Sunday in Leland

Mike brought me back to Leland on Friday and we spent the weekend touring and sightseeing in Leelanau County. On Saturday we took Hannah and Natalie to North Bar Lake, Empire, Frankfort, Point Betsie Lighthouse, and to Wheeler Road. The weather was sunny and in the high fifties.
Over night it rained and thunderstormed and this morning it was drizzly. Later in the morning, by ten o'clock the rain stopped and it began to clear. By one in the afternoon we are sunny and seventy degrees. I hope this lasts.

I talked to Nancy in Vail this morning and they got five inches of snow overnight and it was still snowing. I'm sure she will be glad when we get her off the mountain and back into some warm weather.

I meet with our builder in the morning (weather permitting), to set stakes for the house and to see where we can put the driveway in. The excavator is supposed to be out there too and I anticipate he will be getting started this week to do some clearing and start digging the basement. It looks like this project will be getting underway very soon.

I hope all is well with everyone.

Back in Michigan!

Nancy stayed in Vail while I flew back to Michigan for two weeks. I will be meeting with the builder to start the new project next week. Here is a picture from only yesterday..

David, Nancy and I took a gondola ride to the top of Vail Mountain yesterday.

Good Day in the Mountains

We had a nice day doing some hiking and exploring with David. Temps reached the fifties with lots of sunshine. We saw some elk this morning down towards Edwards. About a dozen were feeding and bedded down in a meadow along the creek there. We took a hike before lunch and went up the trail at the end of Big Horn Rd. in East Vail. The snow is a little thinner now then it was when we were here two weeks ago.

After lunch we took a free ride up the Gondola at Vail Village and went to the top of the mountain. The views at the top of the rockies are awesome.

Back in Vail

The morning broke with blue skies and sunshine. Temperature was about 20 degrees but the sun started warming things up fast. The snow that accumulated yesterday began melting by nine o'clock and by noon it was all gone.

Flat tires seem to be haunting me all of a sudden. When I got in the truck this morning I had a warning that one of my tires was very low (modern technology). I checked and it still had 28 pounds of pressure so I drove to a tire store and and asked them to pull the wheel and patch the tire. They found a screw embedded in the tread and plugged the tire for me. Hopefully the plug will hold and get us back to Michigan safely.

We parked the camper in Englewood and drove up to Vail again. We are staying with David for a couple of nights and then I am flying back to Michigan to meet with our builder and get construction started on our project.

All of Davids Vail family came over for a "family dinner" tonight. They all get together occasionally for a potluck and tonight we had pizza, spaghetti, focaccia bread, salad, and cookies. Great feast and great kids. We all had a good time and good eats!

Hope everyone is well.

Crazy Wind and Crazy Weather

It looks like I spoke too soon about the nice warm temperatures. Towards evening the wind began to blow. We had steady 40 mile an hour wind with gusts that had to be 50 to 55! This wind howled all evening and all night into this morning. At 3:30 am I went outside to check on David and we took his tent down and threw it into his trunk and he slept the rest of the night in the camper. Even the camper was moving and shaking all night!
This morning the wind raged on, but at least the temperature was still moderate. David had breakfast with us then headed back to Vail. We slowly packed up the camp and we moved back to Chatfield State Park. When we left Pueblo Lake it was 74. This was a two hour drive and as we rolled north the sky began to get cloudier and the temperature started to fall, first through the 50's, then the forties, then the rain and snow started and by the time we got to Littleton it was 34 degrees and snowing.
No pictures today, but I wanted to check in with everyone.

Sunny Saturday

Today was the warmest day we've had since the 97 degree blowout near Amarillo, Texas. It got close to eighty with sunny skies. We started the day with David going into Pueblo to play some Frisbee golf at the park and me going trout fishing in the Arkansas River. I hope David had better luck than me, but the river was great and I did manage to see a few trout, but not on the end of my line.

After lunch we went to downtown Pueblo and saw the sights.

I want to wish Hannah a happy birthday and happy birthday to Amy. Hope all the kids have fun at Tom's tomorrow to celebrate birthdays and to visit with Grandma and Grandpa Goodfallow as they pass through town on their way to Leland for the summer.

We saw this big cocoon in the grass outside of our camper this morning.

Later after the sun warmed the cocoon this creature emerged.

This is the Pueblo County Court House. Very impressive!

Nancy and David along the riverwalk downtown.

TGIF in Colorado

We took another day trip today. this time to Royal Gorge near Canon City, Colorado. This was a short trip, only about a half hour each way. Canon City is an old historic town near the Cripple Creek gold mining area which was one of the richest gold strikes in history. We drove up to the Royal Gorge Bridge and tool some pictures and walked around.  This is a huge tourist area, but nothing really is open until May 1 and it gets into full swing around Memorial Day. We still had fun looking around and then we had a picnic lunch on the mountain. Later we drove back into Canon City and visited the train station.

David called and came out to the campground today. He will be staying with us for two nights and we are having a good time visiting and exploring.

We got news from Michigan today and heard that Jenny got a brand new Dodge Caliber! Congratulations Jenny!

The old steam locomotive and train at Royal Gorge Park.

This is the suspension bridge over the gorge. The deck of the bridge is 955 feet above the Arkansas River!

This is the visitors area at the top of the gorge. For a mere $37.50 two people can walk across the bridge. (Oh, you can also get a tram ride which is included in the price). Notice the throngs of people clammoring to walk across!

We saw these classy looking cows grazing on the mountain.

Look at the smile on this girls face!! Congrats, Jenny!