Sometimes it is a surprise to me that there are people out there that actual read this blog... especially when I miss writing anything in it for several days in a row. Sorry!!!! But I have been busy enjoying hot, late summer days with good friends, doing some of the things I love to do most.

    Starting back on the 25th, Sunday, I spent time with my friend Rima, boating out on the lake for some of the morning and afternoon. Some more canoeing practice and a couple of new paddle strokes, this time for solo boating. That evening we headed over to the Bull and Bush, a British style pub over in Glendale, for some pub food and Dixie Land Jazz with some other friends of mine, Paul and Maggie. A fine dinner of fish and chips for me, along with some on-site, brewed beer. It all went very well with the nearly 3 hours of good music from the 10 man band, 'Your Fathers Mustache' that we listened to.

    Monday we hung around town and the house doing more boating and exploring some nearby attractions. The main one we took in was the Forney Transportation Museum, down near the old Coliseum and Western Stock Show location. An interesting museum filled with a couple of old locomotives, lots of cars and a whole display of vintage motorcycles and bicycles. The star of the show for me was the 4-8-8-4 'Big Boy' steam locomotive they had there on site. The largest steam locomotive ever produced, it is breath-takingly huge.

    We were up early on Wednesday and headed west into the mountains towards Glenwood Springs. We had a little picnic lunch at one of the rest stops along the Colorado River just inside the Glenwood Springs Canyon's east mouth and after eating enough calories to keep us going, we headed on to the base of the trail up to Hanging Lake. This trail takes off near the middle of the canyon and heads pretty much straight up the mountain for about a mile and a half. With a little more than 1,000 feet in elevation gain, it makes one gasp for air when you start out at about 6,000 feet above sea level to start with. I of course, only had minor difficulty with doing the hike, hardly stopping at all to catch my breath.... or at least that is how "I" remember it. The hike is well worth the effort though, as at the very end of your climb you arrive at this small, crystal clear lake 'hanging' on a small level ledge along the side of the canyon. With several waterfalls into the blue green water, small brook trout cruising the depths and the red rocks of the canyon surrounding you on 3 sides.... what a beautiful sight. About an hour there at the top, just watching the water and exploring area's in and around the lake, before heading back down the trail. A lot easier going down of course, but still enjoyable... Oh, nearly forgot to mentioned that we saw a black bear foraging for berries on our way up to the top. He never even looked up as several of us hikers stood about 100 feet below and watched for several minutes.

    On to the town of Glenwood springs where we checked into the old Denver Hotel on the south side of the river, right across from the old railroad station. With all of the hiking we did, we were pretty hungry and soon were cruising the old part of town for some kind of food for dinner. Ended up at an old favorite restaurant of mine from weekend trips a long, long time ago, The Italian Underground. Very good food for both of us, though not great food, we were soon off to the huge hot springs pool the town is famous for. The pools, there are two, get their heated water from deep, underground hot springs that have been spewing millions of gallons of hot water from the earth in that area since Native Americans first discovered them. During the summer months the resort actually keeps them a little cooler by adding in more cold water and mixing it all up. So the large pool is generally around 98 degree's Fahrenheit, while the smaller pool, it is about the size of a standard 100 meter swimming pool, is kept at about 104 degrees. It sure felt good to just relax there in the hot water, but you can only stay in for about an hour at a time least you relax to much and end up drowning.

    Up early again on Wednesday; we had a wonderful breakfast at an old diner there in town, before filling up the truck and heading off on another adventure. That day we headed back east until we hit 'Dotsero' where the Colorado and the Eagle Rivers join together, then we headed up the Colorado River until we came to where Deep Creek came in from the west. We took the dirt road there and drove for more than an hour before ending all the way up on top of the mesa that is known as 'The Flat Tops'. I don't think Rima was quite ready for the narrow shelf road that she soon found herself driving up. She did well though, meaning.... We didn't go over the edge and die,.... and we soon found ourselves on top and headed into some of the most beautiful country in the state. Stops at the Deep Creek Overlook, where the creek has cut its way down through 1,200 feet of limestone to create a mini grand canyon. As well as 'Coffee Pot Campground' where I spent many a week camped out with my family on fishing and camping trips.

    Continuing up the road to the west we stopped at a spring fed watering spot for some ice cold water right out of the ground and a bit further along you come to Deep, Heart and Bison Lakes along with dozens of smaller 'pothole' types of small ponds. We spent a couple of hours wandering around the country walking from one ridge top to another up there just to see what was on the other side.

   I think Rima stills thinks the trip down that same road we came up on was one of the scariest rides she ever had. But we made it down intact despite meeting up with several large rigs heading up the road as we went down. From there we headed on back to Denver, stopping only once along the way in Beaver Creek, for some dinner at a Chinese Restaurant.

     Yesterday we spent  a little more time in and around the house boating and taking care of laundry and some of the house work that we had been neglecting. We did take off before noon however and met up with a friend of Rima's for lunch at a local cafe. A couple of hours there for them to talk and then on to the Denver Museum of Art where we spent nearly 4 hours wandering most of the 7 floors of exhibits they have there. Unfortunately, they closed before we could check it all out, but my feet were beginning to hurt anyway, so I wasn't too disappointed.

   On to one last meal out for us.... this time Vietnamese Noodle Bowls again. It seems likely that I have found some one else who likes them nearly as much as I do. From there we headed back to the house where we managed to get one last paddle in before the regular evening rain shower started up. It was a very nice way to end the day and a nice way to end the last day of Rima's stay.

   Took her out to the airport, DIA, this morning and got her all checked in and on her way back to Virginia via Minneapolis. It was fun having someone here to hang out with me and spend time doing fun things with. I will miss having her around, but will see her again at a weekend contra dance back east in a couple of weeks.

    I headed for Longmont after dropping her off in order to pick up mail and get a couple of errands done. I stopped by the trailer to pack up a couple more boxes of stuff, as well as to strip all of the bedding off of the bed. Have been busy washing and drying all of that this afternoon so it will all be fresh and clean when I start out again at least.

   Spent most of the afternoon working on pictures while the laundry was being done, so my hope is to have a few photo's ready to post tomorrow. Will start out with the ones from the river trip from a couple of weeks ago, and slowly try to catch up with all of the ones I have taken since then. In the meantime it is time to go throw the last load of laundry for the day into the dryer, and then go get some sleep. It is going to be nice to sleep in a bit tomorrow morning.

    Can't believe it has been 5 days since last writing. I apologize to all of you who actually expect me to post something on a regular basis. I'm usually pretty good at keeping up with this stuff, but it is summer, my favorite time of the year, and there are simply to many fun things going on in the world right now. I will try to recap some of it though, at least briefly, more for my benefit really, as I have a hard time remembering things if I let them go for too long.

    So going back a few days; my friend Rima and I headed south down I-25 on Wednesday the 21st, on a day long road trip. Down through Colorado Springs and Pueblo and then turning west towards the mountains at the Colorado City exit. The first goal was to get to Rye Colorado, my first community, and the birthplace of my mom and of her parents original homestead. Rye is still a small, sleepy little town with not much going on in it, one stop sign on the main street and a couple small stores scattered up and down  a couple of blocks. There was a new café in town, located in what I think was the old volunteer fire department building. It came in handy having it there later on when it was time for lunch.

    We continued farther west into the foothills at the base of the Wet Mountains until we came to the road into the first house I had ever lived in. My father was building it when I lived there, as he found time between working and commuting into Pueblo or all the way to Denver, so it wasn't even half finished when I lived there with 6 of my brothers and sisters. Certain memories still come to me about that place, even though I was only six when we moved to Denver, but I remember roller skating in the basement with my brothers and sisters, having to share the skates since there were only a pair or two between the 7 of us. The house had running water in the kitchen from a well my dad had hand dug just outside the house. It also had a real bathroom in it, though the water wasn't hooked up to it yet so I actually used an outhouse for the first few years of my life. There are stories to be told about my brother and I having to escort my sisters out to the outhouse at night and then leaving them there in the dark.  There was also the old tin bathtub that came out on Saturday or Sunday nights, that had to be filled with hand carried buckets of hot and cold water. The bath water was shared, one after another, and if I remember right, who got the first bath was rotated on a weekly basis. My sister, Kathy, and I didn't have to worry about using somebody else's 'dirty' bath water though as we got our bath's in the twin laundry sinks next to the washing machine.

   Travelling on up the road a bit farther, you come to the mountain park that is along Greenhorn Creek. Lots of fine times running through the park throwing rocks at wasps nests and damming up the creek so we could have our own swimming hole. We walked a little bit there and even found where one of the old swimming holes had been. The water was a lot colder to wade in than I remember it being at the age of 5 or 6.

     Another couple of miles and we are now well up on the flanks of the mountains and my grandparents property, 'The Ranch' finally comes into view. With plenty of rain this summer the old hay fields were verdant green as they nestled between ridges of tall, dark Ponderosa Pine and Douglas Firs. All of the old buildings, the house, the barn, chicken coop and pig pens are now long gone. But the memory of them all still lingers on.

   Turning around at the end of the road we headed back down to Rye and then north toward San Isabel Lake. My Father helped build the lake that is tucked back among the trees there. It was the 1940's and it was a government work project designed to get people back to work and the economy working again. Not sure if this was a CCC's project or not, but he was in that service later on, so it may well have been. We were going to eat at the old lodge there near the lake as it holds memories of really good fried chicken with mashed tater's and gravy, and the best home made pies ever. Mom and at least one of my sisters worked there during the summer a few years before I was born. But we had to backtrack to Rye for lunch however because the lodge is only open Friday through Sunday these days. But we got to try out the new café in Rye, and while not super terrific food, it was good enough and pleasant enough to sit out on the back deck and eat a hot rueben sandwich and potato salad.

     Next stop was farther back north where we pulled in to see what a guy named Jim Bishop has been up to these past years, on his pet project... building his own stone castle. Seems he has been plenty busy working, as one tower is nearing at least 200 feet high and there is a ton of new wrought iron work that has been done since the last time I was there. Personally, I think Jim is probably crazier than a loon, but you really have to admire a guy who has a vision and then sets out to achieve it. You look at what he has accomplished and wonder how, essentially, one guy can do all that he has done. It is certainly admirable and if any of you ever get a chance you should go see it. There will be pictures at some time of course, but no guarantees on when that will be. Oh... best not tell him you work for any type of government agency if you do. He's rather touchy that way.

     A side trip up the dirt and gravel road alongside Opher Creek was next. We sat at the top of the pass looking down into the Wet Mountain Valley and watched one rain storm after another flow down the Sange de Cristo Mountains and up our side accompanied with rain, then sleet and then snow. That is, we watched until one lightning bolt hit close enough to the truck to shake it real good... then we left in a hurry.

    From there we travelled back through the towns of Wetmore and Florence and on to Colorado Springs and Castle Rock where we ate huge, gooey, unique hamburgers at a restaurant named 'Crave'. Mine had a cheeseburger stacked on a grilled cheese sandwich, all smothered with green chili. Rima had one with pulled lamb and avocadoes and all kinds of other good stuff.

   Thursday was a kick back day so we goofed off on the lake in the morning doing a little canoeing together. First time I had ever paddled with Rima and we did very well together. Showed her a couple more advanced strokes to add to her list, the Duffek stroke, cross bow rudder and such, and she picked them up right away with out dumping us over or even getting us wet. :)

     Lunch together with a friend of mine, Joe, at the '4 Gs',and then on to one of two new Cabela's stores here in the Denver area. I was in search of a new pair of binoculars since my last pair seem to have lost there waterproof-ness somehow. Lots of new optics to look at and as I had more than $400 in Cabela points it was fun to look at every pair that would fulfill my requirements. It took about an hour of looking and help from a very friendly and knowledgeable clerk, but I finally whittled it down to one pair of 10x42 Steiner's, although there were 3-4 others that would of been acceptable.

     We met up with a friend of Rima's for a quick dinner at Racine's afterwards. This friend, Devon, had been a friend of one of her son's in Floyd Virginia, and I had actually met him once while I was visiting there. So we had a nice dinner there and managed to get through yet another round of rain storms out on the covered patio, without getting too wet.

    Tried to go folk dancing afterwards, but it started to rain again so we just headed back to the house and watched one of my favorite movies, 'Star Dust'. Of interest to me is how I thought this movie was a rather benign romantic comedy, when actually it has a rather lot of violence mixed up in it. Though most of it is played towards a humorous side, I'm still surprised at times to note how different people react to different situations.

    Friday the 23rd we headed north towards Longmont for most of the day. I had several things that needed to go back to the trailer and some back into storage. Also wanted to pick up my mail while in the area and really wanted to go over to one of my all time favorite restaurants, Lucile's, for lunch. We managed to squeeze everything in, even though we got a bit of a late start. There is actually two Lucile's restaurants here in the Denver area, but Longmont has the original, and best one in my opinion. It is geared to a slight 'Cajun' flavor so my meal was a Cajun omelette with andoui sausage while Rima had red beans and rice. Yum!

    A couple of hours to kill found us over walking up and down the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder. Fun just to get out and walk outside for a while. Though there was time to enter a couple of stores that were of interest to one of us or the other. We weren't real hungry yet after such a wonderful lunch, but we wanted to eat something before going on to the Denver contra dance at 8:00, so we stopped and split a Vietnamese noodle bowl and some spring rolls before heading over to it.

    We got to the dance about a half hour late because of the slowness in the noodle bowl place, but we hadn't missed but maybe one or two dances. So we changed shoes and got into the first line available. We hadn't danced even half of the dance yet when one of the bands microphones sent out a loud squawk of feedback. Annoying, but not normally a big problem except on that night when one of the band members, Rodney, suddenly stopped playing, stood up and started ranting about the god*#/& sound and stalked off the stage. Talk about a real show stopper! We were all just stunned having never seen or heard anything like that before. Tina, the caller, was pretty on top of her game though, as she called for the mid dance break a bit early so they could see about getting it all back together. But the damage had been done already and I know at least half of the dancers, including us, left right then and there. I have to say that I have danced to the music of Rodney more than a hundred times before and nothing like this has ever happened before, so I am sure something else was going on with him that night. But it was pretty rude and unprofessional, and I am sure it will be the talk of the Denver contra dance community for some time to come. As for us.... we just headed home where we sat outside and watched the lake from the bottom deck of the house.

    So that brings us up to yesterday and yet another fun filled time. Some more paddling out on the lake before going over to the local farmers market for some shopping. We were having friends over later on for a cookout so we needed a few fresh things for that. Some corn, so sweet you could eat it raw off of the cob, a yellow fleshed seedless watermelon, lettuce and onions and of course a fresh baked pastry or two to eat along the way.

     Some burger and buns and other odds and ends were picked up at 'Kings' and then back home to sort it all out. Also had to find time to mow and trim the yard, water the flowers that hadn't been rained on and of course, throw the ball for Rhodie.

     We started getting ready for the cookout around 4:00 by making a fresh peach crisp and icing down the watermelon and drinks. There were 7 of us planned for, but only 5 stayed to eat. Still, we had a wonderful evening of sitting around talking eating and drinking with everyone until late.

    Not sure yet what the rest of the day is holding in store. Rima is over playing the piano as I'm sitting here writing, so that is a nice way to enjoy the rest of the morning. We will be doing something out on the lake I'm sure, and then this evening we are meeting some friends over at a local bar, the Bull and the Bush, for some pub food, conversation and then some good, live Dixieland Jazz and Big Band music.

    I hope it won't be this long again before I write, but it is hard to tell at times. I will certainly be working on photo's again at some point soon. I now have so many waiting for me that I could post from now until the end of the year it seems. Like always though, if it becomes a choice between having fun and writing about having fun.... well I think you all know by now what the choice is going to be.





   

      

   Have been spending time with friends these past couple of days, so there hasn't been a whole lot of extra time to sit down and write anything lately. Two days ago my best friends, Tom and Donna, took off for Yosemite Park in California in order to start their backpacking/hike of the whole John Muir Trail. At slightly more than 200 miles it should take them until the end of the first week in September to finish it. In the mean time they left me in charge of their house, dog and two cats..... foolish, very foolish people. :)

   I also had a very good friend of mine fly in on Sunday afternoon and the plan is for her to stay here at the house and explore fun things in and around Denver and some of the other parts of the state with me. To that end we have spent time stand up paddle boarding and kayaking here at the lake as well as exploring the Washington Park area of the city where I grew up. Today we spent a wonderful couple of hours having brunch with George and Marge and one of their kids and grand kids. It was fun to see Carla and Candice again after so many years. I just wish I could of seen Alvis and Cole this morning also.

    This afternoon Rima and I went over to the Denver Natural History Museum and spent several pleasant hours exploring various exhibits there. We took in the gem and mineral section and a new one for me, a human health section, as well as doing a short show in the planetarium.

    It was late afternoon before we emerged again into the heat of the day. Having gone long enough with out nourishment it was time to go find some real food again. We ended up over at the 'Perfect Landing', a restaurant located out at the Arapaho Airport. Good food and a great view of all of the private planes and jets landing and taking off made for a very pleasant meal. We both had more food than we could eat, so maybe some eggs and prime rib for breakfast in the morning.

   Watched the sun go down out by the lake as I threw Rhodie's ball to her until she was pretty worn down. Either that or my are was finally starting to hurt. Tomorrow we are going to try for an early start as we are headed down to my ancestral home, Rye Colorado, in order to see my grandparents old homestead and the first house I ever lived in. Will also take some time to swing around through the mountains down there and visit San Isabel Lake and Bishops Castle. Should be fun.

    It's been crazy-busy around here since returning from my river trip in Montana a couple of days ago. On top of having to clean up all my gear and get it stored in various places around the area, there were also a couple of friends who popped in from out of state that needed to be visited with.

   So my photo sorting has taken a real back seat to everything else as a result. Did manage to get them all down loaded off of the camera at least. Close to 900 in all, so now it is down to sorting those out and cutting it all down to a more manageable size without losing too much continuity. Got some of that done this morning and afternoon, but it is rather wearing after a while. So I think it is time to go out and enjoy some of the day outdoors instead.

     As I mentioned, several friends have been visiting the state over the past couple of weeks. One from the DC area, Terri, was also visiting a mutual friend who lives in Estes Park, so I managed to make it all the way up there a couple of days ago and meet them for dinner in town. Lots of good conversation of course, much of it revolving around our mutual interest in Contra dancing and music. It is however a long, long drive back to south Denver afterwards. But at least this time there were no deer or elk trying to jump out in front of my truck on the way home that night.

    Also had another friend from Virginia, Jean, in the area for a couple of days visiting some of her relatives here. We finally got together last night for a quick meal at El Tejado and then drove on up to Boulder together for the contra dance last night. Really fun and interesting music for the dance this time. Put on by a new band to me, the 'Hot and Saur Band' staring Rodney, Nancy and Molly Saur along with a friend of theirs sitting in on fiddle, they did lots of traditional sounding stuff of course but also some new stuff as well as new arrangements of some of the old. It was all topped off by the last dance where we were all dancing to the song 'Bare Necessities' from the Disney movie 'The Jungle Book'. Fun!

   Had been planning on driving up to Fort Collins this evening to go to their Saturday night dance. But I took my friends Tom and Donna out for an anniversary celebration, 27 yrs, this afternoon and after sharing a pitcher of margaritas I came home and promptly feel asleep on the bed. Oh well! Guess I need to get back to sorting and cropping pictures again. It is going to be a long process, but it is still fun to go back through them all and remember how much fun we were all having at the time.
  

   Returned from eight days canoeing on the Missouri River late last night. We were all the way up in Montana when we left yesterday morning to come home, so it was pretty much an all day drive getting back to the Denver area.

   We really had a wonderful time on the trip this year. After 40+ years of running the same section of the river you might think it would get a little old or even boring after a while. But really, there is never any chance of that happening. In fact you could turn around right after taking out and do it all over again and it would still be a whole different trip. Different weather, different meals, different sights and animals along the way. This time was just a nice combination of good weather, pleasant companions, beautiful scenery and hardly any annoying bugs. On top of all of that there were no major injuries or accidents, lost gear or burnt meals. All in all it was a very nice time.

    Took more than 800 pictures during the week so there will be some photo's posted just as soon as I can sort through them and pick the best of the best. Wanted to get something out there now though as it will take me a couple of days to work my way through them. Plus there are plenty of other things going on this week here in Denver. Got most of the canoe trip gear unpacked and cleaned up, it is now just waiting for tomorrow when I'll head up to Longmont to drop it all off at my storage unit and then pick up any mail that might have arrived this past week. I also have the last load of laundry in the washer right now, so cleaning up my weeks worth of clothing will soon be done too.

    Would likely get more done today, except that Tom, George and I are headed out to see a 'Guys Night Out' movie this afternoon. There were evidently a couple that came out last week that we missed, so we will see one today and another one on Thursday. Am also trying to set up a bit of time to see a friend of mine from back in the DC area who is out here visiting some of her other friends. Not sure if it is going to work out or not, but it would be nice if it did.

    Right now though I'm going to go make a late lunch and then get back to working on pictures. Seems like everyone on the trip wants a copy of them and there is going to be a lot of sorting to do before anything else gets posted. Until then though; here is one shot of the white cliffs taken the 4th evening on the trip. I guess there are some forest fires going on in Idaho at this time so that explains why the sky was so red over the next couple of days. Enjoy!

Sunset over the White Cliffs area of the Missouri River in Montana on August 7, 2013

   Up and busy rather early this morning. Tom and Donna went over to shoot an early round of golf so it was just me and the cats and dog for a couple of hours. Had a nice breakfast and read the paper and then got started in packing up those final odds and ends that always seem to wait until the very end.

    Once Tom was home we went ahead and started loading boats on the vehicles. He is taking two on their van since we would have to transfer it to their car at the takeout point later on anyway. I got my rack put back on the truck, and then we got my boat all loaded up and tied down also. It always looks good and feels good when you can see the boats on the car and know that you will be heading out on a new adventure in only a few more hours.

   Once the boat was on and tied down I backed the truck up to Steph's garage and we preceded to load up a bunch of our gear that was all ready to go. We put a lot of our personnel stuff on the floor in the back seat, I have a 4 door pickup, and then put the dog bed in on top of all of it. I think the dog is going to have a pretty cushy ride tomorrow. Also threw the 3 coolers in the back so I could run over and pick up the ice Marge and George let me freeze in their freezer. Did that late this evening after it had cooled off a little bit. Pretty much filled the bottom of the coolers with ice jugs so we will have to see how much of the rest of the space is going to be taken up with actual food. We will also have a few extra gallons of ice water to start out with, but there is never a problem with having to much ice, or water, or ice water when the temperature is nearing 100 and you are paddling pretty hard.

   So we will be up early and headed for Montana around 6:00 in the morning. There will be six of us who will be going up to do a 150 mile canoe trip on the upper Missouri. We will put in on Sunday morning at the boat ramp in Fort Benton and continue down the river until we hit Kipp State Park 7-8 days later. I can't remember if the whole trip, from Denver to Denver, will be 10 days or 12 days, I'm just sure that like always, it won't be long enough.

   Needles to say I'll be off the net for at least that long if not longer, but hope to have some stories to tell and some pictures to share when I get back. Right now though it is time to go make a last minute check of things and then get some sleep. Lucky for me it rained earlier so it is now nice a cool and fresh smelling. Looking forward to some nice rain, thunder and lightning storms in the tent again. It's goin' to be fun. 

    Seems as though I have missed another day or two. Sorry about that, but it is bound to happen once in awhile with me. I sometimes feel bad about not being more prompt or stable in my writing, but then I realize that if it is a choice between writing about some activity I've done and going out and doing more fun activities... well living life is always going to come first with me.

    That being said, it has been a busy couple of days. Have been scurrying about trying to get everything together for the river trip that is coming up in two days. I spent an hour or so yesterday morning 'stand up paddling' with my friend Tom on his boards here at the lake. Then it was off to pick up a new paddle I had located with the guy, and company, that I had bought my last solo canoe through. Of course when I got all the way up to Arvada to pick it up Jerry told me that he thought he must of left it in the back of his other pickup. But..... he did have this older, never used 'Barton' graphite-carbon fiber paddle and he would go ahead and sell it to me for the same price he had set on the other one. So now I have a very nice 53" bent shaft that I can use as a spare or let others who paddle with me use. At a whole 13 oz's, it is super light and should be fun to use.

    Went and had lunch with my friends Maggie and Paul afterwards since they lived in the same area. Nope, didn't have Mexican food for a change. This time I talked them into going over to this little Vietnamese dive of a place for noodle bowls. I really love those things and if I could ever find, or figure out, the recipe to the sauce that goes on to them I would be a happy camper. I know it has rice vinegar, sugar, water, fish sauce and a few other things in it, because I once spent all evening trying to figure it out. But the ratio's I used never came out right. So if anyone out there knows how to make it.....

   Went on up to Longmont to grab my mail afterwards. Had hoped my season tickets to the Arvada Center had arrived, but not yet. Picked up a few other minor items out of the trailer and dropped off a whole bunch more stuff I didn't need to carry all the way to Montana and back.

    A quick drive back to south Denver as I was meeting up with Tom and George for Boys Night Out at the Movies. On the agenda for the evening was the latest Marvel Comics production, 'The Wolverine'. Starring Hugh Jackman as the lead again it was a 2+ hour romp through Alaska and then Japan. Filled with violence of course, most was rather muted compared to some movies these days. No gory details of heads and limbs being lopped off in other words. A pretty good script over all and some very fun 'mutant' characters of course. Afterwards it was over to the Red Robin for our usual meal and conversation. Emily was there to fulfill our every culinary need before we even told her what it was. Good times.


    Up pretty early this morning as Steph and I finally got together to go do our grocery shopping for the two and a third dinners that we needed to come up with. Steph was kind of funny with all of her excitement at finally getting to go on a trip. She has watched as Tom and Donna and I have gone on a dozen or so since she moved in across the street from them. So we got all of the food and then stopped off and picked up some beer and wine to go with it all. Stowed it all at her place with all of our other gear for the trip. She is wondering how it is all going to fit into the canoe we are taking, a good question, so we are going to take the boat over later this evening and dry load it all to see where we are going to stow everything. I know it will all fit in okay, it's just a matter of finding some new places since the dog will be taking up a bit of space on this trip.

    Time for some hot pizza and cold beer on the deck right now. It's nice to be able to look out over the water and watch the sun as it starts to sink in the west. Right now though, enjoy a few photo's from a trip to Washington Park I took last week.

Washington Park Boat House, Folk Dancing and Flower Gardens in Denver Colorado - July 2013 

The west side of the boat house at Washington Park in Denver Colorado. I pretty much grew up right here at this building in the park. From the age of 15 until 19-20 I would hang out here in the summer, either teaching canoeing and sailing lessons for the park system or, when younger, just being one of the many boat groupies that hung around the lake. This handicap ramp was only installed last year. On the bottom left hand corner are the doors where I carted dozens of canoes, kayaks and sailboats out to the dock every morning and evening.



The east facade. They did a complete restoration on the building a couple of years ago so the color palette is a bit different than what I remember.

Another view of the east and part of the south side. The concrete slab on the south side has always been there, but they poured a newer, much more level slab a few years ago. I can still remember how one Thursday evening 43 years ago, at an age I'm not going to disclose, I heard music coming from up on this patio and poked my head around the corner. What I saw was about 8-10 people holding hands in a circle doing this simple line dance to the music. The leader, a guy everyone just called Sugar, saw me peeking around the edge of the building and called to me to come over and join in. To this day I still have no idea why I went over and joined in. But it was that night that started me on a lifelong journey of dancing for fun.

 

Some of the original detail around the boathouse. The tile work is fun as are the cut rafter tails. To finish it all off they replaced the old asphalt shingles on the roof with slate shingles like those it originally had.

A closer look at some of the tiles and dentile (sp) molding.

From that very first night Sugar showed up with his portable card table, record player and stack of record's there has been free folk dancing in the park on Thursday evenings during the summer. I have managed to make it back for at least one dance per year every since he started doing it. There are only a couple of us who were there that first night, still around, but it is fun to go and see others who have been coming for many years. And of course there are always a few new dancers of every age who show up every summer.  This is a Romanian women's dance, though men do it also, about making and baking bread. Here we see the mixing and kneading phase.

The dance starts at 7:00 and goes until 10:00. Early in the evening the dances are simple line dances for the most part and the group size is smaller. Later the dances become more difficult and more of the hard core dancers show up. These days a crowd of 50-80 is pretty good, but I remember nights when there would be between 250 and 300 people dancing. That was before big screen TVs, DVDs and the Internet of course. On the left of this picture is the guy who started it all, Sugar. Well into his 80's he still dances some of the dances but I think he likes being the ambassador of dance better.

Sugar, across the circle, his wife Bettina, in blue with her back to the camera, and their two daughters, age 2 & 4 at that time, were four of the original park dancers. 

Some friends of mine, Catherine and Tommy stopped by while I was taking pictures and stayed around long enough to try a couple of the dances. Tommy seemed to really like it for some reason. He sort of reminded me of myself at that age.

Simple dances that everyone can do. If you don't know the steps it doesn't really matter to anyone but you. Just walk in the same direction and you'll soon get the hang of it.

One last dance photo before I took the camera back to the truck so I could come back and dance.



Just up the hill from the boat house is one of the first Rec Centers the city of Denver built new back in the 70's. This is where I got my first real job at the age of 15 1/2 years old. I started out as a pool attendant, or glorified basket boy, and ended up as a life guard teaching swimming lessons during the winter. Of course in the summer my friend Tom would be teaching at the boat house and they finally gave in and let me go down there during the summer months with him, since I was always down there anyway. Along the way I also coached a couple 8-12 yr old girls soccer teams, taught x-country skiing and grew up. It was an amazing place to be at that time in my life and those years there, more than anything, put me on the course my life would follow for the next 35+ years.  

The front entrance to the Rec Center. It has gone through several remodels since it was built, but it still has a 50 meter swimming pool, weight room, basketball court and arts and crafts wing. It, of course, costs a lot more to play there these days, since nearly everything was free or close to it when they first opened.

Another view of the entrance.

A rather large park, maybe 20 blocks long x 6 wide, it has a lot of wide open spaces as well as two decent sized lakes. ( Or ponds, as they call them back east). They also have several formal and semi formal flower gardens that they plant every summer. The rest of these photo's are just pictures of some of the flowers.  

They use a lot of ornamental kale and such to set off some of their flowering plants. I like the texture and color it adds to the flower beds.

 

I really liked the color combination and the texture in this one.

 

 

The smell while walking through the gardens is wonderful. I am glad that most flowers don't seem to give me an allergic reaction. But then, the smell, odor, is not the same as the pollen in the plant, so it makes sense that I don't have much of a reaction to the smell of most plants. I'm glad, I would sure miss the smell of lilacs and iris and even petunias.