July 21-31, 2016 Fort Collins, Colorado

Still in Fort Collins waiting for the bus to be done. It has been two weeks at Trans West to get the refridgerator and the lock on the door adjusted. They claim they are waiting for parts.

Parting shot of my niece Bridget taking a photo of me taking a photo of her!!  Here is Rocky Mountain High finished. I bought the leaf stand at the glass expo in Vegas, $25, but very nice.

The smaller pieces are to be used as basket bottoms. My photo pieces came out ok, but one was too big for the frame. Used a couple of my high tech tools for cold working glass to grind them down. A wet belt sander and a wet angle grinder with diamond pads John gave me for xmas years ago. He said he gave me diamonds.

The finished product. For those of you who don’t know the story of how we got married- well we saved buckets of money filing married instead of single so John said sign here, with this form I thee wed. The piece is the tax form, a photo of us at our spiritual wedding drinking champagne with entwined arms and etched in the middle is With this form I thee wed. A really cute photo of John clowning around in my hat. I spent about a month working on this photo technique. I sand blasted the photo onto the glass  and used black enamel to make the photo, then fired it under clear glass. Very technical and hard, but worked out ok. I think in the future it is easier to use paper photos. 

Oue friend Mary came over for dinner and bought my last aspen glass piece. It was good to see her. The next shot is most of the glass I have left for sale.

The theme at the Fruit Cake festival this year is viking. Look what I found in the thrift shop! I recieved in the mail my 16th blog book. They are printed from this very blog and made into a book.  6 years of us on the road.

John took me out to dinner the night before my birthday since my actual birthday is on Fri and the resturants will be crowded. We went to Salsa Brava and new Mexican resturant. They have the best margarita I have ever had. But a bit strong, one would have been enough. I ordered two and only drank half of the second one. On the day of my actual birthday John took me to the Chocolate Cafe for chocolate cake, ice cream and a chocolate martini for dinner.  Capped it all off with a shot of chocolate vodka at the distillery down the street. When the bartender heard it was my birthday she gave it to me free.

We also stopped at the Equinox brewery for their Chocolate Truffle porter, but they were out, so we went to the Prost Brewery to taste since we had never been there before. On the way we passed Natures Own store that has a life sized baby T-rex in the window that wags it’s tail and moves it’s head. Near there was the Tea Room with this Tea-Rex sign.

My second try at the Twisted Tree piece came out much better. I am now setting the basket bottom pieces in epoxy resin, when they harden I drill holes around the sides for the stitches. First time working with resin, it is pretty cool.

 

These are some photos from a finished basket. This bottom is a slice of rock embedded in resin from the top and the bottom. You can see what I am making with the glass pieces. These are set in the resin, I just cut them apart with scissors and the resin is hardening now. I will drill holes when they are hardened.

Me in my PPE(personal protective gear) while grinding and drilling the epoxy. My brother Jerry came over for dinner and John cooked us a sumptious meal of chicken, veges and quinoa.

Jerry brought dessert.Chocolate santa’s he got on sale after xmas.  They were yummy and it is always good to see Jerry. After dinner we walked around old town. Here are kids playing in the new fountain. People watching is great here.

July 17-20, 2016 Fort Collins, Colorado

The water on the Poudre finally got low enough for me to brave kayaking it. Of course I have no photos of me, but you have to take my word for it, I was there and taking photos.

John Gross and John Moran surfing a wave.

Mandy surfing another and my cute smiling husband in his boat.

The super bloom after the first firing. It came out well. Of course the kiln malfunctioned. One of the elements was not heating. Fortunatly it had happened once before and I knew which wire to reattach. Unfortunatly it needed a part. After trying two stores with no luck I called the company that made it-Denver Glass machinery in Denver-who make wonderful kilns and they told me I could get it at Home Depot. So three hours after I began the repair I fixed it and put the Super Bloom in for it’s final firing to slump it into the platter mold.

 

I sand blasted the photos onto the glass, applied the black enamel and they are ready for firing.  The Super Bloom is done and came out beautiful! It sold  during the first firing to my friend Mandy who will let me enter it in the show this fall and then take possestion.

John’s sister Nora Arnold and family are visiting for a few days from Chicago.  Sean, Nora, Bridget, John and Ben ordering appitizers at Coopersmiths downtown. Afterwards we had John’s famous smoked ribs for dinner. Brigette really got into them.

After dinner Brigette and Nora made some glass jewels in my studio in the garage. Bridget with safety goggles on for cutting glass.

Sean and Brigette having ice cream downtown .  We had lunch the next day in town. John, Nora, Sean,  Ben and Bridget in front of a Coors sign.

The Arnolds went for a raft trip on the Poudre river and John kayaked along and took photos. A good time was had by all.

Stuff it, where we had lunch had a bacon milkshake . . . For dinner Sean and Bridget had pizza in the room and Ben, Nora, John and I had appitizers and watched a jazz band downstairs at Ace Gillets.

July 12-16, 2016 Canon City and Fort Collins, Colorado

 

I headed to Canon City with my friends Katy and Katie to raft with our friend Dennis who is one of the owners of Raftmasters. We do this every year. Katy and Katie at the put in. Here we are on the Arkansas River with Dennis navigating us safely through the raging rapids.

Another shot of us paddling a rapid. I met Dennis skiing over 20 years ago and we are still good friends. The Katie’s and I have been doing an annual  trip with him for the last 6 years

Katy, Dennis, Suep and Katie at the swim break. Beautiful scenery on shore.

Beautiful historic downtown Canon City. We take Dennis out to dinner each trip to catch up on how he has been. On the way back the sunset with smoke from the fires.

More lovely sunset out the window on the way home. I am still cranking out earrings. Here are some with dogs on them.

Nice evening light on a willow on the bike path by the river in Fort Collins. And another nice smoky sunset.

I am working on a masterpiece called Super Bloom and more dog and cat earrings.

Today I rode my bike to the test gardens at CSU. It is one of the 4 test gardens in the USA for testing new seeds from the seed companies. Lots of lovely flowers. I also rode to the Gardens at Spring Creek. Here is their bike rack and some giant watering cans full of flowers.

Along the Spring creek trail are these high water markers. The one on the left has the 5 year high watermark, the 10 and 100. The one at the top-14 feet was July 28th, 1997. The second one is  a little farther down stream. Along the Poudre river trail at Cattail Chorus natural area is the crows on the bike rack and the gate to the Chickadee trail.

A butterfly at the test garden and flowers along the bike path. Meanwhile back at home John is smoking ribs for dinner.

John, John, Mandy and Anne at dinner to eat John’s ribs.  The Superbloom, the top two are before firing, the next one is at 1500 degrees and the last is at 1100-too hot to take out.