was the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta. I would get childlike excitement hearing the hot air balloons puffing and drifting overhead all across the city and seeing the many different shapes and colors of balloons. It was the ultimate eye candy and I would try to attend every day of the two week festival, even if it was just watching the balloons outside the fair grounds.

Nowadays, the thing we look forward to the most in Colorado is leaf peeping (aka, seeing the fall foliage). This may seem like the obvious choice of fall activity, but back in Texas where I grew up, fall colors weren’t a thing to get excited over in the least bit, but there’s a reason Colorado has the tagline Colorful Colorado. I didn’t fall in love with Colorful Colorado right away and leaf peeping has slowly developed into a thing that I very much look forward to. In fact, this year hubby and I went leaf peeping every weekend we could from September to October because you never know when the color is going to start turning, and when it does, it’s GO TIME!

I have to admit that I’m a bit of a fraud when it comes to being a leaf peeping fanatic. Fall is probably my least favorite season. Don’t get me wrong, the array of colors that suddenly spring to live during autumn is beyond exciting! And I do love a good rainbow of colors arranged the perfect color order from green to yellow to orange to red. However, the problem I have with fall is that it’s just so fleeting, and once that 2-3 week color change is over, the rest of the season just looks bare and depressing. I don’t like winter for the same reason, but at least there are many opportunities for a pretty winter white scene to mask the drab landscape during that chilly season. Nonetheless, I eagerly jump on the leaf peeping band wagon when it comes through Colorado!

Most years hubby and I stick pretty close to home, with Leadville being our preferred choice of destination for fall foliage.

This year, while hubby was away on a work trip, I treated myself to a girls only trip (aka, me + dachs) in Telluride, a destination I’ve always wanted to visit during the fall. I travelled Last Dollar Road (a fairly easy 4WD dirt road) outside Telluride all the way to the colorful, show-stopping Million Dollar Highway outside Silverton and enjoyed every last color-changing leaf along the way! Leaf peeping bandwagon, all aboard!!