Last week in Colorado

This week was still cold, but nice enough. Norm had to disconnect the water several days but we also got to enjoy hooking up and using the inside water instead of the jugs, bottles, buckets. We had a nice deer family visit our site and caught Butch (cat) cuddled in our new bedspread! I remodeled while in Montana....new bedspread, throw rug and dishtowels. One day I shopped with Abbey and her friend, Hannah for Abbey's belated birthday. It was a fun day for me, and I hope for them too. Norm also laid out a disc golf course for the Castle Rock RV Park and we played the course a few times. Nice job, Norm. We also took a 2 mile hike in a VERY nice neighborhood. On the last weekend, we did some window shopping and a nice lunch with Gregg and family in Littleton, including a Halloween store where we were all scared of a granny doll who rocked and talked and looked pretty bad. Mason thought twice about passing by her. On Sunday, we played 18 holes of folf with the whole Banks family and of course, I got the highest score. (That means I win, right?) The best part was that Mason copied Grandma's "super tee off" throw. After folf, Gregg fixed us stuffed hamburgers for dinner and we headed home to get ready for Monday's take off! It's so nice to be able to see the kids and so hard to leave.....

Can't believe I forgot the white water rafting!

Where was my head? One of the highlights of summer Kamp was the white water rafting trip that Walt took us all on. We had different trips, of course, but all were exciting and fun. Some were wetter than others. In our trip, Pat decided that Norm should get wet so he tackled him off the raft's edge. They both went in and Norm is still planning revenge, Patty boy. Same thing happened in Mike Darlin' and Jan's ride when Neal pushed Mike in. Sheri went in with a bit of help from one of the fast rapids and so did Tracy and Marika! Fine boss that we have, he purchased the raft just to take us for a free ride. Is that also why he has his snowmobiles, etc? Thanks again, Walt! Oh...new discovery, you can click on a picture to enlarge it and then click the back arrow to go back to the posting.

COLD in Colorado

It has been Really FINE cold (Norm's version of the "F" word learned from my Sister)in Colorado since last night. Yesterday was rather glorious at about 55 during the high of the day, but down to 19 degrees during the night. We played folf in Castle Rock during the day, with the dog and it was great. After sunset tho' it was a whole different story. We had a new neighbor pull in and hook up to our water hydrant, hose and all and turned the water on. (Ours was unhooked to prevent our water lines from freezing & to prevent the hydrant from breaking). At about 10:30 Norm went out and turned off the hydrant to try to save the water supply. Turned out, the hydrant broke anyway due to the neighbor having the water on, so we are using buckets, bottles, etc today to wash dishes, flush the toilet, brush teeth and make ice for coctail hour! I'm roasting a turkey breast to use the oven to heat up the RV. Hope we don't run out of gas.....
It's really odd, the turkey breast didn't quite defrost in the fridge after almost 3 days and the ice didn't quite freeze after 24 hours. What is going on?

Rocky Mountain Park

Really great day with the kids at Rocky Mountain Park. We left early for the drive through Estes Park (small tourist town) to the Rocky Mountain Park for a hike with the kids. It was a beautiful day, not too cold, not too hot. The hike was about 3.5 miles and it was the kids longest hike. They did great, though we were all hungry when we finished. The final destination, the "Pool" was not all that great, but the Elk sightings were fun and exciting. One of the pictures is of Long's Peak which is the mountain Gregg hiked a while ago. (overnight hike up a 14,000' elevation) Needless to say, it was a hard hike and he suffered altitude sickness and the Marmots got his backpack food. I don't think I want to do that hike.......not the height thing, just don't want to loose my trail mix! We ended up in Estes Park and joined the tourist crowd and Gregg & Jen treated us to hamburgers, then some shopping. It was a wonderfull day and Chassis was really glad to see us when we got back to the RV.

Spending time in Colorado

Since the kids work weekdays, we spend our time with disc golf in both Castle Rock and at Colorado Springs at Cottonwood Creek. We've also hiked the Spruce Mountain and enjoyed a campfire with some of the current workampers here and a nice dinner with our former employers, Ian and Sally. The Spruce Mountain first hike is a funny story. I accidentely lost my camera on the way up and only noticed it when I tried to take a picture of some orange leaves. So, we headed back down to look for the camera when a woman on the way up asked if we lost a camera! Of course we said YES, and she said she didn't have it........but, she had the phone number of a young man who found it. We called, got his address, found him and the camera and offered a reward. He gave us the camera and kindly refused the reward of $20.00. On our way home, I decided that we had earned $20.00 in that transaction and should stop at a restaurant we had heard about for a "free" lunch. The restaurant is called "Three Margaritas", so..........we had to use the credit card as lunch cost us twice the amount of the reward! Good lunch, way too much food and way too uncomfortable in my clothes during the following folf game. At least it got me started on a new less food direction, for now.....
The next hike at Spruce Mountain was the full 5 miles up, around the top and back down. Chassis went and only barked at a few people.

Dawson Butte Hike

Today was one of the warmer days. Shorts & Tees! We hiked a new trail to us which is near the campground. It's 5 miles through meadow and some forest. Thankfully, no ups! Saw Fall in the pretty grass colors and maybe the last vestige of Summer in some daisies. On the way home, we saw a herd of Elk! That was a neat surprise so we pulled over to get some pictures.

Kids hiked the "Rock"

Thursday night Abbey & Mason spent the night with us. It was pretty quiet, TV and coloring and some Webkinz and we were all asleep by 9:30. The living room turns into the kids bedroom so the idea of sleep was inviting. Next day, after french toast, we hiked the "Rock" in Castle Rock. Total hike is about 1.6 miles round trip and the kids did fine. I whined, as usual, on the up parts!

Castle Rock, Colorado

Arrived mid afternoon and made plans for dinner with my Banks kids. We went to a favorite Mexican restaurant in Monument (down the road) and enjoyed the visit. Next day they all came for a steak cook-out at our RV and Monday night was Dolphin football at Gregg & Jen's. Nice weekend. The weather here has been cold, cold, not so cold, warm, cold, cold....nice rainbow, snow, frost, freezing!

On the road to Colorado

Left for Colorado on the 15th via Livingstone, Colorado. The ride on Rte 89 was not too scenic until we reached the mountains. We saw the Little & Big Belt mountains and the scenery improved. Our campground was Yellowstone's Edge RV Park. It rates about a 3+. Next day we headed for Landers, Wyoming via Yellowstone Park and past the Grand Teton Mountains. The campground manager at the Livingston, Montana campground we stayed at advised us that if going through Yellowstone, one of the roads was closed due to construction. She said to avoid one other road due to mountains and lots of "S" turns but to get the map when we went into the park to see where the problem roads were. Well, as things go, our GPS took us into the park on the wrong road so we had to break into the line at the gate. Our lovely park ranger chastised us and didn't give us a map. At that point, we didn't dare ask for one but figured we would be able to avoid the closed and bad roads without a map. (So there!) After driving many more miles than I thought we would before having to make a choice of roads, we came to the closed road. The choices then were to turn West or East and Norm turned East which is the road I thought the campground person said to avoid. Soooooo, we decided to do a U-turn with the 36' rig, while towing the car behind, and somehow ran out of road! Traffic piled up in both directions and it took quite a while to maneuver the rig to the right angle to be able to unhook the car so the rig could back up and get the heck out of dodge! Fortunately, another park ranger got to meet us and she helped direct traffic past us without showing much contempt. We managed to go separately to the West road only to find that it was only a parking spot to look at geysers. So, we managed to drive through the parking lot, receiving several looks from people we blocked before. After re-hooking the car, we went back to the wrong road (which was now the right road) and headed out of Yellowstone. The only stop we made was for a herd of buffalo right in front our our rig! Where was Ms. Park ranger then?????
After traveling through miles of road construction, some of which was a pass at almost 10,000' elevation we went through some nice areas with different landscape. We especially enjoyed the area in Wyoming at "wind river" and would like to re-visit sometime and spend a few days there. Our next stop in Wyoming was the Sleeping Bear RV Park. (rates about 1 out of 5) After that, AB Campground in Cheyenne, WY. Turns out that we have stayed there before and forgot about it. We did have a BBQ dinner there. Good thing, no dishes to do. Bad thing, not so great for the $$.