Lyons, CO September 26, 2008

Well, we have spent a wonderful summer in Colorado, but we have been so busy having fun, that I have neglected this blog.I will try to bring you up-to date with a brief recounting, and then get back to my pledge of a weekly posting!

I think on my last post, I was rejoicing that we were back in the Rockies. Later, in July, we had a family reunion at the YMCA Camp in Estes Park. This was attended by all our children, and many of their families. we are still assembling pictures of the reunion, and when we have them all together, I will gather about 20 or 25 of the best one and post them on the Google site. The reunion lasted 6 days,arriving on a Saturday, and leaving the next Friday. We had two cabins rented with a number of bedrooms, so we had plenty of room for everyone. The YMCA had a number of programs for kids, so there was plenty for the tads to do, such as horseback riding, fishing, building bottle rockets, craft activities, and, of course, swimming. Many of us went hiking at Rockey Mountain National Park and got in pretty good shape. I, personally, finally got up to about 8 miles hiking at 8,000to 11,000 feet, and managed to lose a little weight (which I unfortunately, have gained back).

Evenings were especially a lot of fun, Every evening a different crew of about four people prepared dinner for the rest of us (about 25 people in all). After the meal there were usually one or two card games --- most often Spades.

I thought the Reunion was a great success, and I hope we can have another in two or three years.

After the Reunion, we took our RV and Hap and Jeannine's family to Pioneer days in Cheyenne, WY. We saw a great parade in downtown Cheyenne, and the following day went to the Rodeo. the Rodeo, which is a 5-day affair (We only went one day.), was a lot of fun, and some of the most skilled cowboys in the world were competing there. I was surprised, how rough it was, and several of the cowboys were injured and had to be carries off.

Hap's family flew back to Florida, and Madeline and proceeded down to Creede , CO. In Creede we attended a rally held by our RV Club (called Escapees). The rally was mostly involved with four-wheeling. Four-wheeling is especially good in Southern Colorado because there are many, many abandoned mines. These mines all have roads or at least tracks leading to them . Thus there are many four-wheel drive roads, some of them exceedingly rough, through the forest and up into the alpine areas, and some times even over or along the Continental Divide.

We spent more time in Southern Colorado after the rally. We visited our friend Duane and Arleta, and then went up to the Gunnison and later to Buena Vista area. we did some hiking, but primarily did some geocaching. The geocaching again took us on to four-wheel drive roads, up canyons, over to old mines, to ghost towns and through grazing area of ranches. We seemed to go and see places that we would not normally go to.

We finally returned to Lyons (about 7 miles from Boulder where our daughter lives). Madeline went to Florida to visit Hap and Jeannine for a few weeks, and only returned a few days ago. Monday, we plan to hit the road, and will move on toward Red Bay, AL, where our rig was manufactured.. We have a few things on the rig that we need to have looked at. We are about to start working outs way toward Florida for the winter.