Goin' Mobile-A Dance Gypsy's tour of the country

    Sorry for the delay in getting something out. For some reason the server at my friends place just hasn't been working, so none of my pictures would load... a rather frustrating experience. Finally remembered my own WiFi signal device and turned it on instead which at least allowed me to load most of the new photo's you will see here. There are still a couple that wouldn't load up and I'm not sure why, but the majority of them are here and that is what counts.

    So going back a couple of days to what has been missed. Thursday was a day to run around and do errands. A bit of shopping, some additional truck stuff. Nothing all that important to do. Had dinner with an old friend of mine before heading off to Washington Park to do a little folk dancing in front of the boat house. Got there a little early and took some pictures of the boat house, the lake and the rec center where I had my first job. Will post a few pictures at some point, but it may be a while. During the 70's the park is where most of my time was spent. In many ways I pretty much grew up in that park as I was often there from 7:00 in the morning until after 10:00 at night. A wonderful place to be. Filled with canoeing and sailing, swimming and other sport activities, it probably, more than anything else, determined what my later life would be like, so I'm grateful that it was a nice place to grow up in.

   Of course part of that was discovering folk dancing down there at the boat house. I can still remember the first night 'Sugar' showed up with his beat up card table, record player and stack of old folk dance records. It was nearly 42 years ago and I was 13 years old when he beckoned me up the stairs to join him and a dozen others to dance on the concrete pad in front of the building. For some reason it just seemed right, odd for a 13 year old boy, but I've danced there at least one Thursday evening during the summer since then. Lots of good memories from those summer evenings.

   Still quite a few 'old' friends from the early days and lots of more recent ones. It was a good turnout on Thursday, maybe 50-60 people. A far cry from those days before video games and 150 channels of TV when 150-200 people might pass through the park and watch or join in for a dance or two. They still do a lot of the old dances I learned long ago, but there are now plenty of new ones also. It's funny how my feet often know where to go even if my mind doesn't necessarily have a clue what the steps are. I'm finding it hard to remember old dances, or learn new ones, if you only do them a couple times a year. It is still fun though.

    Busy day yesterday. Up early and on the road before noon. Met a couple of friends for lunch over near Westminster. Good to see Maggie and Paul again even if they will be going down the Grand Canyon with me next week.

   Off to Longmont after that. First on the list was a much needed hair cut at my old regular place. Nice to go back there whenever I'm in town. They're good, cheap and fast so I'm in and out in 30 mins or less most times.

    Time to pick up mail next and then off to Wally World to see about some 'croakies' for my sunglasses and some bug spray. Of course the trailer place called while I was in there so I cut that mission short and headed over to pick up the trailer. Only one bearing and bearing race needed replacing, and they weren't all that bad. Still, better to get it done than to end up on the side of the road somewhere. It took forever for me to get the paperwork done and get hitched up though. So it was 4:35 pm before I pulled out of their lot. Usually not a worry but I had a dinner date in Boulder with a dance friend at 5:30 so it was going to be close. I got backed into my storage spot and unhitched in what must of been record time and managed to get to where I needed to be by 5:28. A very nice meal and then on to the contra dance at the Avalon. Good turnout for the evening, 3 full lines for most of the night. The music was good and the calling was alright. Got to dance with nearly everyone I wanted to with the idea in mind that this was maybe the last time I would see some of these people at a dance.

    Will be heading for Fort Collins later today to meet up with some friends up there. They are nearing retirement and seem to think that the gypsy life sounds pretty fun so they asked if I'd come up and let them grill me about what I know... boy will that conversation be short. It should be fun though and we are all going on to the contra dance up there afterwards. So one more chance to do a contra dance until mid September at the earliest. Boy am I going to have Dancer's Withdrawal for a while.

6th day on the Missouri River Trip, August 6, 2012.

Morning on the river looking east towards the sun. We are starting into what is known as the Missouri Breaks section of the river. Highly eroded canyons, less vegetation with more pines and other evergreens up on the ridges.

Time to stop and play in the river. By noon the temp is around 100 degrees or more. The river feels so great at that point, and if the stop involves chasing rocks and sticks in the river, Rhodie is all for that.

A standoff in the river and a question of who is throwing and who is retrieving.

Rhodie loves to chase rocks that you throw or skip. Of course there is that problem of figuring out which rock, among thousands, is the one you threw. She never gets tired of the game though.

One of the many homestead cabins that still dot the banks along the river. Many people came and tried to make a living here in the wilds, but few were able to overcome all the hardships. It's interesting to wander around the old buildings and wonder what it must of been like wintering through a Montana blizzard or warding off an attack by the Blackfeet or Crow.