Photo Searching

I haven't been out and active with my camera lately, but I went back and looked through my archives of photos and found two that I want to share. There was this place in Grand Lake, Colorado, that made all kinds of interesting log furniture. Clarine posed in front of it. Also while on this recent trip to Colorado, I chanced to shoot a picture of Main Street in the quaint town of Yampa, Colorado. I will use these two pictures as a segue into a blog. Neither picture has a lot to do with leaves which is one of the main reasons to take the trip to Colorado; the other was to see our friends, the Allreds. So now that I am blogging, I will just reveal a little bit about what has transpired in the last few days. Kim, Chris and Elliott came out for dinner Friday night. Elliott really likes the two baskets of toys that are in the sun room. He also likes jello with whipped cream - VERY MUCH! Saturday afternoon after the temple service we drove to Lisa, Phil and children's place to see them briefly and to pick up a very large bottle - two liter of extra virgin olive oil and a large carton of Feta cheese. I still had a package of Twizzler Red Vines that I had left over from the football game at BYU which several of us attended on 22 September which I gave to them. The storm sort of interrupted our tail gating, so I had a package of Twizzlers left. We did manage to eat most of one package. It was good to see Lisa, Phil and family. We didn't stay long, but we had a good visit. Also this week I mowed the lawn for the last time this year and serviced the lawn mower for winter storage. I sprayed my special concoction of mineral spirits and linseed oil on the steps and the dock to water proof them for winter. Also I repaired the doors on my outdoor storage shed where some of the lumber hat rotted away due to sprinkler water. Then I painted it. I also took my fountain out of the lake, cleaned it up a little and put on a new fountain nozzle, and stored it in the shed for the winter. I drained and turned off the sprinklers for the winter. One would have to say that I did a lot of things of a winterizing nature. Clarine's sister is still with us recovering from her shoulder operation. This week she fell going up the stairs. A trip to the doctor indicated that she had done no more damage to her shoulder, for which we were grateful. Our lake is getting a higher water level this fall. I am happy to see it filling up again after it got 18-24 inches lower than normal. I think that the fish and the water fowl like it better too. I removed a few more nails and tacks from the "The Ole Rocking Chair" that I am planning to finish. I need to tell Diane that I increased the amount of Glucosamine Chondroiton that I have been taking, and for the first time I think that taking it has been beneficial to me. For three days both of my knees have hurt less when I go running. Diane told me that she thought the treatment would be helpful, but I think I just took a token dose to see if anything got better. I couldn't tell anything happening, but after doubling the dosage I feel that I have improved. If necessary I could still increase one third more and be within the recommended dosage. (As you can tell I don't take much stuff unless it truly is beneficial.) Diane, I did order a large supply this week as I think it is helping and it certainly has not been harmful.

The "Bean Flipper" Chronicles

Dan Allred brought with him to the time share two wrist rockets ("bean flippers"). For ammunition he had marbles and some glass pebbles that can be purchased at All-a-dollar for a bag full. We walked around this little fishing pond next to the Fraser River and shot and shot until I broke the rubber tube on the flipper I was using. We had about used up the beads and marbles anyway. I did feel bad to break the flipper, but Dan had spare parts and implied that he could readily fix it. We didn't do it on the spot, because we were all shot out. We shot in the air, across the pond, at rocks, at sign posts, and tried to make the missiles skip on the water. We just had a genuinely good time. We built up an appetite, so we went to KFC for lunch. Eating is something that we did very well during the four days the Allreds were with us. We ate wonderful meals in the unit and at places we were visiting we ate the fare from the menu. We even had scrumptious ice cream cones and pastries. URP!!!!!!! Suffice it to say that it was not a time to be on a diet. gwh

Rocky Mountain National Park

(I was going to add another image, but the blogger has a mind of its own and will not accept another upload. So that is the way it is.) The unshown image was of Long's Peak, a high mountain over 14,000 feet in elevation. It is one of the famous land marks in Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP). The park is vast, would compare with Grand Canyon National Park in size, except this one goes up and GCNP goes down. We saw hundreds of elk. In fact as we were driving back to the condo after dark elk were on the highway and we nearly hit two deer as they decided to cross in front of us. As we were driving home and the sun was setting there was a lovely coloration to the sky (see picture). Dan Allred calls the bird shown in a picture a "picnic robber." It is very aggressive in trying to get tidbits of food from the tourists. In the higher elevations there was some snow in the shady enclaves where the sun had not reached. Soon the area will be totally covered in snow, and the road over the top of the mountains in the park will be closed. At one entrance to the park is Grand Lake and at the other is Estes Park. Both are well established to extract money from the tourists. We had a wonderful lunch in Estes Park, and we lolled around the lake in a roadside park at Grand Lake. We fed some geese and ducks while lolling (just like back home).

Indian Peaks

Indian Peaks condominium exterior is shown opposite. We were in unit 201-B. It is the second floor entrance to the left of the globe shaped lamp. The other pics are interior shots. People shown are Dan and Deanna Allred and Clarine and me. The pictures give an indication of how the unit was furnished. There were two bedrooms, two baths and a balcony (not shown). the hot tub is located just inside the front door. There was a TV system but none of the channels carried LDS Conference. There was a wireless internet connection, and I was able to pick up a KSL stream that let us see some of the proceedings, but I kept losing the connection, so some of the talks we did not hear. Saturday night I drove to the Granby Branch Chapel (19 miles) and saw all of that priesthood session. It was very good to see and hear what was available. We arrived at the unit on Friday the 5th. Dan and Deanna arrived Late afternoon on Monday the 8th we had their company until Thursday evening when they drove home to Arvada (suburb of Denver). While they were with us we laughed a lot, reminisced, played games (Rook and Farkle), drove through Rocky Mountain National Park, walked around a small lake in Fraser shooting "bean flippers" (wrist rockets - Dan brought two.), and drove in the mountains near where the Yampa River starts (saw acres of leaves on the trees.) We drove home on Friday the 12th. I will blog about Rocky Mountain Park and our "bean flipper" escapade in separate blogs. gwh.

Leaves - 10/5-12/2007

We went on a week's trip to see leaves, to visit with our friends the Allreds, and to spend the week in a time share at Winter Park/Fraser, Colorado. This blog will talk only about the leaves. We found many all the way of the trip. The first two photos shown are in the Yampa, Colorado area and just out side of the door of the unit where we were staying in Fraser.

The picture above and the one to the right were taken while still in Utah - in Daniel's Canyon and just east of Soldier Creek reservoir. There were leaf exhibits by Mother Nature everywhere. The ones I have shown here will be representative of all. There were some views that covered hundreds of acres in the Steamboat Springs area, but they were too far away to provide the kind of pictures that I wanted, but they were grand to look at. For the entire trip the Chrysler Town and Country functioned marvelously well. It seemed that we travelled in true luxury. The unit where we stayed, our visit with the Allreds and our trip to Rocky Mountain National Park will be covered in later blogs. gwh