June 19-20 2014 Fort Collins and Dutch George, Colorado

On our last day in Fort Collins Katie Lehaye and Katy Hales came to visit.

We went for a bike ride on the Poudre  River and then out to lunch in Old Town. The two Katie’s are going on a week long bike ride on The Katy Trail bike trail in Missouri next week. John and I  found it on our travels and told them about it.

Meanwhile we were packed up and ready to go after our visit with them. We are now about 15 miles up Poudre Canyon west from Fort Collins. Our first camp is at Dutch George Campground, right on the river. This swarm of bees we hanging from a tree by the river near our site. They spent the night and left in the morning. Across the river from us are burnt trees. A huge area in this canyon burned two years ago. You can see some of the burnt trees in the background. The river corridor was spared.

The sun shines so nice in the bus in the morning. It is wonderful to be back in our home. John cooking a scrumptious dinner on the BBQ. Grilled chicken, sweet potatoes, onion blossom and some herbed zucchini.

The next day we hiked a side canyon Elk Horn Creek. The trail starts by the Poudre-you can see the campground in the far right. The trail head starts in this field of tall grass.

Elk horn creek is very, very lush. With drier fields filled with wildflowers. We hiked a total of 4 miles.  We may go back. The only reason we turned back is we had to cross the creek so many times and I had to take off my boots, wade across bare foot, put my boots back on and repeat over and over. I decided to take the high route and stay on one side, but the canyon has very, very steep sides and it was sooooo hot I wore myself out. Next time I will take my chacos for river crossings.  We went swimming in a pool and had lunch next to the creek.

The Poudre on the way back. It was in the 80’s and we were hot from the hike. We dipped in the Poudre when we got back. It was really, really cold. Here I am easing in.

I put up the hummingbird feeder on the bus. The neighbor’s had feeder had birds fighting over it. I asked them their secret and they told me they used 3 times as much sugar. I made some more for ours and put it in hot and melted the feeder, it is now deformed. The sunset on the river.

The wildflowers are incredible. What daisy,  salsify, spiderwort, yarrow, blue flax, white, yellow and pink clover.

spurge, blue vetch, white geranium, poison ivy, evening primrose, wild rose bud, flower bud, golden banner

Pink wild rose, spiderwort, pink geraniums, yellow cactus flower, white geranium, yellow aster, sulfur flower and white lupines.

columbine, blanket flower, anemone, skull flower, white flower, blue eyed grass, two columbines, purple flowers.

white lupine, fuchsia loco weed,borage, scarlet guara, fringed gromwell, early yellow flower, pink anemone

yellow sedum, white wild rose, blanket flower, anemone seed head, scorpion weed, pink clover, white flowers on a bush with a spider, yellow cactus flowers.

penstamen, blurry tiger swallow tail, lousewort, blurry deer.

June 13-18 2014 Fort Collins, Colorado

Woo hoo, we decided we are leaving this Thursday. Back on the road again.

Art work in downtown Fort Collins. We went to the Taste of Fort Collins yesterday. It was much bigger than I expected, and pleasantly not crowded. Lots and lots of booths. John bought me a new crushable sun hat. We will see how well it holds up to me. . . It clouded up in the afternoon.

We went for the free music. The top band was Hey Lady! a B-52’s tribute band. I love the B-52’s. The second band was the Holler.  A band we heard before at the Poudre River festival. They are going to be at the Telluride Blue Grass festival next week. Very good.  They sang a song called ‘ Where ever you roam, may you always be home’. sounds like the theme of living in a motor home. A couple of sights from the taste- a mini vomit comet, and Spiderman and his entourage. Guess what? I am over 21!!

John liked the Kaiser broccoli at the Taste of Fort Collins.  On the road again. John and I drove to Colorado Springs to take my glass to the glass show there. Soon I will know if I won anything. There is a lot of nice work there, it will be a good show, so who knows. Still lots of snow on the front range and green, green fields on the way down.

We had lunch at the Colorado Mountain Brewery in Colorado Springs. The peak in the background is Pike’s Peak. On the way back we stopped in Palmer Lake(no relation) to visit one of John’s house mates from 30 years ago.

John and Sue Coons. John shared a house with her and Peggy, 30 years ago. She has a landscaping business and has a beautiful yard. And they train dogs to jump across water-who knew they had completions  of dogs jumping. They have champion dogs.  We got back in time for me to take a bike ride along the river trail. I love this time of day.

The river is coming down, but the McMurray lakes are still part of the river. The sun dropping behind the clouds.

Beautiful sunset on the way home. Flowers are now blooming. Campion, iris and purple loosestrife.

The grasses are blooming. Some of them are taller than I am. We had two basil plants we were growing all winter and spring on the bus. When we got to Colorado we split them into 10 plants. Planted 3 in the ground and the other 7 in pots. The top photo is right after transplanting.   I put the pots in the dirt while we were here.  The bottom one is them now, after 6 weeks-HUGE! John wanted me to sacrifice all but two and make pesto and  take two along. I couldn’t bear it. I trimmed back 4 and they will be adopted, we are taking 6 with us.

John and Mandy have one of the plants. Mandy cooked us a yummy farewell dinner of fajitas. It is harder and harder to leave our friends, but travel is so fun, we will be off tomorrow.

June 8-12, 2014 Colorado

Busy few days. We need to get back on the bus to relax.

We drove down to Denver to have lunch with a couple of John’s sisters, niece and family. Bridget(sister), Katie(sister), Levi(grand nephew), Jenny(niece), John and Sadie(sister in law). Katie and Sadie came to Denver to do flowers for a friends wedding and Bridget hitched a ride to visit her daughter Jennie and her family. They drove just for the weekend. Levi and Jenny laughing.  It was fun to see everyone.

Jennie, Levi, Michael and Dean. Such a cute family. The next day the bus was done with it’s maintenance so John and I went back to Denver to pick it up. Blue skies, green grass and snow still on the mountains on the way back to Denver.

John came over to help with the painting of my house. Then he got a ride to bus and took it home. I stayed way late and continued painting. John dropped the bus off and had the carpets cleaned the next day.

My brother Jerry and my friend J came over. J did some weeding while I painted. This is J with one of the ‘weeds’ she took home. The patio was overgrown with the plants. Most of the house is done now, you can see it behind J and in this second photo.

I came back to Denver again the next day and finished up the garage, green house and front. We also had painted the fence. Looks great. My cousin Reed rents and takes care of the house from me. This wild flower is a prickly poppy growing by the bike path in Fort Collins.

View from the bike path. It has been pretty cloudy and stormy lately. Some severe thunderstorms , flooding and large hail in the area, but we dodged the bullet. John found a leak under the bus and took it back to Denver today to have it fixed, then back again to Denver. I think the bus is done now. I hope it is done.  Thursday nights they are having free concerts in the square in Old Town. The square is only about 2 blocks from the house. Tonight was the Young Ancients- and that included a couple of the musicians from the Subdudes, a band John likes.  Great music and great people watching.

Part of the square in Old Town.  We take walks after dinner thru Old Town. Lots of restaurants and bars  with patios. People out biking and strolling. Nice summer evening.

June 1-7 2014 Colorado

The bus is still in the shop for maintenance. The water is still high on the river.

Bike path closed due to flooding. I can still ride, just have lots of detours. I am riding 10-12 miles a couple times a week and John is walking 5-6 miles. The photo of Healing Waters submitted for jurying to a glass show in Colorado Springs.

Fire Wave and Flaming tree photos submitted for jurying.  The theme of the show is the elements, Fire, Water, Air and Earth.

They took out a diversion dam on the river by the bike path and whatever they put in resulted in this wave people are surfing. I made this great dress from a bedspread I bought at the thrift shop.

These trees don’t usually have water under them, except when the river floods. Looks kind of like the swamps from the south east US.  Wild flowers are blooming in front of a lake on the bike path.

Foxgloves in the garden at my Denver house. I decided to scrape and paint the house. Little touch up. My friend Katie who came to help brought a power washer and power washed. It took off a lot more paint than I thought it would. We spent the rest of the day-about 8 hours scraping.

My cousin Reed, who is renting the house from me starting the priming. Took another day, and is almost done. Now I need to go back and paint on top of the primer. . . Berkely lake at sunset with a coot and a pelican, it is just  half a block from my house. We took the mile walk around the lake.

I got back to Fort Collins and some of John’s crazy kayak buddies from the old days had shown up and they boated a couple days. Here John has prepared breakfast. John Mattson, John M and Dave Black. June 6 is our anniversary.  Our first date was on June 6, 2006 or o6o6o6, or  666. John says the devil made him do it. We had the spiritual ceremony on memorial day weekend, early June in 2011. John says he can only remember one date, so it is 666. Any of you who don’t remember the real date, well when John was doing the taxes for our first year together it was $14,000 cheaper to file married. John handed me the form and said sign here dear, with this form I thee wed.  In Colorado to be common law married you just have to present yourself as man and wife once.  My husband is so romantic! So a few photos of us, including in the top right at our spiritual ceremony on the river and the bottom right at the reception John’s family had for us when we visited them.

John and Sue at dinner at El Monte, a wonderful Mexican restaurant in Fort Collins. What a fun adventure it has been. Thank you John.