It's not every day you go looking for souvenirs celebrating a headless chicken, but as we headed out of Grand Junction, that's what we found ourselves doing. We had learned a little about Mike the Headless Chicken yesterday (Click here for more: Mike) and of course had to try to dig in for a little more. Mike hailed from Fruita, CO, so we headed over late morning. We were able to find the iron statue, but it appears as though if you aren't in town for the Mike the Headless Chicken Festival in May, you won't find much else to commemorate him. understandable. We're better people for discovering what we did, however. Mike was quite a chicken.

Our plan was to be leisurely and sight-see our way over the mountains to Denver during the day in order to make an 8:00 show that we had tickets for. We ended up finding out that Maggie had socially networked us into a great VIP opportunity at the show, however (GREAT job, Mag - you can keep your phone for now) so we had to put the pedal to the metal to get to town several hours ahead of schedule. For those of you that have done I-70 over Loveland Pass, you know that it isn't the best road to try and go fast, but we slid into town in time to make our appointment.

The show was the Move, Live on Tour show starring Derek and Julianne Hough. I'm not a Dancing With the Stars guy, so I didn't know much about them, but I guess they're a big deal? The real reason we were going, however, is that one of the dancers in the show is Haley Fitzgerald, a Stoughton native. Our girls were just starting to dance when Haley was in town and she was always a superstar at the same studio where they dance. Since The Big Trip was crossing paths, we had purchased tickets and then the VIP opportunity came to us last minute.

We got the chance to meet and say hi to Derek and Julianne got a nice picture below. The show that followed was just amazing. The dance quality was out of this world and basically it was just really good entertainment. Our girls don't generally need much motivation to dance, but they are now officially out of their minds after the show. It was fun to look over and see their faces just locked into the dance. Overall, just a great time. The only downside is we couldn't coordinate getting to see Haley in person. Funny that we got to see the 'stars' but not the person we were most excited to catch. If you're reading, Haley, thanks for the hook up and for the great show. It's so motivating to the girls to see someone from home that started in our same studio become such a pro. We all watched you more than the Houghs!

We're in the Denver area for the next couple days, so more Rocky Mountain adventure tomorrow. Cheers!

- Jim