Have you ever thought - gee, you know what I'm going to do today? I'm going to pack about 10,000 lbs of sh*t into a 100 lb car and drive to Colorado Springs today. No?

Well fear not, I had those thoughts FOR you! Last Tuesday I packed up my Mini Cooper convertible and drove to Colorado Springs, with a brief stop in North Platte Nebraska for a nap. Why Colorado Springs, you ask? Well, let me tell you!

World famous carnivorous plant grower, Jeremiah Harris, was opening his greenhouse for people to come tour for one day. This dude has the world record for the largest flytrap trap, measuring at 2.4 inches across. That's a whole big mouth of buggy death right there. He also has an all-around amazing collection between his three greenhouses. Plus some absolutely great folks would be there selling their plant babies.

LIGHT BULB. (<-- please say that in Gru's voice from Despicable Me)

So Tuesday morning I packed up my teeeeeenie tiny little car, threw in a USB-powered grow light and a tray because, let's be honest here, I'm not coming back without plants, and hit the road. The rest is history, quickly recapped here in this Instagram compilation I created when I got home, exhausted, yet still feeling my Wheaties a week later (yes, I'm old, kids - look it up.)

That wild adventure consisted of:

• Driving a zillion miles

• Getting my hair dyed and shaved into a mohawk like the shield maiden my husband believes me to be

• Picking up the Plant Zaddy from the Denver airport (my bestie wingman from Arizona)

• Getting a new tattoo (tree of life!)

• Eating at a place called The Rabbit Hole that used to be the city's underground morgue

• Seeing SO MANY fabulous plants and an equal number of fabulous carnivorous plant-loving humans

• Taking a train through the Royal Gorge with a laser light show on the gorge walls once it got dark

• And.... (pant pant pant pant) driving allll the way back to Minnesota

  • ...with a stop to see my kiddo at college in Iowa on the way, because I love my kid

So here I am, back at The Gardens, a couple of days of catching-up under my belt and about 3,624,835 lbs of dog fur on my clothes because the whole herd apparently missed me terribly. I brought home several beautiful plants, one of which specifically I'm absolutely tickled to be blessed to grow: a seed-grown Nepenthes Rajah.

All around, this trip was fan-freaking-tastic. I can't wait to work on propagating and making some of these new fantastic kids available here in the future. For now, they'll have a few days to settle in to their new home while I start frantically jamming on this site again to make it everything it can be. And sleep. Sleep will happen. Adventure is out there, peeps - go get it!