Retro Photo Booth
We brought the Retro Photo Booth out to a wedding in Vail at the beautiful Donovan Pavilion. The bride and groom were wonderful and their friends and family loved all of our props as well as the quality of the pictures. We were excited to be able to use our new cherry red rotary phone as one of the props, it was a hit!
Because the wedding was a few hours from home, we got a hotel down the road with the plan to explore some of the mountains the next day. Neither of us had been to Hanging Lake but we’d tried a bunch of times in the past to go. The problem was always that there was no parking in the parking lot. With that in mind, we left really early in order to find a spot off the exit and of course it was full but we were persistent and were finally able to squeeze into a small spot.
As we trekked the path we met hikers coming down already, covered in mud, all telling us the same thing: “it gets way worse just a little further up, we had to turn around!” Though neither of us wanted to fall on our butts or be covered in mud, we decided to stay true to the theme of the trip thus far, being stubborn. It got us the parking spot and we were sure it would also get us to the lake that we longed to see.
As we continued up the trail, the path became soft, our shoes sticking into the earth as if the mud was trying to pull us under. Our attention and thoughts were in good conversation, plans for the retro photo booth, and admiring the beautiful landscape around us, all the while the temperature was dropping quickly as we felt the cold bite on our bare skin. Soon it became cold enough under the shade of the trees that there were ice patches, probably what the descending hikers were warning us about, but we continued on making sure to step around them onto the rocks that lined the outer limits of the path. Soon though, the patches got larger and the safety of the rocks were few. We were starting to realize the way to the top was indeed going to be slightly troublesome at best. After a few switchbacks we met with a large group of hikers, all covered in mud and wet clothing, sliding down a steep ice slope on their bottoms. Again our stubbornness got the best of us and we slowly made our way up past the large icy slope only to find an inaccessible path ahead of us. Our only choice was to turn around and make our way back down and we both knew it. After a few failed attempts to find alternate paths upward we finally gave up and turned around. On the way back down we warned each other about the steep slope we saw everyone sliding down, jokingly making bets on who would fall first. Once we got there our steps became cautious and slow, but it didn’t help. We both fell at about the same time, sliding down about 15 feet, even dropping off a slight 2 foot drop.
After finally reaching the bottom we decided to try again this summer. We will leave early to make sure to be the first ones in the lot and we will bring better shoes. We will even try to bring the retro photo booth back to the Donovan Pavilion!