Cheyenne and Laramie Wyoming side trip

Last week while Jan and Luther were here, Patt and I had a couple days mini vacation  side trip to the north across the border into Wyoming to visit Cheyenne and Laramie.  Cheyenne is the capital and Laramie the home of the university.

Neither are large. Cheyenne's claim to fame is being home to Frontier Days which we plan to return to next week, the state house (seen in the distance) and home to Union Pacific Railroad.

Being home to the railroad means railroad museum and one of the largest steam engines ever built — nicknamed the Big Boy. That is Patt standing about midway along the engine. She is almost as tall as one of the wheels. This particular engine traveled nearly 500,000 miles going over the continental divide, retired in 1959.

The prairie is a bit flat on the drive between Fort Collins and the border, those are cows in the foreground and farm buildings in the distance and not much else anywhere except the "skies are not cloudy…."

 West of Cheyenne it starts to get hilly and a bit more interesting - still lots of cows.

And Laramie does have the old "Territorial Prison" of Wild West days that housed outlaws like Butch Cassidy and others.  An astounding 25% of the inmates escaped from this prison so Butch's escape (if he did so in the movie) was not a piece of movie magic.

 We stopped for a look at some of the wild flowers and such on the side of the road.

Not all of the roads we took on our route were paved.  We made a large circular route to head back to Colorado and this stretch was pretty cool.

and drove right through one of those herds of cattle.

 and drove along the edge of the Front Range back to Fort Collins.

Rocky Mtn National Park

Last Friday 12 of us, Matt's Mom and Dad, Patt and I and Matt, Laura, the Kids and a friend of Matt's went to Rocky Mountain National Park. First up was a stop at Alluvial Falls where the kids played in the water.

and Matt and Laura climbed, scrambled up to the upper reaches of the falls.

me too!

Then on to the one-way up Old Trail Ridge Road to the Alpine Visitor Center that is located on the new paved road.

On the way we found a wide spot on the road near a hiking trail and hiked up the trail a bit and had a picnic lunch.

Along Trail Ridge Road the views of the snow capped mountains were awesome and it was a bit cold.

Laura and Isaac hiked up one of the paved trails at a scenic overlook spot — the 12,000 feet above sea level altitude made the walking just a little slower than normal going up for some of  us.

and speaking of a little huffing and puffing, that was me going up "buffer's hill" at the Alpine Center to an elevation of 12205 feet. — Matt and Laura came up also and were not huffing and puffing as much.  Here with Laura is bit of our view.

Elk were a common sight along stretches of the road; they were quite unconcerned with being photographed, some came close while grazing.

And looking carefully at the middle of the photo you can see the road we drove along with several hundreds of our good friends.  Lots of people think this is a nice drive and it is.

The 11 of us at the Alpine Center on Trail Ridge Road — a good day for a trip and a good trip too.

4th of July Fort Collins Picnics on America's Birthday

The 4th started late which is good, because it lasted late, which was good too. Big breakfast followed by heading off to the playground and getting in line for opening of the Big City Park Pool. We were one of the first, got in early while still not crowded, got good spot for picnic lunch and had prime play time. Lydia with friend and Matt with Isaac, Luke, John Paul, and Julianna whose friend was somewhere close. Another family was also with us who had boys Isaac's age and younger so it was a crowd.

John Paul and Luke are not yet swimmers but will jump from about anywhere. There were two great water slides that the Grandaddy enjoyed too at this pool. Isaac and the Grandaddy were partners on the slide.

Grandmama was the coach for a prize winning entry in the desert contest at the evening picnic that we attended. That's right two picnics on one day.

Lydia worked very hard and did the work on the "Betsy Ross Flag Cake"and was so shocked when she won!

The picnic was Western USA BBQ and it was beef and it was good too. No hush puppies and the potato salad had no eggs in it but was still good too. Watermelon is watermelon and no surprise that was good.

Only about 100 + people were with us and it was a fun crowd.

Games for the children included a water balloon fight that had Luke really involved.

and Julianna barely missing her brother Isaac who zigged to the right just in time.

John Paul got serious about his samurai sword and you would have thought the world ended when one of his two burst. Sad things happen to balloons.

Including balloons in water balloon toss. Note Luke's closed eyes. Lydia actually caught hers this round and Julianna the next throw. The following throw though Lydia caught it right in the kisser.

And Isaac plays with the big kids for keeps. Don't know what it was but he took his role seriously.

And when the dancing started you can bet ole yours truly (me) and Julianna were on the dance floor at the get go.

Julianna really does enjoy dancing and does so with the same abandon as do most of the men she is related to.

Laura joined in for a few of the rounds and not long thereafter was seen with oldest offspring in the hammock resting.

Fireworks topped off the evening and all were in bed late. A grand day for celebrating America's Birthday.

Fort Collins life Part 2

Settled in we are! Early mornings are a delight as John Paul and Luke bounce over before their family breakfast to read with us. Then off to school for the Ks and the rest of our mornings are a breeze! Busy as can be—  a trip to the gym (just across the street), reading the newspaper online, catching up on magazine reading (Kate sends them to us), or library books and reportedly Patt occasionally takes a morning (or afternoon) nap. Mornings are tough.

The afternoons are different and a joy. We have the kids as Matt and Laura are teaching/working.  Here Lydia is celebrating a win in Gin Rummy. Like that was fun for me. As mentioned before, we play cards for keeps, and we keep score too.

500 rummy with Julianna and Isaac, this series of games saw a series of high scores for each of us.

We also spend serious time outside, the Big kids play with other kids in the complex and the swing ball set - recommended by Julie - has been very popular among all the kids.

Some afternoons John Paul and Luke come home early and we have "quiet reading time" with them before they go out and play. John Paul likes his quiet reading time. And he is getting big too. Note the long legs.

The two boys also like grocery shopping. Luke would love to be of more assistance but deciding between  a ride in the grocery cart car and helping shop is a difficult choice. So he is in and out and struggles with what to do. John Paul, sitting in the cart in the foreground is steering madly and telling me to go faster. The four of us do seem to attract attention. I think it is my long socks.

And in keeping with having Saturdays in our week— last Saturday we went on another hike, this one up a tributary to the Poudre River — an easy hike and the sky was blue.

The trail went through meadows and past abandoned cabins— missed those photos.

But did get a couple of shots of the hike along this particular meadow. Below left to right, Julianna, Laura,  John Paul, Patt, Lydia, and either Isaac or friend — we went with another couple and their 3 kids and Chris, a young single man who was a delight to have along.

The trial crossed a tributary stream many times, sometimes the stream tempted the kids to play in the shallow water and on one occasion Chris took off up stream into the deeper water and along went Julianna.

Then Isaac did too. The fact that the water was cold did not seem to bother them much at all. Playing in the stream became a focus of the hike after a while and the kids had a great time. Luke told Matt he wanted to hike in the water every time.

Several of the stream crossings had rather rickety bridges, the kids who already had wet feet provided good help to those of us who were somewhat reluctant to get our feet wet. Lydia and others provided some good help that Laura and I and others appreciated. Patt and I kept dry feet.

This being a summer week and Fort Collins a town with a lot going on, there is a summer outdoor concert series. Patt and I and the five kids went while Laura and Matt had a date night. The concerts are on the campus of Colorado State U, just a few blocks from our apartment— we drove anyway as we had picnic supper packed. Got there early and had a great spot on top of a hill overlooking the venue.  

Here Julianna, Lydia and Isaac return to our picnic site with some of the loot they scored by visiting booths of various organizations that had swag to give out. Such treasures the kids brought back — the true highlight of the evening.

And below is the concert site, musicians stage in distance and bulk of crowd off to left under trees.   We left early as bedtime comes early and the music was not the main event anyway. The whole experience was the main event and we certainly enjoyed that.

Life in Fort Collins

We have completed our second week here now and things have become a bit routine. Patt has a lot of helpers doing the cooking. She is doing the evening meals as Laura and Matt are teaching and have afternoon responsibilities. She has good help.  

Patt is so calm with all this help. And somehow stuff gets done. I think Julianna is the key on this day - at least with that tray of eggs there.

Our mornings begin by being greeted by one of both of these guys who come across the breezeway with vigor and enthusiasm. We went through a stretch where an early morning game of checkers was    de rigueur. It is quite fun. Unfortunately Isaac can beat either of us quite handily. These two we can still take.

Reading though is still the preferred morning activity. We make a now regular Friday visit to the library and check out bags of books.

This past Friday just after leaving the library, we went by the Museum of Discovery and had a wonderful time. Patt and I alternatively watched the smaller two guys and the larger three kids pretty much took care of themselves checking in with us routinely. Luke made it easy during my shift with him - he found these electronic drums - and went to town. Bobbing his head moving his hips, I set the accompaniment to "Latin" and he was in a zone beating those various drum heads.

They made it easy for a while too when they were in the town train section of the place. A huge toy train section too.

And I liked the old stage coach from Wild Bill Cody's Wild West Show in the historical part of the museum.

And the morning ritual continues with the daily reading of books to Luke and John Paul.

John Paul spent the night with us last night, hence the preferred position while I was reading. Luke made do and was very patient. He was absorbed though as he does like my reading.

Also realized the shortage of photos of the other kids on daily life here. We don't see as much of them as we do Luke and John Paul. They have friends here and are often playing outside with other kids their age. We remain these two younger kids big interest— and we sure do enjoy it — I know I do.