July Celebration!!

I'm sure glad I didn't get up at 4:30am the next morning to go fishing!!! But that's what Gary, Glenn and Brad did - I think Robby was the only smart one as he stayed in bed!!

It was kind of strange sleeping at Jessi's house and NOT having the kids come down to wake me up as they spent the night at Jaime's house! Jessi and I got the car packed up, picked up some Caribou Coffee on the way and then headed to Jaime's to pick up the kids and head to the reservoir!!

We had a shelter house rented for the day which made it nice to stay out of that intense sunshine!! But the kids spent the majority of their time at the beach!!

Aleah and Kenzie had matching swimsuits - absolutely darling!!! But do you think we could get a picture of them together????

Parker spent most of his time at the shelter being passed around! He needed a nap not long after we got there but just couldn't seem to get to sleep - I made a few rounds on the sidewalk strolling him and he soon fell asleep! His little swimsuit was adorable!!

We had 2 other families join us - the Reuer's and the Benton's - and the kids all had so much fun playing in the water and the sand together!!

Lunch was grilled hamburgers and hot dogs with a couple of salads and it all tasted fantastic!! We celebrated Aleah's 2nd birthday with cupcakes!

Kenzie decided she liked having chocolate frosting all over her face - and in her hair!!!

After about 5 hours, it was getting close to meltdown time for the kids!! But not before we grabbed a stranger to take a group shot of the family!! Kylan wasn't too cooperative but at least he's in the picture!!!

We headed back to Jaime's house so Aleah could open her presents before they headed back to Ft. Collins!

And then the rest of us collapsed on Jaime's couch and beds for a while!! One fun day - one tired bunch!!!

No Friday Night Blues For Us!

It's been many years since the 8 of us have partied BY OURSELVES - but by golly, this last Friday night a babysitter was hired for the 6 grand kids and we all headed to Stampede - a country western bar and dance place!

I LOVED the dance floor - it was a complete oval around the bar - and since that's how you dance country is round and round, it was perfect!!

The Keppy's and the Smith's went early to take dance lessons and they were all decked out in cowboy boots and hats! Now I have to admit, I USED to have cowboy boots (in fact, I had 2 pair of them) but after getting dusty in the closet for the last 15 years, I did get rid of them a long time ago!! But no matter, the sandals I wore worked just fine!

The 3 July Birthday Girls!!

What a bunch of good lookin' guys!!

Even though Glenn and I don't dance much except at wedding dances, we still know how to shake a leg and had a great time dancing around that awesome floor!!

Some of them played a little pool - and the girls did a great job doing the line dances!!

Around 10:00 the place really cleared out - how strange for a Friday night!! But that just meant there was all that much more room on the dance floor!!

All in all, it was one great night of fun!! We've decided we all want to do it again - but before that happens, I MUST learn a couple of the new line dances - the electric slide just doesn't cut it these days!! And Glenn and I want to re-learn the cha cha - a really neat dance if you know how to do it right!!!

Thanks kids for ONE FUN NIGHT!! It's pretty special when you can all have a night out together!

Somewhere.............

at the end of each and every rainbow is a pot of gold - but I have yet to find it!!

Thursday afternoon brought rain and this spectacular double rainbow when I arrived home from work!

With the monsoon rains that we have about every other day now, the sun is usually peeking through the clouds somewhere and you can almost always find a rainbow somewhere.....

The Day Started Out GREAT..................

as we went to church and Teri gave us the "official" tour of their remodeled building!! After church and snacks, we drove a little further downtown and then parked to do the "walking" tour of downtown Grand Rapids!! It was pretty hot but we kept up a lively pace and enjoyed seeing the downtown area on foot!! We walked by the Gerald Ford museum and stood in the spray awhile to cool down!!

After lunch, Patty and I decided we better print out our boarding passes as we were leaving late afternoon for home - Patty's printed out fine but mine said my flight was cancelled and to call Frontier - WHAT???? So I did - and got the message that Denver had a severe hail storm the night we left (July 13th) and that 1/3 of Frontier's planes had been damaged. So I'm thinking, wow, if the planes were damaged, what would my poor car look like???

I was on hold FOREVER of course and by the time I had finished talking, it was a total of 80 minutes - just what one wants to do on a Sunday afternoon!! The news wasn't good - they could fly me home on Wednesday on Frontier - I casually mentioned that this was SUNDAY and I was supposed to be at work the next morning.

The lady was very nice and kept checking their sister airlines for more flights - after checking, re-checking, and checking again, the bottom line was that the only flight that would work left on Monday from Grand Rapids to Chicago, Chicago to Dallas, and Dallas to Denver - great - flying for an entire day...............

But I really didn't have any choice so I told her to book it!!! By this time it was time to take Patty to the airport and bid her good-bye!!

Amanda and Emily had friends over for the afternoon and early evening so I played with the kids, visited with Teri some more and just kind of hung out!! After some excellent grilled hamburgers for dinner, Jay left for a church meeting, the kids were put to bed, and us 4 girls put on the movie Mamma Mia (the sing-along version) and proceeded to watch the movie and sing along - enjoying some wine at the same time - what fun!!

Monday morning I said my goodbyes and was off to the Grand Rapids airport to begin my LONG journey home!! Luckily, there were no long delays and I made all of my flights (but not without a GREAT deal of terminal changes and walking!!) and even had a chance to grab a quick taco in Dallas before heading home!!

It felt great to FINALLY get to Denver - even though it was mighty hot there too - and the best news of the day was that my car was just fine!!! I put the petal to the metal as I was so excited about getting back to the mountains - and boy did that cool mountain air feel good when I finally reached HOME - as they say, There's No Place Like Home!!!

What a great 4 day weekend the sisters had together - thanks again to Teri for hosting our wonderful stay - thanks to Jay for the fantastic meals - thanks to Emily for sharing her "coupons" at Mojos - and thanks to Amanda, Pierce and Lauren for sharing Teri with us!!

Meijer Gardens and MOJO'S

Can it possibly be Saturday already???

We woke up to HEAT and the day just kept getting hotter and hotter!! I was happy that Teri has central air in her house!!

Walking to the Farmers Market was first on the agenda that day - and it was only a couple of blocks away which made it nice!! Their market is about 10 times larger than our market at home and all the stalls of fresh fruit and produce made my mouth water..........but then it was on to Teri's favorite coffee place and we all got coffee to go - yummy!!

We decided that since it was getting so hot, we better make our trip to the Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park immediately!! We loaded up a couple of carloads and headed that way!!

One of their most amazing sculptures is the horse pictured below - he looks really big when you see him but when you put a person in front of him, he looks AMAZINGLY big!! This horse was inspired by Da Vinci and has a neat story behind it!!

One of my favorite was this one which is probably made out of steel and features the letters of the alphabet!!

There were lots of pathways with beautiful flowers and waterfalls - we took our time because of the oppressive heat and enjoyed walking around!

Here's a statue marked "Mad Mom" and we all thought it was cute!! Behind it, is the huge tropical indoor garden which I always love to walk through!! There was a volunteer in there that had us smell different types of flowers that smelled like honey, vanilla and chocolate - very interesting!!

They had a fun place for the kids to play too - Pierce and Lauren had a ball running around through a maze and playing in streams of water with boats! It's a great place to take kids and if it hadn't been so hot, we probably would have stayed longer!!

It felt great to get into the air conditioned building where there were a few more things to see and the gift shop!! I found my bookmark there - a pressed flower arrangement on an iron stem - perfect!!

I think we all collapsed when we got back to the house!! Jay cooked us an excellent dinner of pesto pasta and we enjoyed some of the wine we had bought!!

And before we knew it, it was time to head to Mojo's - a martini piano bar in downtown Grand Rapids!! Jay was babysitting the kids so the 5 of us headed downtown and found some great seats, next to the piano and in front of the large windows so we cold watch "downtown" at night!!

It was interesting watching all the limos - pink and black - stop and drop off all these pretty girls in their mostly black dresses, celebrating bachelorette parties!! Most of them stopped into Mojo's and there were some wild and crazy things happening!!!

We all ordered martini's and tasted each others' to find the "perfect" one to order again - listened to some fantastic songs played and sung by 2 piano players at the same time - made some requests to the "cute" piano guy - laughed and laughed at some of the dances performed on the tiny stage - and watched all the happenings on the street beside us!! It was QUITE the night!!

After hearing such GREAT music, I actually got the "fever" to get out and hear some more live music and do some dancing!! Seems like Glenn and I get in a rut and never take the time to go to downtown Colorado Springs and hear a band or go dancing - so that's on the agenda for when I get back home!!

What a great night we had spending time as sisters and enjoying Amanda's and Emily's company - it'll be a night that holds a FUN memory for a long, long time!!! To be cont'd.........

Wine Tasting and Chocolate!!

Teri knows how to plan a day - coffee, chocolate and wine tasting!! Doesn't get much better than that!!

With coffee in hand, we headed toward Saugatuck - a pleasant 45 minute drive through rolling hills of grapevines and fruit trees - truly a beautiful drive!! Our first stop of the day was at "The Chocolate Garden", described as "cute and innocent outside, shamelessly decadent inside". And that's the truth!!

This place is nationally known for its' truffles - made in a kitchen, not a factory - which makes their silky, sensuous texture melt in your mouth!! I headed for the dark truffles and after looking quite a long time, I settled on darkest dark chocolate and dark chocolate raspberry!! But then I decided I needed a couple of white chocolate ones too so I went for the white chocolate strawberry!! YUM!!

Our next stop was just down the road at a place that advertised "chocolate bacon"!! That was a MUST stop place!! The outside of the place had the most beautiful grapevines!

I really wasn't interested in the bacon chocolate but did get a bag of chocolate covered blueberries - oh my gosh - they are SO good that I wish I would have bought a pound of them!!!

Our next stop was the McIntosh Apple Orchard and Wine Cellar - what a neat place!! We looked around for a while and then did a wine tasting! It was fun visiting with the gal in the place who had made the wine called "Blushing Bare" (her last name was Bare so the wine was named after her and is going to the wine festival for judging in August!!) Of course we ended up buying some wine there - I also picked up a bag of dried cherries and a couple of tins of dry ingredients to mix with olive oil to make a dipping sauce!!

We FINALLY made it to Saugatuck - a cute touristy town on Lake Michigan! It was enjoyable walking down by the lake and seeing all the huge boats and yachts!! We ate at a fun place for lunch - great BBQ with all the fixins!!

One more wine tasting at Finn Valley Wines where Teri had recently bought some wine from and she was thrilled to discover that it was now sold in the box!!

It was now time to head back to Grand Rapids as Teri's daughter Amanda had arrived the night before with her 2 kids, Pierce and Lauren - it was great to see Amanda again as it had been a while since I'd seen her and also to meet the 2 kids. They are as sweet as can be and extremely well behaved!!

Jay was cooking up a storm for that nights' Picnic Pops - a huge outdoor event where you bring your chairs, blankets, food and drink and listen to the symphony for the evening!! We were there when the gates opened and set up our "camp" in their usual spot!! Teri's other daughter Emily joined us and we had a great evening!!

The weather was pretty hot for a while and we were glad there were a couple of umbrellas to sit under!! Emily had brought "girly" drinks for us and they sure tasted good in that hot sun!! Jay's meal was delicious and we enjoyed the pre-show attraction of 3 singers with guitars and fiddle just as much as the symphony!!

Lauren had fun just hanging out on her blanket and taking her shoes off and on!!!

At the end of the program, it was getting pretty dark and the symphony had the evening timed out just perfectly - the full moon was rising as they played the 1812 Overture and the fireworks were also lighting up the sky at the same time!! What a great night!! Tired but happy, we hit the sack after another wonderful day.........To Be Cont'd.......

Birthday Day and Flying Away!!

I think it should be a law that no one has to work on their birthday! Suppose I should start a petition?

Yes, I did work on my birthday - but the day went fast and I left early to head to Denver for my flight to Grand Rapids, MI. That seemed a whole lot better than what Glenn had in store for the afternoon - oral surgery at the dentist office - but he came through it all just fine!

The parking lot we always park in - Pikes Peak Shuttle - had a sign that you couldn't turn in that particular road - so I drove further and further and finally realized I was almost to the airport - I turned around and saw another sign that said Mt. Elbert - turned in there and realized that wasn't what I wanted so went back to Pikes Peak and pulled in anyway, only to discover the entire lot was shut down!! I ended up going back to the Mt. Elbert parking lot which seemed to be way out in the country!!

The shuttle took me into the airport and soon I was through security and found my sister Patty, waiting at the gate - she had flown in from Omaha and we were both flying together into Grand Rapids! Next on the agenda was dinner and drinks to celebrate my birthday and before we knew it, we were off to our "SISTERS REUNION"!!

Teri was waiting for us at midnight to pick us up and greeted me with a bouquet of balloons - how sweet!!


We were all ready for bed by the time we got back to Teri's house so we hit the sack and were ready for our adventure the next morning! We headed to Kalamazoo where Teri and Jay have bought a condo for Teri to stay in during the week since she now works down there - it's as cute as can be and the back yard is gorgeous - lots of vegetation and beautiful trees and flowers!

Lunch found us at Food Dance, a neat restaurant that uses all "local" meats, fruits and vegetables - a great meal - and we even stopped back later to take dessert home with us!! We walked around downtown Kalamazoo and enjoyed seeing all the beautiful flowers that were in bloom!

Our stop at the Tempo Vino Winery was really fun - Teri knew the owner of the store and we did some wine tasting and enjoyed visiting with him!! Of course we couldn't leave without purchasing some wine for later that evening!

Next on the list was seeing where Teri worked at the college and we enjoyed touring her office and the campus!! It was pretty warm out by this time or should I say "HOT" to me as I'm not used to humidity!! Some nice student offered to take our picture in front of the fountain!!

I LOVED these huge planter type contraptions that held flowers in pots!! I believe there were 4 of them and I couldn't decide whether to post the pink ones or the purple ones - the pink ones won!!

We headed back to the condo after our journey through Kalamazoo - opened up a couple bottles of wine and sat for virtually HOURS talking!! I think we finally looked at our watches and decided that since it was 8:00, it was time to eat dinner - where had the time gone??? So we walked just across the street to Urbelli's (I've probably spelled this wrong) and ate pizza!! We decided to try something completely different so ordered one that had tortellini on it!! (Along with some other yummy veggies) It was quite good but probably not anything I would order again!!

And then it was back to the condo to drink some more wine and talk just a little bit longer!! It's so much fun to reminisce about the old memories growing up!!

One last shot of the condo before we left the next morning on our NEXT adventure!!! To be continued..............

500 POSTS!!

LET'S CELEBRATE!! It's my 500th post!! I had no idea I would enjoy blogging SO MUCH but I do!

Stay tuned for the next 500 as I'm sure not stopping now!!

Bear ALERT!

I was talking to Patty on the phone last night and Glenn came out of the office and said - "There's a bear on the deck!!" Sure enough, I raced over to the door and there was a bear, walking around the hot tub!!

He soon walked around the corner over to the bird feeder which is nailed to a post on the front deck - stood up (proably about 4 to 5 feet tall) and tried to tip over the feeder - bent the heck out of it of course!! We also noticed he had a tag on his ear!

I ran to my backpack to get the camera out (it was already packed for my trip) and attempted to take a picture - but it was almost dark and by the time I pushed down on the button, it took about 3 seconds to flash - just long enough for the bear to realize we were looking at him through the window and he fled - so of course I have a nice picture of the bird feeder but NO bear in the picture!!

I watched him run back by our grill and he CLIMBED over our deck railing!! I raced to the guest bedroom to try and get a picture of him before he sauntered off but again I was not successful!!

It probably is time to take the bird feeder off the post for awhile as I imagine he'll keep coming back - and I'm sure that I don't want to be sitting in the hot tub one night and have a bear roaming around!!

Happy 31st Birthday To Jill!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Jill - my middle daughter who is turning 31!! Now let's see, I turned 27 years old the same day I delivered Jill so that would make me how old??? Way too many numbers there so we'll just pass on how old I am!!!

It's always fun to celebrate my day with Jill but unfortunately, too many times it lands during the middle of the week so a phone call is the best we can do!!

Since I didn't have a "special" picture of Jill like I had for Jessi, I decided to post an old one of when she was 4 years old!! Isn't she a cutie???

I hope you have a great day!! As for me, I'm working (boo-hoo) but leaving mid-afternoon for a trip to Grand Rapids, MI for our SISTERS REUNION!! And that's a good enough gift for me!!

My BABY Turned 30!!!!

Happy Birthday Jessi who turned the big 30 on Sunday!!! Which must mean since she's the baby of the family, that all 3 girls are now in their 30's - yes, that makes me feel a little old!!!

The funny thing is, for 3 days every year, Jill and Jessi are the same age - my TWO 30 year old daughters!!!

We headed up to Denver Friday after work for another jam packed weekend of garage sales, coffee (FREE - since our birthdays are soon!!), shopping, watching Rayna's volleyball game, going to the park, fishing for Glenn, and lots of playtime with the grand kids!!

After not finding very many garage sales, Jessi and I ended up at Kohl's - she proceeded to buy an entire new outfit (which you see in the pic - cute as a button!!) and I found the cutest nightgown with capri pants to match that Jessi and Jill are giving me for my birthday!!! THEN we headed to Famous Footwear where we ended up buying 3 pairs of shoes between the 2 of us and THEN to Big 5 where I bought a pair of hiking shoes (a much needed item when I ride the ATV). SO we did well!!

Jaime and her 2 sisters plus a few friends were going out on the town for her birthday Sat. night - and they had a great time!!!

I decided I MUST be getting old when I was invited to go with them but chose to stay home and babysit kids!!! I was also invited to meet them AFTER I put the kids to bed (Glenn was there too) and even that didn't excite me much...........gosh!!!

But Glenn and I had a great time babysitting Evan and Mackenzie - I went up to play trucks with Evan while Glenn went up to play dolls and "doctor" with Kenzie - after a while, Kenzie came into Evan's room and said papa was asleep so could she play with us???

It was a fun weekend all the way around - and here's to MANY more happy birthdays to you Jessi!!

Our Little Firecracker Turns Two!!!

Birthday wishes go out to Aleah who turned 2 on July 4th!! And anniversary wishes to Jill and Robby as they celebrated their anniversary the same day!! Their family went to Iowa over the 4th of July weekend so they celebrated with relatives back there!!

Our celebration of all the July birthdays will be held on July 23rd so be watching for lots of pictures as we celebrate the day at the Aurora Reservoir!!

In other news, THE RAIN HAS ARRIVED!!! We FINALLY got rain (and hail) yesterday after a long awaited dry spell!! We're hoping the monsoons have arrived early and it will continue to rain so they'll lift the fire ban!

4th of July Camping - Continued

One thing we had to deal with this trip was something we RARELY ever deal with and that was MOSQUITOS!!! I guess because of all the water around, they were out in full force!! Luckily, I always keep a can of Cutter's in the camper and it was well used this trip!!

But what we didn't have to deal with all weekend were firecrackers!! Never heard a one the entire time we were there and that's unheard of!! So that means I slept well, right??? Not this time!! I have no idea what the problem was but I didn't sleep well any of the nights!! It would take me FOREVER to fall asleep and then if I woke up in the middle of night, I was unable to go BACK to sleep!! Bummer!! At least I was able to sleep in, in the mornings!!

We tended to leave on the ATV right after breakfast and it seemed most of the other people, would wait till close to noon to head out so we'd have a lot of the trails to ourselves most days. There was still a lot of snow left on the mountains!

I thought it might be fun to get off the ATV and take a hike but after we stopped and saw that the hike was 4 miles in, I changed my mind!!

We had taken a pretty nice trail for quite a while and back towards the bottom, we saw a stream that we had to either go through, or turn around and go all the way back the way we came!! This stream was pretty wide but you really can't tell how deep it is until you try it!! So Glenn gunned the ATV and off we went through the stream - it was deep!!! VERY DEEP!! My rear end got wet if that tells you anything!!! It's a good thing Glenn is an excellent driver - he drove as fast as he could through it and it died, just as were climbing out of the stream!! We were wet and laughing and shaking at the same time - boy - you just never know what you're going to get into on some of these trails!! The ATV had to dry out before it would start so we just hung around there for a while and soon about 6 bikers came - they yelled across the stream to ask us how deep it was so we told them. One brave guy decided to try it - luckily he was a TALL guy because the bike slipped twice and he caught it by putting his feet down - he was one soaked guy by the time he got to the other side!! And no, the others one wouldn't try it!!

One really nice trail was called Lily Pond Trail - when we got to the bottom, here was this beautiful lake almost completely covered with lily pads!! It was a neat spot but hard to capture on the camera!

Towards the top of this trail was an old mining town with lots of falling down log cabins AND mining equipment!! We stopped and had our lunch here and walked around all the equipment, trying to decide how they got these huge pieces of machinery up this mountain!! I suppose by ox or donkeys - or maybe they brought the things up in pieces and then put them together!! Hard to imagine life in the early 1900's in the mountains!!

I love this picture of the falling down cabin with the tree growing right in the doorway!!

Late afternoons were spent sitting in front of the stream with drinks and books in hand with LOTS of good appetizers!! And after dinner, we would take a ride on the ATV and look for elk or deer in the mountains..............a relaxing, peaceful weekend!!

We packed up Monday morning to head out with a list of things we had forgotten (and which are ALREADY in the camper for next time) and lots of great memories!!

We stopped at the top of Cottonwood Pass to check the trailer and I snapped this picture - the kids were sure having fun in the snow!!

Another great camping trip!!

4th of July Camping/ATV

WOW - a 4 day weekend!! Glenn said he could take Friday off and my boss said I could take off Friday morning (we close at noon anyway on holiday weekends!!) So it was pack, pack, pack on Thursday evening after work!!

We even got up at 4:30 to we could head out of here by 5:00 - the camper was all packed - the ATV was all loaded - we were off!!

At our first stop in Buena Vista to fill all the gas cans for the ATV, Glenn forgot to put the gas cap back on the ATV - oops!!! Luckily a baggie and rubber band took care of it for the weekend!! I had forgotten to buy marshmallows (I really think I left mine in Jaime's camper the last time we camped and forgot all about it!!) AND international coffee - darn - the gas station had marshmallows (for a pretty penny of course) but not the coffee - oh well, my own fault!!

We headed over towards Gunnison which meant we had to go over Cottonwood Pass!! Since we're SO DRY in our area, I never thought about the high mountains getting so much snow this past winter but they did!!! Take a look at this picture I took out of the pickup as we're heading up the pass!!

Coming down the other side of Cottonwood Pass (which is gravel by the way) I could see these huge low clouds covering the basin!!

The road was horribly bumpy and dusty to get back to where we were going and we were sure hoping we could find a spot to camp!! I couldn't believe all the campers we saw going in that were already set up for the weekend!! But we DID find a very nice spot in a place called Italian Creek!! It was in the trees with a nice flat spot and the roaring stream (from all the snow run-off) was below us - yet we could hear that stream running like crazy!!!

We quickly set up camp and packed the bags in back of the ATV with our picnic lunch - Glenn said he wanted to take the ATV book on that area AND a huge foldout map that was also of the area so they went in the pack also!!

After heading out on the ATV, I decided I needed my heavier sweatshirt on so we stopped and I went to get it out of the bag and noticed we hadn't zipped it shut when we left - but of course didn't think a thing about it!!

Glenn wanted to head up Taylor Pass - it's a 4WD trail and at the top you can virtually see for miles - we've actually been on the OTHER side of that pass when we camped over by Aspen so we were both excited to see it!! It was rocky - it was steep - and I wasn't impressed at all with the trail - but I hadn't seen anything yet!!

Part of the trail has the stream coming down it which we were aware of - but when we turned the corner to see it, this is what we saw!!!

No, this isn't the stream, this is OUR ROAD!!! Like I said, the runoff from the snow was amazing!! Well, we started up it - it wasn't super deep but it was more than 1/2 way up the tires and you couldn't tell where you were driving over those slippery rocks because it was running SO FAST!!! I finally said we had to turn around as by this time, I'm practically having a heart attack it was so scary!!! I figured the ATV would stall out in that water and then what would we do????

There was a turnoff a little ways back so Glenn reluctantly backed it up and we got out of the water - I was shaking by that time and I'm sure Glenn was too!!! So it was back down the mountain - so much for getting to the top of Taylor Pass!!! And just for your info, we talked to some bikers the next day who told us they weren't even going to TRY going up that pass with all the water!!

We took another route and saw some beautiful scenery!! Glenn decided he needed to look at the map then so we stopped and I went back to get the maps - they weren't there - I was SO upset and figured they must have blown out when we had that bag unzipped!!!

The trail below was a much better trail although it had some rough spots in it!! We stopped to talk to this guy who was working on a small log cabin that he owns - I can't imagine getting to it very often!! We had more water to cross but it wasn't too deep - I always lift my legs up when we go through water to spare the shoes!!!

When we got up to this old mine shaft, we could see 3 other ATV's just sitting there - we decided to go ahead up this MUDDY trail to continue our journey but that's all the further we got - there was a huge snowdrift blocking the trail - probably 3 or 4 feet deep!!! So much for that trail!!!

Just to prove that I DO go with Glenn on these trips, I had him take a picture of me!!

With no fire ban in effect over there, we could have campfires every night and boy those marshmallows tasted good!!!

Oh, I almost forgot - when we got home, I decided to get a coke out of the ice chest - and guess what was in there - yup, the ATV book and the map!! Boy, I must really be losing it........ To be continued............