Echo Basin Workamping - Weddings II

Here are some pictures of the weddings we worked on, and watched. 









 Some of the wedding parties hired this horse and wagon to either "deliver" the bride to the groom or take the newlywed couple on a "victory lap" around the park.  Note the rain threatening - but holding off!







Another smaller wedding (we workampers loved the small ones:) with an unusual assortment of guests.  Notice the dog on the front row - right.  Actually, he looked a lot better than his owner. We definitely saw 'all types' on this gig.











Lest you think it was all work, here is the workamper crew with the owner, Kathi (front left) and her essential chef beside her.  Others in the picture are some who had been coming here to work for years (across from Kathi and next to me) and two new couples: Kim & Bob next to Ava, and Wayne and Marveen at the end.  We helped find Wayne & Marveen - at church in Cortez! - and Bob and Kim came in mid July after we encouraged Kathi to re-advertise on Workamper News.  All together we made a great team and 'got it done'.

Echo Basin - Weddings I

This is what you see when you drive into Echo Basin Ranch - at the end of a three-mile climb to about 8,000' elevation backing up to the San Juan National Forest.  Pines and ponds, waterfalls and wildlife.  The owner, Kathi, has turned this into a Destination Wedding venue with a Southwest flavor and it is booked solid from late May through early September, virtually their whole season.




Here is a workamper setting up for the outdoor Saturday wedding.  Its a great view, kept green by rolls and rolls of artificial turf, and very well landscaped with stone and plantings.  Simple, but effective and appreciated.










Inside, the banquet room can seat about 200 and we often helped set that up, too.  I also did minor maintenance on the cabins and Ava worked mainly in the office.  Other workampers like Bob and Kim and Wayne and Marveen worked the other days.  Ava's people skills made Kathi want her in the office on the busy wedding weekends so she could deal with the bride and the bride's mother!







The Wedding Pavilion was a simple affair that was redecorated every weekend by the bridal party.  To my amazement it was never ruined by the ever-present afternoon rain showers.  Several times the rain held off for only a 15 or more minutes - but it always held off!  Made Ava and I surmise God truly loves weddings.

Workamping at Echo Basin Ranch -1

 June 29, 2012 we were just around the corner, E of Mancos, CO and almost to our workamping home for the next nine weeks and what do we find?  Smoke!  We thought we had left the fires behind on the Front Range but this one had been going on for a week and was far from out.










We decided to stay since we learned the Pre-Evac order had been lifted and the smoke was blowing away from the camp.  This is our view out the back window of the RV - looking NE into the San Juan mountains across a beautiful pasture on the EB Ranch.  Those bare peaks are fourteeners!








 We watched the fire on the mountain to our South grow slowly until the conditions were just right for the fire fighters to do a massive controlled burn.  It started in the late afternoon and was most impressive that night as they shot flaming rockets into the right spot and 'backfired' up the mountain, burning up all the "fuel" for the wild fire.  Wow!  This took place on the first few days of July.



This is what it looked like a couple of days later - and will for a while.  Thankfully, the summer rains arrived on July 4 and the undergrowth turned green and the threat of fire in our immediate area was over.  You can see one of the reasons they threw over 600 firefighters into this - those towers had to be saved as they were all the communications for the 4 Corners area: Cell/TV/Radio/Emergency.  The other reason was if the fire had jumped the highway it could have burned a fouth of Colorado as there is nothing but forests to our North: the San Juan National Forest, and others.

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.