Pretty much caught up on sleep finally last night. After a 3 hour nap yesterday afternoon it was another solid 11 hours last night with only one interruption for the whole time. Shouldn't of had that last cup of tea. :)

     So it was a late morning for me today, but that is okay as there wasn't a whole lot of stuff to be done. After the normal breakfast/lunch schedule of food, email, facebook and comics, it was time to do a bit of straightening up around the place. Can't say for sure, but there must of been a bit of wind in the area last week as there was a film of green pollen over every level surface both inside and out. A quick wipe down fixed most everything except for my sinuses which were taken care of by a couple of over the counter allergy pills. Actually don't seem to be too allergic to what ever pollen is out there right now, I think it may be some type of pine, but it did set me to sneezing like gang busters there for a little bit this afternoon. Oh how I love spring! Also went and got my laundry done so everything is pretty much ready to go for the next couple of weeks, even with the up coming dance this weekend.

   Finally got a chance to meet up with a dance friend here in the area late this afternoon. We had been trying to get together for a couple of weeks while I was in the area. The main problem being that I haven't been in the area much lately. So it was good to see her and wander around a bit of the old part of downtown Durham. We ended up walking down to a rehabbed area that had once been a bunch of tobacco warehouses as well as a 'Lucky Strike' cigarette factory. It has now been transformed into a neat little business park area with nice walking areas along a water feature as well as several nice looking restaurants. Most of the buildings are of the original brick exterior and at least one of the ones we walked into also had some of the original wooden posts and floor joists in it right next to some newer steel beams of various types. We ended up eating outside at a little Cuban themed restaurant with a view for the little 'creek' and some nice gardens. I ended up with a wonderful meal of clams and a spicy andoulle type sausage all mixed up in a flavorful broth to make a great little seafood style soup. A couple pieces of fresh bread to help sop it all up with and some fried plantains on the side. In addition to the main meal we both washed it all down with some cold micro brews on tap. Lucky for me that after all of that we both still had a little bit of room left over to share a fresh walnut brownie with some vanilla bean gelato to go with it. A very pleasant evening indeed!

   Unfortunately I had to call it an early evening as the park gates here at the campground are closed and locked at 8:00 every evening. I made it back with about 15 mins to spare and even had enough light left to go take a quick walk down to the lake shore to watch the sun go down. A nice clear night here so the temp is going down a bit, but I would imagine the low here for tonight will still be warmer than the high temps back in Colorado for most of the week I was there. It is nice to be back in shorts, t-shirt and sandals.

   Have been working on photo's this evening and should have some ready to post by tomorrow. There are a lot of pictures still in the cue but it will take a bit of time for me to get to them and get them posted. I'll try to keep on it though and post them pretty much in the order in which they were taken. That may mean that the first one's may be a couple weeks old by the time they come up, but since this blog also functions as a travel journal for myself I'm not willing to miss posting to many of them. I think some of them will be worth looking at anyway.

   Landed back at Raleigh NC just a little while ago after taking the 'red eye' flight out of Denver this morning. It was suppose to be a 1:00 a.m. departure but the raging snow storm outside set things back a little bit. Was also surprised to find that the whole plane was taken up with passengers, something that I certainly didn't expect to happen.

    Having had to drive in the snow all afternoon and evening last night it was a relief to land here and find that while grey and sorta rainy, it was still nice and warm outside. I had a full day yesterday prior to taking off. I met several of my friends over at a local mexican restaurant, Luna's, for lunch and some final conversation. Good time there, but it was right around noon when the weather changed from bright, sunny, blue skies to grey, windy and howling snow. Unfortunately I had planned to use that afternoon to make one final run up to Longmont and drop some boxes off at the storage unit. Also did a little banking while up there and even picked up a last bit of mail that was in my mailbox.

    The snow was kind of a hassle, mucking up the highways and causing people who should know better to drive like idiots. After running my errands in Longmont it was back on the highway going south in order to meet up with George for a 'boys night out at the movies' gig. On the agenda for that day was the new Tom Cruise movie, 'Oblivian'. I liked it! An interesting plot, pretty well acted and lots of gratuitous violence and sexual innuendo. After the movie we headed over to the local burger joint and sat and discussed the movie over some dinner. It was there that George and I discovered that we both must of been watching a different movie even though sitting right next to each other, because we couldn't seem to agree on anything we had just seen. :) So we will both end up seeing it again and one of us will have to spot the other a beer or something.

     It was hard to say goodbye to my friends last night, but it was time to be out of their way.... something to do with a comparison between 3 days visits and dead fish. But they are a wonderful couple and it was enjoyable to spend some time with them this past week.

    Need to go get some groceries and then head back out to the state park and see how Esmerelda is. The truck was safe and happy in it's parking spot for the week, so I hope the past week has been okay for the trailer. After that I think it will be time for a 8-9 hour nap since I've been up since 8:30 yesterday morning and I'm pooped. I hope there will still be a little time left in this week to explore a little bit of the area around here.

    Sorry there hasn't been anything posted for a couple of days. It has been, at times, very chaotic, emotional and downright tiring. It seems like life is starting to settle back into a regular groove again though, so maybe a quick synopsis of what has been happening here these past few days.

    We buried my mom last Thursday morning. An emotional time of course, but also a nice way to remember her and to say goodbye. All of her children, all eight of us, managed to make it to the service as well as a whole bunch of her grand kids and great grand kids. There are sure a passel of us, not all by any means, but it was nice to have lots of family around. There were also several of my friends who showed up for the service and that was also a real comfort to me and to some of my family who have known them for a long, long time also.

   After the indoor ceremony, it was off to Fort Logan for a short ceremony out there. She is to be buried with my dad in the military cemetery so it was also a nice reminder of where he is and that they will now, once again be together. Cold outside, but sunny and not to windy. But we were all glad that it wasn't a long ceremony out there in the cold. I stayed a little bit longer to wander around and take a few pictures.

     We had a nice lunch for every one who wanted to come back at the assisted living building my mom had been living in. It was nice to have a little more time to talk to family and friends in an atmosphere more conducive to conversation. It was also fun to see some of the younger great grand children running around the place with all of their cousins. Some of whom they had never met before.

    A bunch of us met up later that evening for a meal over at my nieces place. A couple of beers or a glass of wine and we could finally unwind from the stress of the day. It was hard to say goodbye to her, but the memory will certainly live on for a very long time. We also worked a bit on dealing with the mountain of photo's that she had accumulated over the years. Hard to figure out a way to divvy them all up but for this first cut it was pretty much decided that if you were in the picture then it would go to you. Ones with multiple kids in it would have to be decided on a case by case basis. It was a long process but also fun to see some of the photo's from way, way back in our childhood.

    Next day, Friday, it was down to real business with another 4-5 hours spent on photo's and scrap books. Next came several hours of parcelling out mom's jewelry collection. Most of it would probably fall under the term 'coustume jewlery' but she did have quite a bunch of pretty nice stuff. Even most of the other cheaper stuff though was pretty neat. We divided it up by spreading it out onto 7 tables and then drawing cards for each pick. It was a very long process as we had to put out new collections several times. I didn't actually draw for a whole lot of it, being a guy, and having no kids, there wasn't much there that excited me, but I picked out a few things to remember her by and then let the others pick out the rest. My sisters really got into that.

    Our final job of the day was to deal with all of the coins and coin collections that mom had bought and acquired over the years. I guess we could of paid someone to sort through it all and sell it or at least get a total for us, but no one wanted to wait 6 months or longer for that to happen. Not because anyone needed any of it now of course, but just because we all just wanted it to be done. So we once again spread it out over all the tables in the room and then made 8 numbered signs, one for each kid. Then we all, there were 7 of us, started putting stuff into each pile as we thought best and as evenly as we could as far as basic quantity rather than quality or monetarily. Once it was all parcelled out we all took one last look at each pile to see if there was anything that looked extremely out of place and then we all drew one card from 1 to 8 and we each got that pile of swag. Maybe not the best way but in the end I think it was as fair as we could make it considering we each had an equal chance of drawing any one pile, and no one really knows for sure what any one pile contained. So in the end it went a lot smoother than I thought it would and a whole lot smoother than I have heard other families do. I was rather proud of my brothers and sisters for being able to do this hard task in a manner that was as fair as possible. I guess one way to look at it is that none of us went away completely satisfied with how every thing was parcelled out, but on the other hand, none of us stormed out in a huff with a promise of going and getting a lawyer. My brother 'L' did an amazing job over all and should be roundly applauded for doing as good of a job as he did. Now there is only some bank accounts and things like that left to do, and that will involve a lawyer and a few months to clear up, but it should all be settled before the end of summer.

     Since that process took all of the morning and most of the afternoon as well it was now time to start thinking of something to eat since it was now nearly 4:00 p.m. A few of us went over to El Tejado, a local mexican restaurant for a beer and something to eat while a few others went back to my nieces place for a meal of home made chili and corn bread. I had a small meal at the restaurant in order to say goodbye to a couple of people who were heading home afterwards and then went on over to my nieces for a little bit more food and a beer.

     I had brought along a change of clothes just in case we got done at a reasonable time so after an hour or so there seeing everyone, I took off for Boulder and the weekly contra dance up there at the Avalon. A pretty nice evening all in all, nice enough to change into shorts anyway. The Grouchy Geezers + 2 were playing that night and Rick Smith was doing the calling. Lots of people there and at one point there were a full 5 lines, so maybe 150-180 people in all. A very nice turnout for this time of year. I was extremely tired but dancing with all those happy and smiling people really helped me feel settled again. I got a chance to dance with many of my friends whom I haven't seen for more than 7 months and even got to dance with a couple of new ones. What amazed me was that the altitude didn't seem to bother me much considering Boulder is nearly a mile high and I've been basically at sea level for a long, long time. A long drive home after the dance, but definitely worth the effort.

     Yesterday was a day for just hanging out, sleeping late and then doing errands. On my to do list was to go pick up some new boxes and a roll of tape so I could box up all my photos and other swag in preparation of putting them in my storage locker until I'm back this summer. At the same time I needed to pick up a new e-reader somewhere, as mine had suddenly decided to quit a few days ago, and I was really feeling lost with out being able to read a few chapters every day.

    For some reason, I'm blaming fatigue, I ended up buying a brand new 'Nook' at the store and bringing it back to my friends place. I had already unwrapped it and was getting ready to charge it up when George asked me, 'wasn't your last one a Kindle?'. Well duh! Of course it was, what a bonehead I was not to even think of that. So it was back to the store to return that one and then off to find a Kindle. Of course they no longer sold them at the place I had bought the Nook at because a lot of retailers had stopped selling them when Amazon wouldn't let them sell them at a discounted price. But I ended up going over to a Best Buy and found they still had a bunch there, so I managed to pick up a Kindle Fire there. Much nicer than my last one of course, and more expensive too..... of course. But I think I'll be happy with it once I figure out all the bells and whistles on it. Does anyone know any 8 year old kids out there that can give me a lesson?

    Having gotten a good sleep the night before I was up for driving all the way to Fort Collins in order to have dinner with a friend up there and then go on to the contra dance also. A very nice dinner with good conversation and decent food and then to a very nice night of dancing with all of that crowd up there. Again, it was very nice to see and dance with so many people I hadn't seen for so long. Some I'm in communication with on facebook and email of course, but it always so much nicer to see and talk to them in person. More of a problem with the breathing up there for some reason, but I think most of it was because the smell from the last time they varnished the floor was still pretty strong and really plugged up my sinuses. A good dance though and a pleasant, if long, drive home afterwards. One nice thing is that I always sleep pretty good after a dance.

    Today has been very slow and peaceful with a light breakfast and time to read the Sunday paper. My friends took me out for a late lunch a while ago and now everyone is feeling like it is nap time. We were headed for 'Sushi Den', a local sushi place that is outstanding, but they were closed for renovations and additions, so we ended up over on S. Gaylord Street at 'Japon' instead. Equally good sushi and a very quite leisurely hour or so there.

   Just going to hang out for the rest of the day reading and taking my nap. I'm going to do a small load of clothes here so I don't have to take home a bag of dirty laundry. Turns out that I am actually flying out at 1:00 a.m. on Tuesday morning so tomorrow is really my last day here. I'm having lunch with a few friends up north and then going on to Longmont to put my stuff away in my storage unit. Then, if there is time, I'll go see a movie with George and have one last meal with him and Marge tomorrow night. Over all it has been an okay time here considering, but I am so ready to get back to the trailer and get back on the road and doing stuff again. I'm really sad that I missed the 'Bug Stomp' dance in Charleston this weekend, but am already looking forward to the one next weekend in NW North Carolina.

    So I hope that pretty much catches me up on everything and that isn't sounding to much like a soap opera. I'll be back to posting photo's as soon as I can... so until then.

    What a shock it is going from balmy 82 degree temps to below freezing with driving snow and sleet. It isn't bad enough that you have to get up at 4:00 in the morning in order to make it to the airport the 2 hours early that they always say you are suppose to do. Only to spend about an hour and a half of that time sitting there thinking about how nice it would be to back in bed asleep right now. No, you must also make sure it is freezing cold outside when you pick up the rental car and you realize that not only are your coat and gloves still sitting on the couch in the trailer where you left them last night, but that the nearly brand new $20,000 car you just rented doesn't come equipped with a $3.00 snow brush and ice scraper.

   But here I am ranting again when what I should be mentioning is the absolute miracle it is to wake up in Raleigh, NC early in the morning and be 1,400 miles away in Denver, CO before noon on the same day. Now that is something to think about, even if it was only 23 degrees out with snow and ice on the roads. :)

    Had a bit of lunch after picking up the rental car and headed over to my friends place, George and Marge, to get rid of my gear and maybe catch a nap. I may have actually gotten a few winks in, but not nearly enough to even up the score. We talked for a good long while and then had a nice evening meal before I headed over to my niece's place to meet up with the rest of the family. All the siblings there, except for the oldest brother, and quite a few of my nieces and nephews. Even a few great nieces and nephews too. Not nearly all by any means, but there will be a ton more of them at the funeral service tomorrow. Speaking of which.... I need to be up way to early again tomorrow morning so I need to turn in.

     Up early, packed up and on the road by 10:00. Today's destination was only 150 miles away in N. Carolina. Only a couple of hours to get there so I took my time and dawdled along the way a bit. Even then I made it into Falls Lake State Park before 4:00. Nobody there to check me in so I just went over to my site and set the trailer up. Very nice park with more than 200 campsites, but it seemed like there were only a couple other campers in the whole place.

    Got Esmerelda all set up and attached to shore power and water before heading back up to the front gate to see about checking in. Lucky for me there was an actual person in the front hut and they actually had my reservation and all the appropriate paper work ready for me when I got there. That was pretty nice, but what wasn't was finding out that the front gate to the campground, the whole campground, would be closed and locked every night at 8:00 p.m. and not unlocked until 7:30 a.m. So that was a bummer since my flight out tomorrow is at 7:05 in the morning. Now you would think there would be some mention of this right up front somewhere before you actually go and make a 10 day reservation, but no, not a mention of it anywhere. So now my plan was all screwed up and there was only a little bit of time to fall back and figure something else out.

     In the end it was just a matter of packing up the rest of my bag for next week, turning off the water, setting up my fake lights and radio, locking the doors and heading out. The idea I came up with was to find a cheap hotel somewhere close to the hotel and just take off from there early in the morning. No problem finding a hotel right next to the airport, the cheap part...... well, it is only for one night. So I am now safely stashed away in room #305 waiting for the morning to come. The one problem I see cropping up is that it was 80+ degrees here today.... short pants, t-shirt and sandals. Tomorrow I'll be headed for below freezing temps with snow and ice all around. And me forgetting my main coat and gloves. Duh!

    Doing better today as life gets back to normal a bit more. It has actually been a pretty good couple of days now as thoughts of my mom's death sink in and life still continues. Part of me grieves intensely while another part watches as though from a distance and wonders why all of this drama over a natural process that we will all experience at some point in life. There is also yet another part that looks askance at any least amount of joy that might be felt these days and a bit of guilt for actually going out and enjoying life and having fun. So after a bit more reflection I'm going to lean a bit more toward getting on with life and enjoying what it has to give while I still have a chance to do it.

    So yesterday was a good start to it having gone in to town for the last few hours of the contra dance there. Some wonderful dancing to do with lovely and lively partners all to the music of the 'Groove Mongers' and the calling of Gaye. I have several pretty good friends here in the area also so it was nice to spend some time talking to them.

     One of my friends, Brenda, volunteered to take me on a tour of some of the city which I readily agreed to. Lot's of old history in this city so we went by many of the Pre Civil War buildings and homes. Even saw the state capital and governor's mansion, where I found out, they shot many of the scenes from this years block buster movie 'Lincoln'. We also spent an hour or so at a local bar replenishing calories and fluids with some wonderful local brews and a plate of calamari. Not to much to eat or drink though as she promised me a visit to her nephews new barbecue place later on for some outstanding ribs and brisket. They were all of that of course, plus the cornbread and collard greens..... well there weren't any left overs to take back to the trailer on my plate. So thanks to her for a wonderful afternoon and evening of just goofing off.

    Got a couple of calls from friends and family back in Colorado also. Looks like mom's funeral will be on Thursday so I spent some time last night getting reservations for first, Esmerelda down at a state park just north of Raleigh NC and then plane and car reservations for myself out of the Raleigh/Durham airport. So right now it looks like I'll break camp tomorrow morning, a day ahead of schedule, and head down to Fall River State Park and set up there for 10 days. Then on Wednesday I'll fly out of there and head for Denver, getting there sometime in the early afternoon.

    Will stay with my friends George and Marge for the week I Will be there and then fly back on the 'Red Eye' flight on the following Tuesday. So in the meantime I did laundry this morning and started packing my bag again. I will end up having to miss the Bug Stomp dance this next weekend down in Charleston, but that is okay. There will be several more dances to do in the next several weeks.

   Guess I better get back to it now. Need to clean out the fridge a bit more and pick up and put away a few more things so tomorrows move goes smoothly.

    Feeling a bit more 'together' today after a good, long, nights worth of sleep. Yesterday was a rather long and hard day, both emotionally of course, but also just physically being up for that length of time with all the stress that has been going on.

    I actually went over to the dance weekend, The Springforth Ball, that started last night and danced for a couple of hours. It might seem strange but being around so many happy, smiling faces really helped even though, or maybe because, only a very few of them knew what was going on.

   Past the half time break though it was nice to just find an out of the way corner and curl up with a cup of hot tea and just listen to the music for a little while. A little hard to get to sleep last night with so much running through my mind, but eventually it all faded out and it was finally time for a few hours of dreamless sleep.

    Just hanging out at the trailer for most of today. Have spent a few hours trying to figure out responses to all of the variables in the works. I'll be heading back to Denver at some time in the near future of course, but the question is when? Right now it looks like my mom's funereal will be sometime between next Wednesday and Saturday. My brother should find out in a day or two, but until then I'm going to just have to sit tight and get ready to go when I hear.

   In the meantime here are a couple of pictures I took while back in Denver this week. The first couple were taken on a nice warm day when my friend got most of his 'toys' out for the season. The second batch were from the very next day.

Spring time in Denver - April 9-10, 2013

A boy and his dog. My friend Tom with his dog Rhodie. She has been riding with him since she was just a little puppy. Finally a warm sunny spring day in Denver. Just right for getting all the toys out and ready for the summer.

She seems perfectly content to just sit there while he paddles her around the lake.

She even manages to turn around at will while on his board. All with out dumping them both in the water.

This is the next day and shows what spring can be like in the Rockies. The odd thing is that it is likely to be warm again the next day and all of the snow will soon be gone again.

Another look at the lake and the boats that are once again waiting for a warm day.

The cats just figure it's another good day to stay inside and take naps. This one is Sirius.