Larry & Jordyn Concert

Larry worked with Jordyn (she plays guitar and piano) on a few songs so they could have a concert for us one evening. 

Air Force Academy/Garden of the Gods

View from the trail to the chapel

Balancing Rock

Garden of the Gods

Air Force dorms

Jordyn looking out at the Air Force Yard

The Chapel

Sunday we traveled south to Colorado Springs to see the Air Force Academy and drive around all the red rock formations at Garden of the Gods.  I was especially impressed with the design of the chapel at the academy and all the unusual and numerous red rock spires.  We got out and took pics of Balancing Rock and Ship Rock, one of the places kids are allowed to climb around.

Denver Zoo/Denver Museum of Nature & Science

Jordyn chose an experiment about epithelial cells (from our cheeks)

Trent chose an experiment to compare types of sanitizer such as bleach, hand gel, dish soap, etc. to see how many bacteria they kill

We've had a blast visiting Denver and spending time with Michelle, Jim, Trent, and Jordyn.  On Saturday Jim zipped us into the city so we could spend time at the new elephant park and the rest of the zoo.  We ate at the park outside the museum and then spent time at the Science Museum doing science experiments, checking out our health, and looking at all the animal displays.

Moraine Park Camping

We've had a great week with Trent and Jordyn.  Some of our activities:
swimming at Estes Park Aquatic Center (and showers to get clean:))

hiking to Emerald Lake
fishing at Estes Lake
fishing at Thompson River
fishing at Sprague Lake
ranger talks Saturday evening, Sunday evening, and Sunday evening at the amphitheater
bike riding around the campground loops
exploring rocks and trails around camp

Bear Adventure:  there is a young bear prowling the campgrounds at night looking for food.  Trent woke up and swore he heard the bear in our camp.  I felt something rock the trailer and a little later we saw the rangers using their spotlights around our camp and the one next to us.  Was it a bear?  Trent swears it was...but we also have about 6 young mulie bucks that go right through our camp, too.  It could have been them.  Trent says he found some bear footprints of a larger bear and a smaller bear so we assume we had a visit from the young bear or a bear/cub combo.

It's fun watching the bucks graze right next to our camp and campfires every evening as we make smores at the campfire and enjoy the night stars and the quiet.

Jordyn fishing

Trent and Jordyn on the Thompson

Trent fishing on Thompson below our campground

Larry rigging up the poles

Typical tree around this area

Trent and Larry at Sprague Lake

Jordyn makes a good cast at Sprague Lake

mountains surrounding Sprague Lake

Darliss at Sprague Lake on one of the benches

taking Trent and Jordyn souvenir shopping in Estes and attending the music festival there

Scenic Drive to Grand Lake

We spent the day driving to Grand Lake.  We pulled over at most of the scenic overlooks or short hikes to climb rocks or take pics of all the animals.  Today we saw:

This is in the alpine area (above treeline)

Can you see the moose grazing?

Adams Falls hike

Over 40 elk, 5 moose, 3 marmots, deer, and misc. small varmints.  The most exciting were the moose.  Two of the moose we saw were great big bulls, one 6 years old and one about 8 years old.  The 8-yr old moose stands about 9.5 feet high according to the ranger who was there.

We're at Moraine Campground

We arrived at Moraine Campground and there are deer all around camp.  We have seen six young bucks with velvet on their horns and they don't seem scared of people at all.  It's fun to watch them graze and walk around.

Biking the Mary Carter Greenway with Michelle, Trent, and Jordyn

Building a city and flooding it on the sand table at the Nature Center

Michelle, Trent, and Jordyn at one of the bathroom stops

We're ready to hit the trail again

We had safe travels to Denver and decided to ride the trails our first day.  They have a wonderful trail system, but lots of people using it.  The trail we were on extends clear to Denver and runs along the Platte River.  The nature center near where we parked had great displays of live and dead local wildlife, fish, and a great sand table.  We started off about 10:00 and got home about 3:00.

The temperature was 98 by noon and we were all roasting.  We stopped at the Egg and I for lunch before finishing our ride.  After the ride we quickly donned our swim suits and went to the neighborhood pool to cool off.  Boy, that felt good after our hot, sweaty ride.

We finished the day by watching the latest Sherlock Holmes movie, but Michelle and I kept nodding off so we stopped it and decided to finish it tonight.