May 26-29, 2014 Fort Collins, Denver and Canon City, Colorado

The river is still very high.

The water on the bike path is higher than I have ever seen it from the river. But it is getting  very green. Finally, since we kind of left green to come back here to barely starting green.

I had lunch with Carol Nelson and Kay Godowski, we worked together in the lab at Humana almost 30 years ago and are still friends. After lunch I stopped by my house in Denver and started scraping the paint, it needs retouching.

John and I met Julie, Pam, Bill, Bruce and Katie for dinner at the Edgewater Inn. Julie and Bruce just got an RV this year and have been taking it out, we almost ran into each other in Washington State this summer.  Katie, Katy and I went to Canon City to raft the Royal Gorge. We stopped at the Abbey on the way to tour the building and have lunch. It was built in 1924 by Benedictine Monks as a boys school. After the school closed it was a monastery, and now it is owned by private investors and is open for touring and parts are open to rent. They have weddings in the chapel.

Katie and Katy at our picnic lunch behind the Abbey. The river is so high now that the Royal Gorge is closed to commercial rafting so we ran Bighorn Canyon instead. At this high water level is is just as exciting. See the big horn sheep behind us? We are in the raft on the left.

Dennis Weid our guide is adjusting Katie’s life jacket. I have known Dennis for over 20 years, we used to ski together. He now owns Raft Masters rafting company in Canon City. http://www.raftmasters.com/ we can highly recommend them.  This is our 5th year in a row to raft with him.  Katie, Dennis, Suep and Katy in 5 point rapid. The water was BIG! We had a ball.

Katie, Suep, Dennis and Katy at the end of a great trip. We are wet, exhausted and very happy. We took Dennis out to dinner afterwards at a local Chinese restaurant. It is always good to see him.

May 23-25 2014 Fort Collins, Colorado

I saw this sun dog in the cloud this morning. Means there is lots of moisturein the air-lots of heavy rains came later in the day. They have been doing a lot of river restoration by the Poudre river after the flood last fall. The river is now at high water and the hundreds of  trees they  just planted are getting covered. They say they don’t expect much’ movement’ here and the trees will not wash away, guess we’ll see.

Bike path is flooded from the river now. I have to ride on more roads.

This rapid is off the bike trail, it is usually a bunch of huge rocks, they are now covered. This pedal bar went down the road by me on the way home. There is a guy in the front steering , a keg and a tap and the rest of the people pedal.

Jimjim Kirshvink, Martha Moran, John Moran and Jimmy Moran at the Equinox brewery. Martha and Jimmy are brother and sister , but not related to John . Martha and John a best friends-they say they are un-brother and un-sister. Dinner at Mandy and John’s. Around the table are John, John, Martha, Jimjim, Jimmy and Mandy.

Flame tree. I am working on it for the show in Colorado springs where the theme is the elements, Water, Fire, Air and Earth.  The bike path is flooded even more now, river still rising due to snow melt in the mountains and the rain. Lots of snow this year, they are expecting the river to get really high. The boaters are happy.

Karen Roth, Barry Golob, Mandy Kotzman and Suep. We went up to boat, but the water was so high and it was raining so Barry, Mandy and I decided to drive shuttles. Not sure how I got this photo of Claire Cairn, but it came out cool.

Chris riding the stairs down to the river. John in the rapid Mad Dog. John had some excitement earlier this run, he went into a hole and the boat flipped, he  could not get it rolled up, so he got out and swam to shore. They rescued his boat and brought it back to him.

John Gross surfing a wave. It was cool, John offered me his wool shirt or the hot springs bathrobe from the car. I took the shirt, John is here in the robe next to Jimjim. He says one of the advantages of getting old, you can walk around in a bathrobe and no one even notices.

Food and drinks at the take out. The sun came out and warmed us up. It is very green this time of year. Mandy and John sharing a chair.

The aftermath of the fires in Poudre canyon 2 years ago. The waves in the lower narrows are HUGE!

Fire Wave came out of the kiln with too many bubbles, I will have to remake it if I am going to enter it in the show. Mark and Karen at dinner at the Rio.

Sue, John and Martha at the Rio.

May 19-22, 2014 Colorado

We have seen almost all of our Drs and Dentists and have been declared healthy. We are now visiting with friends and enjoying Colorado.

We had a couple of 80 degree sunny days. The bike path is greening up, the trees are getting leaves. I could not stand eating inside with such good weather. I put up a table on our ‘deck’, a landing at the top of the stairs. Here is John dining on the deck.

Flowers on the bike path. Choke cherry blossoms, fruit tree and an iris in the garden at home.  Robin babies in the nest in the candle at Katy’s house. Bighorn sheep by the road by Georgetown, Co.

We had dinner with our friend Jeff Sambur and some other friends. He is also retired and lives in his van on the road, when he is not traveling on his bike or abroad. We ran into him on the road a couple times.  Thursday I went up skiing at Arapahoe Basin - http://www.arapahoebasin.com/ with Katy and Rosie.  This photo of the mountain makes it look short, but you can’t see the upper lifts and the top from here, plus you can ski on the back side in Montezuma Bowl. There is over 2,000 feet vertical drop at A Basin. It is small compared to many of the Colorado ski areas, but it is packed with great skiing. It is more of a locals mountain and is know for it’s steeps, bumps and spring skiing.

I just love the spring snow. Katy, me and Rosie on the lift. It took us many tries to get a good selfies, good thing it is a long lift.

Rosie, Katy and Suep with a great view at the top of the lift served  mountain. You can still hike up farther onto the east wall when there is no avalanche danger. The Basin is a beautiful mountain. Rosie snowboarding and Katy telemarking.

The snow and the weather were beautiful when we arrived.

Sue, Katy and Rosie at the top of Montezuma bowl. A thunderstorm was approaching. It has blocked out the view of Breckenridge, but you can see Keystone on the next mountain below the basin.

Katy skiing in front of the storm, Rosie riding just below the view of the storm. We went in for lunch and they closed the lifts until the storm passed. The lifts were running when we were done eating.

Rosie, Katy and Suep. A t-shirt in the gift shop. A - basin tries to stay open as late as possible. The latest I know of was August 12th- I skied August 9th that year. They’ve made it to the 4th of July many times. When it is warm and sunny the basin is known as the beach. Complete with pink flamingos, palm trees and lawn chairs.