Wrapping up a Colorado Vacation

Howdy, Pardner -

Did you say ya wanted to ride horses?
One tough hombre in his official, birthday, cowboy hat.











I guess we did - and had a good ride!








 Chatfield State Park in the foothills had almost everything - including commercial hot air balloon rides.  They were a little pricey, so we were happy just watching and one morning the wind blew this group right over our trailer - close enough for Ava to offer them breakfast and they ordered their eggs 'sunny side up'.
They landed about 100yds from our trailer -exciting!
After they almost spilled out of the basket they declined breakfast.














Reed wanted to go to a ball game to celebrate his June birthday so we took in a Rockies baseball game.  It is a special stadium with the mountains looming in the distance.  This night, like the whole week, was pretty hot - at the first pitch the stadium scoreboard showed 101 degrees!

Still, as they say out here,
its a Dry Heat.

More South Platte scenes

Here's a happy trio -

no, wait - its a quartet!













 Looks like Gram Ava got in the water to get a little Cassidy sugar.






















Now here's a pretty water nymph!













And a budding naturalist, to be sure!

Fun on the South Platte River - and food!

 It shouldn't come as any surprise that one young boy can't be on a great looking river and not want to fish!














And guess who is the waterbug?  Cassidy, of course.  Of course, this is mid June and the water is coldie!











 Here's Reed fishing for what can be caught - crawdads!  He no sooner put down the rod and reel than he started turning over rocks and finding crayfish!

We wouldn't let him keep any until we had checked with the park rangers and found out that, since I had a fishing license, we could keep all we could catch, they really wanted them gone.





 So Pa Gary and Reed know exactly what to do with a mess of tender, sweet, fresh out of the water crawdads -
Eat'em.

Fun in Colorado Springs!

We had to take the grandkids to Focus on the Family - where we appreciate so much the wonderful Christian work they do for all families.






 Reed and Cassidy played for hours at Whit's End!













Of course, right across the highway is the USAF Academy where their Uncle Mike served as Command Chaplain in this amazing structure.  We took a tour of this beautiful chapel and even got to see the house (from the hill) where Mike and Debbie lived while stationed here.











In Colorado Springs we did the Cog Railway up to Pikes Peak - so the kids could say they had done a "Fourteener".  Lucky we did this early in the trip because within days of our visit the Waldo Canyon Fire shut down the train - and most of Colorado Springs - for days.  It was good there was no loss of life but many homes were lost.  As we learned this summer, forest fires are an ever-present danger in Colorado.

Florida Grandkids in Colorado

 Here's Gram Ava welcoming Reed and Cassidy to the Denver Airport - they flew all the way by themselves!













 One of the first places to go was Rocky Mtn National Park and up to the high country to see - and play in - the snow!











 Of course we had to take a hike and look and the beautiful mountain streams, tall pines and even some elk!













 When the kids were in camp at the state park, they were almost always on their bikes!  It was good exercise - even thought most days reached 100*+ - and gave Gram and Pa some needed down time.  Cassidy's bike came from the Goodwill store and was a great way to have a bike for two weeks; of course, at the end Goodwill got it back.

Our Sojourner neighbors

 We are looking forward to joining our friends from home, John and Karen, for a second Sojourn together this season!  We were together at Camp Blue Haven in the New Mexico Rocky Mtns and will be together at Longmont at the Colorado Rockies!  In between we both have spent a couple of months Workamping - them in Missouri and us in SW Colorado.  They are natural-born Sojourners and have helped us both in our RV'ing, getting on the road from home, and just having friends that have known us both before - and after- we have gone on this adventure.   

Smiles from the Road today:)

York Sojourn Fun

 Every Sojourn gives you time to play and Sojourners take that seriously.  Here you observe me being taken to the woodshed by someone who had never played Polish Horseshoes before!  Joe is such an athlete; I had to threaten him with bodily harm if he didn't let me win at least ONE game!







On a off day we visited an amazing museum in the middle of Nowhere, Nebraska (really, Minden) we toured a collection of collections: literally everything you can imagine.  This was in the automotive area and is an early, hand-built RV - complete with back porch and 50,000 miles of travel.








 Of course, Sojourners ALWAYS play games, mostly Hand and Foot, but other card games as well.  There was always "a game afoot"; and smiles all around.  These Sojourners, Jack and Dolores,  we met in Harlingen last winter and re-united with them at York, they love to play any table game.










Off to another Sojourn for Don and Nan, our partners in tiling and painting.  This amazing couple have been full timers for 15 years and love Sojourning and being together on the road.  They are an inspiration.

York Sojourn Work

 The college knows an army works on its stomach so they fed us well, and often. We started every workday with a great breakfast selection in their fine, modern dining hall.  Then we broke for a great lunch!!












Don did tile work last year so the Team Leader found out I could do a little and next thing we knew we were on our knees, no a/c, doing stairwells and dorm halls.  Add a library front room, a little carpentry work and our dance card was full for the three weeks!!!








 Ava and Linda got to sit down on the job - a lot - and do wall after wall of "cutting in" for the painter.

You gotta know, there really is a lot of satisfaction seeing a floor or a wall totally changed and improved by your labor.








 Here is Captain Glenn, the painter on both our Spring Sojourns, with his York painting crew.  He was mighty impressed how carefully they 'cut in' and how much they could prepare for him to 'roll on'.  His standard comment about their work was "excellent, excellent" - you can see he knew how to keep a woman hard at work.

York College Sojourn

 We were glad to get to Sojourn with our Oklahoma friends at York in mid May.  Joe and Linda have a special connection since Joe's grandfather loved this school, worked hard to help it grow and is honored by a building  in his name.










These are half the rigs on this Sojourn - the other half of us are behind the camera.  The graceful old church was moved to this campus several years ago, rebuilt and refurbished and is now used by all the campus.



















This campus is really beautiful and tucked into a neat, old, small town.
















Our group - workers all.  Many either graduated from York, had a child or grandchild attend or, like the Thomases, have some other connection to the school. 

Blue Haven wrap-up

 On a seed feeder we got a 'life bird' at Blue Haven - a Blackheaded Grosbeak. We had both the male and female as they nest in the Rockies.























We worshipped at the Las Vegas Church of Christ the two Sundays we were in the area and they treated us royally.  One Sunday after servcie we were treated to a BarBQue at the Ortiz family land nearby.  What a great family and a wonderful meal time all together.

Blue Haven Camp - work!

 Our prime job this session was to get the Boys and Girls Bathouses really painted well - inside and out.  That's not an easy task when they are old, have layers of previous paint and have to survive a rigorous environment: teenagers and New Mexico mountain winters! 

The right paint was sprayed on by our team 'professional' painter but all the 'prep' work was done by us amateurs.  Scraping, caulking, taping - took lots of time and effort.














Here are some of the ladies in their best mopping and sweeping postures.
















After a day's hard work they were too tired to even chit-chat!
 These are the six rigs that got here first and we had two more up the hill behind the cameraman.  That's us on the right.