UTAH - Here We Come!

 It's November - and we used to take trips out of the country ALL the time in November - but not for the past few years!  But since the weather has been pretty decent out, we both decided a road trip was in order!

I looked into flying somewhere in the US but after checking it out, decided this was not the way to go since a lot of things are still shut down or very limited!  I thought about going southeast as we have always wanted to check out the beaches in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, etc.  But since we are planning to drive to Mexico again come February, that didn't seem like the way to go either.

So I decided THIS was the year we were going to go to Utah and see a couple of the national parks!  I can't believe we have never done this!! This way we could drive - not be in contact with a lot of people - and spend our time outside hiking at the parks and driving around - a perfect solution!

We headed out on a beautiful Sunday morning and our first stop was coffee at our favorite place in Johnson Village (by Buena Vista).

The drive was beautiful and I chose to take the route through Aspen since we hadn't been over that way in a while!  The mountains were beautiful with snow!

We stopped at a rest area (somewhere) and I noticed there was a Subway about a block away so we walked there and got lunch to go - eating it at the rest area where there was a nice park with picnic tables!

And soon we headed into Utah!

Our destination for the first 3 nights was Moab - the perfect spot to see Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park.  We saw the turnoff for both of these places before we got into Moab so at least knew where we would be turning the next morning!

The town of Moab was a MESS as they were doing construction through most of the town - it was zig this way and then zag that way - wow - I was SO glad we arrived before dark because you really couldn't tell where to turn off anywhere in the mess!  But luckily our hotel was a couple of blocks past the construction.

I had made reservations at Mainstay Suites - the place was extremely clean and had a kitchen so we could cook breakfast!  I had brought along an ice chest with breakfast and lunch items so it worked out perfect!

Dinner that evening was to walk next door to eat Mexican - very good!!  And it was so nice not to have to crawl back in that car and drive somewhere to eat!  To Be Cont'd....

October Photo Dump

 I guess before I start trip pictures I had better finish up October!  Looks like almost all of my pics are wildlife!

Friends Cheryl and Jeremy came down the first weekend in October to do some aspen peeking and hang out with us!  We had a great couple of days together and are making plans to go to NM in January to ice fish!

I loved watching these twins grow during the summer!

This big guy sat down by the 5th wheel and stayed there for 8 hours, only moving to the back of the 5th wheel when the sun moved!!

And we had another fuzzy bear come by - doesn't he look cuddly?

I love deer pictures in the snow!

And that's a wrap for October!

Halloween

 Not my favorite holiday by far but I love getting pictures of the kids' pumpkins and their costumes!  This year Halloween fell on a Saturday but due to Covid, the girls informed me a lot of people did not participate in giving out candy!  And just for the record, it was also a FULL moon that night AND we turned the clocks back an hour!  

Joleen was here from KS for three days so we enjoyed some shopping time at Costco AND loved that extra hour of sleep since she was heading home on Sunday morning and we were headed out on our Utah trip!

And now the pumpkins!!  Kylan chose not to carve one this year!

Here's Gwyn before her Halloween party at school!

And now the costumes!!

The Savages' were at Jessi's house for the night so the 5 of them trick or treated together!  Kylan was invited to a Halloween party and had a great time there!  Here's to a Covid Halloween!

Denver Babysitting

 Jessi and Gary headed to Mt. Princeton for their anniversary and I drove to Denver to babysit the kids!  The weather was perfect when I drove up and Gary and I walked to Gwyn's school so I would know right where to pick her up and take her the next morning!

Jessi had made chili to eat that evening so I didn't even have to cook!!  HOORAY!!  Mid-afternoon I walked to Gwyn's school and found a seat on a bench - I was plenty early which is fine by me - and soon all the kids started walking out with their teachers and all stood in a line until they see their parent and then she lets them go.  So I'm searching and searching trying to find her amidst all the masks!!  And then this girl waves at me and I pull my mask down and say "Is that you Gwyn?"  And of course she shakes her head yes!!!  OMG - I can't believe I didn't recognize her with her mask on!!!!

Thursday morning was red, white and blue day!!  She wanted to wear her 4th of July dress but it looked cold out so I said no and we found this outfit!!  Gwyn was so excited to wear it since it had "love" on the front and that was one of her "power" words the night before!!  We about FROZE walking to school - should have taken the car!!  BRRRRRR

Evan and Kenzie decided my phone case was FILTHY!!  Could they clean it??  Of course - I didn't care - so that's what they did!!!  We played some cards that evening!

Gwyn had fun putting stickers in the "amazon" book that came in the mail and circling everything she wanted for Christmas which was basically everything!!  Gotta love being a kid!

After walking Gwyn to school on Thursday morning, I took the kids out for coffee!  They wanted Starbucks frappes - of course there could only be 2 people at a table so we just brought them home!  I am not a fan of Starbucks but ordered a pumpkin mocha and it was great!!  It was WONDERFUL to see the colors in Denver as all of our leaves are gone - taken by the wind!

Jessi and Gary got home early evening - they had a wonderful time at the hot springs and we enjoyed catching up till we couldn't keep our eyes open!!  Gary took Gwyn to school the next morning so we snuck out for coffee - again to Starbucks since there is nothing else close and Jessi had to go to work but since we were 2 people, we did get to sit and enjoy our coffee together!

It was a wonderful time babysitting the kids - I LOVE being Nana and getting to do this!

Fires and Snow

 The fires in Colorado have been horrible this year - we are blessed that none of them have been even remotely close to us, even though the smoke smell was around many of the days late summer and fall.

It's hard to imagine that Colorado's beauty is being destroyed by fires - there are thousands upon thousands of dead trees in the forests due to the pine beetle kill and I guess this is nature's way of getting rid of them and starting new growth - but it's a tough pill to swallow!

As of last night, here were the current fires:

East Troublesome Fire - 192,560 acres burned - 10% contained - Grand County

Cameron Peak Fire - 208,663 acres burned - 64% contained - Larimer County

Middle Fork Fire - 20,433 acres burned - 12% contained - Routt County

Williams Fork Fire - 14,749 acres burned - 30% contained - Grand County

Calwood Fire - 10,105 acres burned - 76% contained - Boulder County

Ice Fire - 596 acres burned - 90% contained - Silverton

But look what happened yesterday and last night!!!

I'm not sure ANYONE has been so excited to see a winter storm come in!!  We ended up with about 8" of snow and Jill up in Ft Collins (who is close to the Cameron Peak Fire) said they got around 10" of snow!  WHAT A BLESSING!!!  I know it's not enough to actually put the fires out but it will sure help smother a lot of the flames and hopefully the firefighters can take care of the rest!

It's COLD though..... zero when we got up and it's only climbed a degree since then!  But this is Colorado and as usual, the sun is already trying to peek out every now and then!

All of the grand kids are excited as they have a snow day - even the remote learners!!  That's a little strange if you ask me but who am I to wonder!!

It's a beautiful day to drink my coffee in front of the fireplace!

Li'l Red Rodeo

 Remember that song by Collin Raye?  Well I do because I used to really enjoy listening to Collin Raye - I even saw him in concert at Cripple Creek if you can believe that!!

Anyway, Glenn purchased a RED vehicle from a friend of ours - and no, it wasn't a rodeo, it was an Isuzu Amigo!  But every time I looked at it, I thought of that song!

Glenn bought it with the thought that we MAY take it to Mexico and leave it - we've tossed that idea around instead of driving every year.  He prefers to leave a car down there and fly - I prefer to drive as I enjoy the drive AND this next year we have no need to take the truck since we left the boat and the ATV down there, therefore we could take the car which rides pretty darn nice and gets better gas mileage and doesn't use diesel which is more expensive down in Mexico!

I actually did a cost comparison and it IS much cheaper to actually drive down than to fly and pay the storage for a car down there!

Glenn worked on the car - cheap labor - ha ha!!  He put a new windshield in it, did some painting on it and put a black cover on the hood and it did look pretty good!  Then he took me for a drive!  It was loud which I could handle BUT the exhaust fumes seemed to be coming right back in the vehicle and after a couple minutes I was coughing!  Also, there's NO BACK SEAT!!  How are we supposed to pick up people at the airport?  Anyway, a couple of days later Glenn asked me to take pics so he could sell it!!

It sold in 3 days - with an $1100 profit!!!!  I was impressed!  So no Amigo going to Mexico!  

September Photo Dump

 Boy it's not much of a photo dump - does that mean I didn't do anything interesting during the month or just that I blogged about EVERYTHING I did - ha!!

After looking at the calendar, I realized we had company 3 of the 4 weekends!!  So I guess I blogged about all of those - and then we had the 2 fall trips!  There really wasn't much in between!

So here are my lone 2 pics that didn't make the blog!

This guy has been hanging around a lot - he's not the biggest one but he seems to like us!

And this picture is of the aspens on OUR property!!  We have a nice stand of them at the bottom of our property and they are gorgeous too!

Glenn is getting ready to go hunting up at Walden this Friday!  It's always nice to have a little break from each other for a while - he's staying in a cabin with our neighbor and 3 others!

I've started Christmas shopping!!  Ours sneaks up way too fast since we celebrate the 2nd weekend in December so I always start early!  As the grand kids get older, it's harder to buy for them!  I've also spent many hours already starting their "photo" books - and that I truly enjoy doing!

It's been WAY TOO WARM here lately - it's October - time for some moisture!!  It is SO DRY out and many days are smoky - the peak is generally covered in smoke and I think 2 or 3 inches of rain are in order to saturate the ground and get rid of the smoke!  Of course we can't complain because we don't have any fires close to us and we pray the current fires will get put out soon!

I believe we are ALL tired of the pandemic - tired of the fires - tired of the masks - tired of life in general as it is.....We have plenty to be thankful for - it's just that "change" is hard and we're all dealing with it!!