May 17–18, 2014 Fort Collins, Colorado

 

Pelicans seen from the bike path by the Poudre river. My plaid series of jewels.

Mandy and John on the Poudre, with Gene in the distance. And my smiling husband. John only came with us on this easy section of river to visit with Gene and Gene only came to visit with John. Mandy and my company alone was not enough to entice the boys to boat with us. It was a fun, mellow ride.

John and Gene in the eddy. John surfing a wave.

Gene surfing a wave. Mandy surfed waves too, but I was not in the right place at the right time to get a photo. Gene, John and Mandy having snacks at the take out.

John and Mandy gave us this huge amount of homemade pesto  from their garden. For us garden deprived travelers this is like gold!!

May 11-12, 2014 Fort Collins, Colorado

Snow???? From hot desert back to Colorado and it snows. Boo.

The alley in front of our house. We officially got 6 and 1/2 inches. Wet, heavy, mashed potatoes snow.

The bus trying to keep warm. The battery runs the heater which keeps the pipes from freezing. John has to run the generator each day to keep the batteries charged.  The snow at least  melted most of it off by the next day. The almost full moon rising, reflected in a puddle of melted snow .

John went out to the bus this am and the battery was dead.  When they get that low it ruins that batteries. Plus it does not keep the bus warm. John brought the bus to the house to plug it in-hopefully revive the batteries. Home sweet home at Home sweet home. Below is a giant garage, John’s toy box, plus my studio and three cars, upstairs a large two bedroom  apartment. The front house is rented.

I spent most of the day making glass jewels. Playing with my plaid design.  This is before firing and after. They jewels are still in the kiln, the are still too hot to handle.

May 7-10 2014 Fort Collins, Colorado

Enjoying Colorado.

Denver through a rain spattered windshield. We drove down for  another fun dinner  with family at Steve and Chris Fink’s house. Steve, Justin, Chris, Ray-my older brother, Jerry-younger brother, Reed, John and Morgan. We kind of had a mixture of left overs from the previous 3 garden party dinners we had.

Barb Flowers and I. In another life I was married to her son, when he and I split up Barb and I decided to stay related. We had an early Mother’s day dinner.  I went biking in Fort Collins and saw this great RV/boat!

John Moran and John Gross went kayaking this afternoon. Afterwards we hot tubbed and happy houred at John and Mandy’s house.  Mandy, John and John. John is a tequila connoisseur. I just love tequila, so we had our choice to taste.

Chris our across the alley neighbor and his wife are taking their new camper out on it’s maiden voyage tonight. We checked out the inside. It is in the alley in front of our land home (sticks and bricks house). It is a huge 2 bedroom apartment over a very large man sized, toy box garage. My studio is also in the garage.  Behind the camper or in front of the garage is a beautiful 100 year old brick house that John has restored. It is rented now to professor at the university who has lived there for at least 6 years and takes great care of it and the yard, and pays rent. If we ever move out of the motorhome we will move into the front house , but right now the renter takes care of it.  John and John kayaked the Poudre river again today on the class IV run Mishawaka. I boated with Mandy on the filter plant-a class III (It has one class III rapid, rest much easier). John M took this photo of John G surfing a wave on the river.

It started raining this afternoon. We are supposed to get snow from tonight into Monday. What on earth is that?? We walked down the bike path to the Poudre River festival. They were supposed to clean up the river some in the am, but it is still too muddy. In the afternoon there were booths with food ,drinks and non profits booths, live music. Great music the band when we arrived was a good blue grass band. John had waffles for dinner. A waffle with fried chicken on top, sausage gravy and maple syrup.  They had deadly sweet waffles (ice cream, chocolate etc) and savory ones, like the chicken one, or salmon.

We ran into Barry Golob and his girl friend Barry. I had a hummus wrap for dinner from this giro stand.  The guys were really funny. They said we looked cute, so I had them take our photo.

New Belgium brewery is in Fort Collins. This sign says the owner was biking his way across Europe one brewery at a time, decided to start a brewery in Fort Collins and call his first beer Fat Tire. John is demonstrating that his jacket has beverage holders on it. It was quiet handy when he was eating his waffle.

I took this photo on the one moment it was sunny, but you can’t tell. A good time was had by all. The last band The Holler was really good. Got the crowd hopping, clapping and dancing. 

On the walk home we discovered a new winery in town. Beautiful tasting room. We tasted.

May 5-6 2014 Fort Collins, Colorado

Back in Fort Collins resting up after a long, fun  weekend with Family.

This is Franklin Lab at Kaiser in Denver. I used to work there. It has been remodeled since last year and looks great. Julie Johnson is on the right. We just got back from going out to lunch. I was at Franklin for a Dr appointment. Seeing the Dr’s and dentist while we are back home.  Back in Fort Collins John and I went for a 3 and a half mile walk along the Poudre river. On the way back we stopped to wet our whistle at the Equinox brewery.

At Costco I bought this new Miracle Suit. It is made of Miratex that has three times as much spandex as average suits and has triple the holding power to shape and firm with out bulky linings and girdles. It makes you look like one size smaller! What a crack up!! Who could resist that? We have been carrying two basil plants for garnish in the bus, they are way root bound so I split them into 10 plants and repotted them. 7 in pots and 3 in the garden, the plant is to harvest huge amounts of basil before we leave and stock up on pesto.

The lilacs are in full bloom. I love the smell. I  brought some inside to keep the roses John gave me company. What a man!

May 4, 2014 Sibling party Denver

Finally, all 4 of the Palmer siblings together. Last time was 7 years ago.

Dinner in the garden. John, Ray, Steve, Chris, Judy, Reed, Justin, Leo (on the ground) and Tammy. Siblings Jerry, Sue, Ray and Judy.

Siblings taking photos of the group taking photos.  Jerry, Sue, Ray and Judy.

Siblings plus steer skull. We took a walk around Berkeley Lake after dinner.

Lakeside Amusement park reflected in Berkeley Lake. Outtakes, Jerry trying to sit on the bench we posed on 7 years ago that has fallen apart and  won’t hold us now, Sue doing I am not sure what, Ray puffed up, and Judy with a halo.

John posing with us. Photo of us 7 years ago in 2007, Ray, Judy, Jerry and Sue.

May 3, 2014 Denver, Colorado

I stayed the night at my friend Katy’s house. She is a bee keeper and she showed me her bees and hives and I tasted honey fresh out of the hive. I stood way back, used the telephoto.  She also has this great green house.

A robin has built a nest in her citronella candle. Meanwhile my brother in law Laurie who has had two knee surgeries for knee pain and getting ready to have his third this week, decided since it was legal here he wanted to see if medical marijuana helped with the pain. He went to the recreational store and purchased this candy bar with medical grade marijuana.

What was even more amazing was all of us clustered around him to take a photo of him having piece.  He determined that this product anyway did not help enough with the pain, but he cared a lot less about it. My garden is looking good, the cherry tree   the candy tuft and money plants are all blooming. .

Those of us who did not go to the store with him then had to go and see the store. Here is one case which had the types of marijuana with descriptions about them like bottles of fine wine, brownies on the bottom. There were many interesting products like skin cream for pain, patches, sprays, electronic cigarettes, but with dope instead of tobacco.  Many of the products do not have the ‘psychotropic’ part of the marijuana, or the part that makes you high. Seemed very weird to  be in a store, talking to a sales clerk about the ‘product’. Who would have thought. Here is the price list.

We had another nice dinner in the garden. Here is Laurie (his medical experience has worn off by now), Judy, John, Justin who is Reed’s son, Reed and Jerry.