The end of summer is here and we've had such a great time with our kids and grandkids. We made a trip to Pueblo Reservoir for a few days and met up with our RVing friends from Michigan, Brad and Janine Bachelor. We went to the Royal Gorge Bridge for a day and had a wonder couple days with them. We made a trip to Salt Lake City to see our dearest friend's son, Jason Dahlin, get married to a lovely young lady, Tiffany. It was wonderful seeing Pete, Kim, Jason, and Megan again. We also got to have special time with our son and his family following the wedding. Our grandsons Lawson and Ethan spent the weekend with us and we had a great time. From Utah we traveled to Aztec, NM. and spent a week seeing the sites, to include Mesa Verde and much more. We met Brad and Janine here as well and we had a awesome week. We'll head back to Colorado for about 10 days and then make a trip to Minnesota for Bruce's 45th class reunion. Enjoy pictures of our recent travels.
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While fishing at Rifle Gap State Park this little ferret came by.
He brought his whole family (8) by a little later. |
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| Caught this little guy while fishing. |
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| Family of ferrets paying me a visit while fishing. |
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Just added fresh water to this pool in my daughter's back yard.
The ducks just love having clean water to bath in. |
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Bryce, got two parakeets from his cousin for his birthday.
His mom was thrilled. |
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Bryce also got lots of fishing gear for his birthday.
Happy fisherman. |
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| Uncle Adam got this Star Wars puzzle for his birthday. |
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| Trent and Nitro sharing co-pilot duties. |
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| Beautiful sunset at Pueblo Reservoir State Park. |
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| Dinosaur tracks, inverted, near Canon City, CO. First time we've seen inverted tracks. |
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| Inverted dinosaur track. |
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| Minnesota flag on the Royal Gorge Bridge. |
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| View from Royal Gorge Bridge. |
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| Brad and Janine Bachelor. Awesome people. So much fun to be with. |
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Picked up a few hitch hikers on our way to Utah. These are my
daughter's chickens and they wanted to ride along to Utah. NOT.... |
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| In front of the of the Bountiful Temple in Utah for a wedding. |
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| The newly weds, Jason and Tiffany Dahlin. Jason is like a grandson to us. |
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Took the grandsons with us to Deseret Industries while in Salt Lake City.
Grandma shops while the boys and I check out the toy department. |
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| Future rock star. He's a rock star already in our book. |
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| The Bird Lady. Our granddaughter, Lily, loves her birds. |
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| Throwing out the first pitch at the Sky Sox baseball game, Lily (center) and Macie (right). |
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| Getting a picture with Sox the Sky Sox mascot. |
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| Proud parents. |
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| Our daughter Jennifer with her man, Jesse. |
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Our three beautiful granddaughters, Kayla (left), Lily (right), and Macie (center).
Love these young ladies. |
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Our little ball player, Ethan, holding up their 2nd place trophy.
Good little ball player. |
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Our son, Eric, ran a 200 miler with 9 other Army guys.
It was a relay race with each guy running several legs. Way to go Eric, you stud. |
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Got help from grandson, Ethan, changing a flat tire.
He can spin them lug nuts as good as any mechanic. |
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| Taking the spare off. |
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| First day of school for our little man Lawson. |
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| Our youngest grandson, Logan, helping mommy at work. Well, he tried. |
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| Grandson Ethan on his first day of school. |
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| First visit to Mesa Verde with friends Brad and Janine. |
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| Great time at Mesa Verde. |
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Had to climb this ladder to get to the "Balcony House" cliff dwelling.
They wouldn't let us use the stone steps used by the Anasazi people. |
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Ranger took the lead and Roberta and I followed.
It was quite a steep climb. Very cool..... |
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| What a climb. Let's do it again. |
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| Balcony House cliff dwelling. Awesome site to see. |
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| Some very tight spaces to go through. |
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| Janine and Roberta enjoying the sites. |
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These Anasazi people dress just like we do today.
Strange looking people. |
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Roberta checking out one of the rooms. The doors to the rooms
are off the floor by a couple feet to keep out the unwanted visitors.
Those are doors you see above, not windows. |
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| Roberta making her way through one of the doors. |
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| This pit is a Kiva, religious room, each family would have. |
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| Our ranger guide was awesome. |
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| Another side of the cliff dwelling. About 35 people lived in this place. |
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| One of the religious Kivas at Balcony House. |
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We had to crawl through this 18" wide, 7' long tunnel to get back to the top of the cliff.
Roberta led the way. |
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| What do we do if we are claustrophobic? |
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Had to climb another ladder and then rock steps
to get to the top of the cliff. If you are afraid of heights,
stay home. A couple people on our tour should have stayed home. |
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| Roberta nearing the top. |
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This is Spruce Tree House and was closed for 3 days because of
falling rock. It opened the day after we were there. |
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| A view of Mesa Verde. |
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This is the biggest of the cliff dwellings called "Cliff Palace".
Cliff Palace is closed for 3 years due to the ceiling falling in.
They are trying to stablize the ceiling. |
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| Enjoying a beautiful day with my honey. |
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| Roberta on the other side of a ruin wall. |
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| Janine and Brad took us out to this arch. Really neat hike. |
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Love climbing the rock formations.
Now, how do we get down from here?????? |
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This was an awesome arch. It took a lot of climbing and following
stacked rocks to find this place. It was well worth the hike. |
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| Roberta and I framed by the arch. |
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| Another view of the arch. |
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| I think I got this....... |
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| Opposite side of the arch. |
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This was the only route to the arch. Going up was easier than going down.
Janine led the way down. You go girl... |
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There were steps and hand holds carved into the sandstone.
It was a "moderate" hike the brochure said. Right .... |
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Bruce's turn to make the climb down. Bad hip and all.
Not bad for an old fart. |
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Brad had a bum knee and found it easier to slide down on his butt, even though
he couldn't see any of the foot holds. |
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Two old guys help each other get down.
Love this guy. |
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| We made it to safer ground. |
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| Time for lunch. How about a beer? |
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| Cool rock formations everywhere you look. |
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| Taking a tour of Aztec Ruins just a few blocks from our RV Park. |
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| Some of the ruins were 3 stories high, but much of it covered by years of dirt. |
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The Salmon Ruins were very interesting.
This whole area around 4-corners is one ruin after another. |
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| Ruins |
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| This was a tower Kiva. Used by a village for ritualistic activities. |
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An old bunkhouse from a long time ago. There was a very old
electric outlet in one of these buildings. |
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This was a "Root Cellar" where they kept their food stuffs.
We call them refrigerators today. |
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This looks like a deep room, but it was two stories.
The roof for the first floor would have been where you see the timbers. |
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| Looking into a families personal Kiva. |
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| This is the Grand Kiva that was used by the entire village for many occasions. |
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| Another view of the Grand Kiva. |
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Some of the buildings had beautiful walls. Different colored rocks were used
and rock chips were embedded between the big rocks for decorative look. |
