Rhonda's Piano in her basement studio.
We left Colorado last year after putting my mother's urn to rest on the window sill with her favorite hat on top facing out her window as she would often do when she was looking for words when writing long letters to friends. This was the culmination of our trip to clean out the house last summer after her passing, not knowing when we would return. Over a year later we managed a return trip, not a long one but a short trip with nothing really on an any agenda but to perhaps catch the local rodeo that was happening that weekend. My bride has never attended the local Westcliffe Stampede rodeo, so I thought it might be a treat for her. We had initially hoped that my sister and her husband Gary would be able to go to the rodeo with us but their duties at the Dairy were somewhat overwhelming due to the poor weather they were having and they were not able to get away until Sunday, after most of the rodeo shenanigans were over.
Karen and I bought our airline tickets over six months in advance to get the cheapest flight we could, and we acquired our rental car reservation about a month and a half in advance. It was cheaper weekly rate for us to get a small SUV than an economy size car because nobody wants to rent "gas -guzzlers" I guess. I figured if we were driving at home I would be putting gas in two cars, and one of them would be a mid-sized SUV, why not rent the SUV - gas is not that much more expensive out there. I was right gas was only about 3 cents higher at the pump than at home. So the rental choice wasn't a bad one. But what to do with the MUTTS. Well, we farmed Ellie the little Chihuahua out to Karen's mom & dad who are elderly and living with a single cat, the FAT Chihuahua, Tinkerbell went and commenced her exercise program running up and down our daughter Cheryl's stairs at her townhouse trying to avoid their Golden Labrador Max. The two big Rottweilers Bronco and Ninya went to the doggie hotel at $$ per day. Our flight left at 06:30 so we drove ourselves to the airport and parked in the parking garage, Cheryl would come retrieve our truck later that day for us and take it home. Our return flight comes back late in the evening so Cheryl will then return the truck to the airport parking garage sometime on day we return, so then we can drive home with out keeping anyone out late.
We had a very pleasant and unremarkable flight to Denver and touched down around noon. We had no snags getting our rental except that we were suppose to get a Jeep Grand Cherokee, they substituted a Chevy Traverse instead. I am not a fan of GM products, but it is what it is. It turned out to be a road worthy vehicle for our little adventure. We loaded up and commenced the trek from Denver International to my sister's house in Erie which is about 20 miles, but you have to almost drive into downtown Denver on I70 to catch I270 to I25 then exit 232 to County Road 7 to her house, without any traffic through Denver it is a breezy 30 minute ride as the speed limit is 75mph until you get into Denver then it slows to 65mph. But if there is traffic it can take HOURS. Luckily for us there was no traffic and we were at my sisters house by 1:30 PM. My sister Rhonda was home and waiting for us, along with all of her cats. She must have a gazillion of them, rally a dozen or more. Big ones, little ones and one that my mom had before she died. They have two dogs as well, a lizard, birds and that's just what lives in the house. Outside are ducks, geese, chickens and a horse. I think she needs goats, but I get a weird look when I mention that. You would have to know about our childhood to understand that. Anyway, she was also dog-sitting her youngest daughter's dog "ding-dong-dangleberry-dinosaur" is his nickname, a fully matured Great Dane. He is a horse of a dog. last summer when he was playing with Ninya our female Rottweiler, he made Ninya look like a damn puppy next to him.
We spent the night with my sister and then loaded up and headed off the next morning to maximize our time up on the mountains in Westcliffe. Rhonda and Gary would come down in a few days on Sunday as their work on the Dairy permitted. We left Rhonda's house right at about 10:00 figuring we should hit downtown Denver on I25 right around 10:30 well past rush hour and well before lunch time traffic. We were right, we sailed through ALL of Denver, even the severely congested South Denver area, we were in Castle Rock by 11:10 AM, darn good time, those 75mph speed limits are a great! We went through Colorado Springs at lunch time with absolutely no traffic and on to Florence and Westcliffe. When we dropped into the Wet Mountain Valley I had expected to see quite a bit of snow on the mountains because the Front Range behind Denver was quite snow capped still. However, the Sangre De Christo mountains were nearly barren of snow, they must have had a pretty dry winter. As we drove further into the valley it was not living up to its moniker of the Wet Mountain Valley, the valley was dry as a bone. Many fields that a year ago were lush hay fields, now looked like tumbleweed factories. Dry and brown was the primary color vice lush and green. The town looked weathered and dry as well, not as vibrant. Our first order of business was for me to go to the Sheriff's Office and pick up my Colorado Concealed Carry Permit which I had applied for the previous year, since it took the Colorado Bureau of Investigations sixty - ninety days to screen all new applications, I would have been long gone when my came back last year, The Sheriff kept it on file for me when it came back. Next we went and bought some basic groceries and such and then drove up to the Ranch at the end of Verdemont Lane. Driving into the yard each time invokes feelings that can't be put down, that big two story house with two chimneys and big inviting windows. It used to mean that Grandma Helen was always there to see you and ask you how your day was, and if it was cold there was always a warm fire in the kitchen stove. Today it was an empty house, waiting for us to bring it warmth and life. Karen and I unlocked the doors and started the pump, checked the well house and cellar to make sure there were no water surprises like last time. Last time we started the pump and by the time we opened the cellar to turn on the hot water heater there was two feet of water in the cellar due to broken pipes. Luckily, this had already been taken care of by my great sister and her husband Gary, they replaced all of the basic plumbing in the cellar with a system that could be easily drained each fall.
After unloading the groceries and our clothes from the Chevy, Karen and I started walking about the place. Things were different from when we had been there last time. All of the out buildings were gone, had been leveled and removed. Where all of the corrals and pens and stalls once stood was now just flat land. Rhonda said it was different, and that I would either love it or hate it. I surveyed the carnage and came to the conclusion that I loved it. Tearing down all of the old stuff was the best decision we made to date. Time for a new start on the land of Verdemont. Gary had planted a few new trees and I was under orders to find them and water them every day, which I did. When we had cleaned the house out, we had pretty much cleaned everything that was crap and tossed it, that left just the antique furniture. Some of which went up to Erie with Rhonda, a few pieces remain in the house, and probably will forever.
The one thing that I noted is that if it had not been chained downed or locked down, someone helped themselves to it after my mom died. Item in point, our blacksmith's anvil. We had a blacksmith's anvil that weighed over five hundred pounds and was about thirty inches long, eight inches wide and about a foot tall and black as coal. For the last 40 some odd years it sat out side our "junk house", the tack & feed shed, where we could use it to straighten nails, pound out horse shoes or just about any darn pounding job you could think of. Previously it had been located at the "new building" which was located about 15 yards from the "junk house". In the late 60's my grandma Helen wanted it moved up near the "junk house" and I remember that it took all afternoon and every available man on the place to move that enormous piece of metal and set it up where she wanted it. To say it was massive is an understatement. It stayed there up until last summer after our mother died. I remember initially trying to dig it myself out of the surrounding mire, trying to budge it to no avail. I figured it was safe for the time being and put an old water tank upside down over it. The sad story, by the end of last summer my sister reported to me that some thief had decided that they deserved to have that part of the Brandon/Montgomery/Jagow history more than I and had stolen it. There were few tangible items on that ranch that held any sentimental value to me other than the Ranch house itself, that anvil was one of them. I used to sit at it for hours pounding out crooked horseshoe nails into straight ones, 10 for a penny. A penny a piece for a properly straightened horse shoe that could be reused. That's how I bought my model rockets, gas for my dirt bike and of course .22 shells to hunt birds and squirrels. So this is for whoever stole my anvil, if you have a heart, put it back.
It is a real shame that all of my mom's horse friends and other low life's descended upon the ranch and picked the place darn near clean. Someone even stole all of the tools and jacks out of the 59' International Harvester truck and the big Ford 4WD. Luckily the logging chains were locked down holding down an antique sharpening stone and some other things around a tree or they would be gone as well. It was very heartbreaking to see. My sister and I have some good ideas who probably got what, but we will never see any of it ever again, I sure hope they sleep good at night.
On to brighter things, my bride Karen and I were able to stroll about the place and finally come up with where we will build our retirement home. It is quite different than where I have always envisioned it. I have always envisioned our house at the head of our great park about a quarter mile from the main house. The views there are unbelievable, I have been going up there and sitting on this big pink rock that is about the size of an arm chair since I was about eight years old. Well, that was before all those old buildings and corrals were torn down. With all those gone, the best darn spot is in the big corral we held the sheep in before it got nasty in the winter and then later after we stopped having sheep, we kept the big stacks of hay for the horses in there. It has a special pine tree that has two trunks growing very close together. Our house will be in the shadows of the twin pine tree. It will be about 120 yards from the main house. We will have to twist wickets with the county to get variances to build two houses so close on the same plot of land and more importantly, share the same well. I spoke with the county planners briefly and they said it is a fairly common thing, but to start the process about two years prior to when we actually want to start building. So, we have some time to start our ciphering and finagling as I suppose it will be at least a decade before Karen and I will be packing up anything to head on out that way in a permanent fashion.
That night we decided to treat ourselves to the best Mexican food in all of Colorado at Eduardo's in Westcliffe, hand prepared selections with hand made tortilla chips and salsa, who could ask for anything more. We ate like kings and queens, I had a three layer enchilada with potatoes and real refried beans and I asked for it hot, it was HOT! Karen had a chicken creation that I knew was sending her into heaven and she darn near ate all of it, something she almost never does! After eating we wandered around town a bit and then headed back up to the Ranch for a very restful night of sleep. Friday morning found Karen learning how to use a twenty year hotplate to make breakfast and make toast in an equally old toaster/broiler oven. Breakfast was good, despite the parched toast, the toaster was going to take some mastering, I don't think I still had the skill set to use it anymore. We went and visited with my uncle Paul for a little while and let him know that my sister was coming on Sunday and that she would probably be cooking feasts for all of us. He showed several of his old Hodaka motorcycles he was repairing for various people and invited us to go cruise around and check out his tree farm. We later went back to town to find Cameron a replacement slingshot and have lunch and give Karen a little time to shop a bit. Since I had a brand new CCW permit I was feeling a bit "naked" so I "had" to buy a small pistol I could carry while I was in Colorado. I bought a nice little .380 semi auto, I explained to Karen that we needed a noise maker to scare away a bear if we should happen upon one... That day was also spent searching to buy a new table set and chairs for the Ranch. When Karen and I arrived at the ranch we were amazed at how much Rhonda and Gary had done to transform the house from the old dreary place it was to the new exciting and fun place it is now. The only thing that was still needed was to get rid of was the old damn table and chair set that had been in that house since about 1972. We checked a couple of places in Silvercliffe, passed up a couple in Westcliffe and then just hightailed it to Salida about 55 miles away as they had a real furniture store. In Salida we visited about a dozen places, some had some very nice sets, very nice, almost small car price nice, but really cool and hand made out of wood. We went into a regular furniture store and seen a really nice set, it was initially marked at $1198 and included six chairs and was black wood. We liked it but, left and went and looked around at some other stores for a while. Then we came back, and began haggling with them. We managed to haggle them down to $850 delivered to Westcliffe (55 miles away) on Monday.
Saturday was the Westcliffe Stampede Rodeo! It was kicked off in the morning by the Annual Stampede Parade through the town's Main Street. Karen and I found some choice spots out front of the town hall area and watched the parade, after the parade we spent the afternoon watching the rodeo which I think Karen really enjoyed, I took quite a few pictures. I kept getting told by the Sheriff's boys to get back away from the fence with that fancy camera. When it was all done and over we went back up to the ranch for a quiet night. While reading the program guide book for the rodeo we were surprised to learn that my mother, Mary Helen Montgomery Jagow was the very first Rodeo Queen of these annual shindigs almost sixty years ago. I told Karen we should have let someone know we were in the audience, maybe we could have had better seats and the Sheriff's boys might have left me alone while I was taking pictures.
Rhonda and Gary showed up on Sunday a little after lunchtime and we helped unload their stuff into the house. They brought an additional ATV so that if we wanted to go ATV riding we didn't have to "two-up" and somebody has to ride "bitch". The only issue is teaching Karen to drive one without killing someone. Not really a problem, as she is a quick study and not anxious to see how fast she can go. We did manage to ride the ATVs up and around on to the Rainbow Trail above what is known as Kiester's. The Rainbow Trail is a trail that runs the entire length of the Sangre De Christo mountains from which it feed trails up to all of the high lakes such as Brush Creek Lakes, Lakes of the Clouds, Veneble Lakes just to name a few all of which are at or above timberline. Sunday was spent mainly just catching up on what everything Rhonda & Gary had done in & under the house. And how the new little six trees that were planted came about, and that there were still vegetables in Grandma Helen' garden. Rhonda took over primary cooking duties and made up a feast which included feeding uncle Paul and his son Paul Jr. as well as a close friend to the family John Visloski who we have known since we were kids. Karen and I were keeping the purchase of the new table and chairs a secret, only hinting that something new was coming to the Ranch Monday morning and we couldn't start our searching in the court house until it was delivered.
Monday morning rolled around and I awoke to a clear morning with the moon just starting to set over the mountains before the sun came up, photo opportunity! So I spent an hour or so taking pictures of the moon-set and sun-rise over the mountains. Some ended up OK and some not so good. We had breakfast and waited for the delivery of new table/chair set. Finally around 10:00 AM they called and were double checking directions, said they had us on their GPS and just wanted to double check. I said once they found Verdemont lane, FOLLOW the handwritten directions I gave them and IGNORE any GPS directions as the roads are not labeled correctly on the GPS maps up here in the woods. An hour later they called me and said they had run out of road. I had them describe how thy had gotten where they were and deduced that they had missed the big hairpin turn at the mailboxes and they were at the precipice to the 4wd road to the national forest with their BIG ASS DELIVERY truck. I asked them if they remembered passing a big bunch of mailboxes on the left, they did, I said if you would have looked at my directions it said "follow the hairpin corner 180 degrees to the right" he would have been in our yard in about two minutes instead of goat climbing with his truck. He said he thought he could turn around and I told him I would drive the ATV up and meet him and lead him back down to the house. So I hopped on the big green ATV and went and found our lost truck and brought them to the Ranch. They were a little shaken I think, as that road they took is a little "rough" and narrow to put it mildly. When they had finished unloading I offered them all beer, but they only accepted some Mountain Dew sodas and they were off. Rhonda was excited about the table, and said that she really liked it. It is probably the first time a new table and chairs have been in that house in forty years. We all humped the old set out to the "Dance-Hall" to save it for just in case. Later that day we began our search of deeds in the county clerks office among all those old dusty books, after an hour or two's searching we came up with a couple of leads to start us off the next day.
Most of Tuesday morning was spent searching through the courthouse again. This time the clerk came in and gave me a lesson in searching for items. I had been just willy-nilly searching, from one title to another. She taught me how everything is indexed and cataloged so that it can be found. Gee, that is special - could have saved me some time over the past several visits up to the town. Anyhow, armed with my new knowledge of how to find things and crosscheck/cross-reference things I was able to ascertain in few hours that the title we had been searching for for two years did not exist in THIS courthouse. It must exist in the courthouse associated with Pueblo. That would have to wait until our next trip. That afternoon Karen and I took a nice long ATV ride where I managed to get her up on the Rainbow Trail and actually hike on it for a small stretch. We also visited with some old and dear friends of my Grandma Helen's, The Brights. The bought land from us way up next to the national forest and he built BOTH of his cabins from hand. The first cabin was pretty small, about 700 square feet, but the second one is a two story three bedroom cabin that is just beautiful. We visited with them for about an hour before we returned the ATVs to the Ranch for our last night on the mountain.
Wednesday found us getting up late and having quite a lazy day. We seemed to just lay about the place savoring our last hours on the Ranch. I took a lot of pictures of the mountains and scenery and we visited with some of our other cousins the Careys, mainly Bob Carey who is about my same age and who I had not seen since about 1976. Eventually Karen and I packed everything up and headed out for the 3 1/2 drive back up to Denver so we could catch our flight back home the following day. It was hard saying goodbye again to my sister and her husband, and even harder to say goodbye to the mountains. They become a part of you and you just can't express their draw upon you. We left about 5:30 PM, stopped in Canon City and had dinner at a great little Mexican place for dinner, I think it is called The Mission, but I wouldn't swear to it, was so good! Their Mexican food out there beats the cookie cutter crap out here like you can't believe. It is like comparing whatever you think is the best Mexican restaurant in this area to "day old - cold Taco Bell". We arrived at my sisters house in Erie about 9:00 PM and were in bed by 10:30 PM.
We could have gotten an award for turning in the dirtiest rental car, here is a line of nice clean rental cars and then there is this thing covered in about an 1/8 of an inch of reddish dirt. The rental return guy said, I guess you ventured a little out of Denver eh? I said "just a tad". Our flight home was happily very uneventful with no surprises and our doggies, except Ellie who was still at Karen's parents, were waiting in their cages for us and very happy to see us. We just rolled our luggage in and dropped it in the computer room and played with the mutts for a while and then let them outside for a while before we enjoyed a nice restful night in our own bed bringing an end to our 2011 Colorado vacation.
And now, here are a selection of the images from the dang trip. We start off in Rhonda & Gary's house.
Rhonda's Piano in her basement studio.
Rhonda & Gary's dining room.
Karen lounging in their upstairs living room.
The South side of the kitchen, yes it is that big.
The windows face East overlooking their sweet corn fields towards I25.
Karen lounging with some of the cat herd.
The Grate Dane.
Should I claw the hell out of you as you come up the stairs?
One big cat.
One big dog.
One little dog.
Sarah, owner of the big dog. Rhonda & Gary's middle daughter.
Let's go to the Dairy!
Barn owls.
Mean looking bird.
The milking brood.
One side of the milking line.
The milk meter, measures and controls how much milk comes from the cow.
The cow all hooked up to the milking machine, with milk flowing in the sight
glass.
It all collects in these big tanks, only part of which are inside.
Chuck checking the tank, don't fall in!
Karen full of curiosity as well.
We could not get Karen to ride the cow.
They must be up to something?
Gary shows Karen how it is done!
Baby calves wanting their breakfast.
Karen teasing them, letting them suck on her finger.
Rhonda & Gary's sweet corn crop, you can see I25 about a mile in the
distance.
From Rhonda's house we move onto the Ranch house in Westcliffe.
Rhonda made a small assemblage for our mom and her brother our uncle Paul.
This is the living room where my mom used to spend hours writing letters and
doing her
horse paperwork, reading and whatever else. Rhonda & Gary cleaned all
that crap out and
brought in these overstuffed couch things.
Another big change to the house was that Gary brought in a BIG
SCREEN TV!
If there is a Mary and Paul shrine then there must be a Rhonda & Chuck
shrine as well...
The kitchen wood stove, you have no idea how much wood
and coal I have hauled in the house to burn in this stove.
Another view of the kitchen and stove.
Here is Rhonda with her porcelain doll, she thinks is possessed.
Another view of the living room.
And still another shot.
Looking into the Front room which leads to the bathroom which
has the only level room in the house.
Karen in the dining room with the new table and chairs we bought in Salida.
Mom still gazing out her window.
An outside view of the Ranch house and remaining buildings.
This is another view of the Ranch from where Karen and I want to build our
house.
This view is from about the middle of our big open park.
We went to
Colorado on that particular weekend to enjoy Westcliffe's annual rodeo and
events. The next series of pictures are of the morning's parade and then
rodeo.
Waiting for the parade to start, note the old dude in a coat in July???
This is the start.
Here comes the Rodeo Queen and her Court.
The Rodeo Queen for 2011. My mother Mary Montgomery Jagow was the very
first
Westcliffe Stampede Rodeo Queen nearly sixty years ago.
A flag girl.
My Rodeo Queen.
Probably the ONLY English rider in the whole Wet Mountain Valley.
A local float.
The alpaca ranch.
Alpacas galore.
Dancers, where's the pole?
A lady in red.
Nice hat, we used to have a Shetland pony cart rig like this, it was a lot of
fun until my mom sold it.
Old fire truck.
New 4WD fire truck.
Big fire truck!
Tanker truck.
OK now it
is off to the RODEO! We start with Mutton busting, that is where very little
kids get on sheep and hold on for dear life for about ten seconds. Funny
as hell...
I started out straight up.
So did I, did someone grease this sheep?
All I have to do is hold on.
Oh no! I'm falling!
Where's the handle?
I've got this covered.
Thought I did...
What was I supposed to do again?
I did what he did?
OK, time for the big boys on the big bulls.
Eight seconds, easy.
I hope.
I can do this.
See!
Not so bad.
My turn to try.
This is a bumpy ride.
With a rough landing.
I can do better than that.
Uh-Oh, where is my bull?
There he is, behind me.
Get out of the way boys.
Let me show you how it is done.
You just ease on up here.
Lean back here.
And most importantly, enjoy the ride and wave to the fans.
One of my
pastimes while Karen was reading was to try to photograph our bevy of
hummingbirds. I probably took more images of hummingbirds than anything
else.
Coming in for a drink with wings forward and hovering.
Still hovering.
Finally put his little feet down, but those wings were still flapping.
Just coming in.
Finally at rest.
Drinking the sugar water while still flying.
Coming in for a drink.
Let's try the rear dining hall.
I awoke early one morning to find the moon just above Gibbs peak in the twilight.
About fifteen minutes later.
Looks like the Moon is rolling down the Southern slope.
Zoomed in on the Southern slope.
Just a big white marble rolling down the hill.
Oooops there it went.
A couple of months before we went out to Colorado a raging forest fire threatened the valley, it was known as the Duckett Fire and burned over four thousand acres of land. The homes and ranches on the county road just North of Verdemont were evacuated, we were next. Actually under a 24 hour get your stuff packed and get ready to go order. Rhonda & Gary hightailed it all the way from Denver with trucks and trailers ready empty the house of whatever things they thought might need saving. Then the winds changed and the firemen were able to air drop enough water to get the damn thing under control. The fire filled the valley with smoke and scared the hell out of every one. The next series of images are concerning the Duckett Fire and the devastation and how close it was to Verdemont Ranch.
The clearing on the very left in the trees is Verdemont Ranch, the black strips
just
above the cloud shadow on the far right is the Southern burn area of the fire.
Only
four significant ridges actually separated us from the fire, about 3 miles at
the most.
The primary area of the fire.
A better view of the fire area, lighter burned areas stretch another full camera
view to the right.
Close up of one of the areas, you can see where the winds carried the fire to
other areas.
Another view.
The entire area was still closed, even to residents.
We had two
ATVs at our disposal thanks to my sister and her husband so my Bride
and I took several relaxing ATV rides up into the mountains. Karen is a
good rider.
Karen walking up to the Rainbow Trail.
Me too.
OK, this is the Rainbow Trail? The Rainbow Trail is a trail that runs the
entire length of
the Sangre De Christo mountains. From it other trails sprout off to high
lakes and other
points of interest to climbers, hikers, fishermen, hunters and horseback riders.
Karen standing in front of the "test plot".
A beautiful vista from the Rainbow trail.
A big rock in the trail, a little hard to navigate on the ATV.
Another postcard scene.
You just can't get the depth of how steep this trail is here
from this picture, nor can you get how happy Karen is about
having to hike up it, she is "not" a hiker.
This is what Karen likes to hike on, nice and flat.
This is what you always keep an eye out for while walking in the mountains, sign
of bear.
Bears tear open old logs looking for grubs and ants to eat.
Our old friends the Bright's cabin, their original is on the right. They
built both by hand.
This is one of our roads, probably where the furniture delivery truck ended up.
Karen riding the ATV at the head of our park.
One of my favorite images from the trip.
Watch out I feel the need for speed!
This is our 1959 International Harvester 4WD. I used to drive this truck
to the creek in
the mornings before school and fill the eight 20 gallon and six 10 gallon steel
milk cans
with water and then haul it back up to the ranch and water the animals and bring
fresh water
into the house. That was my morning chore, imagine my delight when we
drilled a well in 1971.
The bone tree, these are the only things not "scavenged" from
the ranch after our mom died last year, because they are all
locked down under a heavy logging chain.
One of Gary's baby trees.
The tree by the house has been struck by lightning twice.
The Bottle Garden.
Another view of the Bottle Garden.
The Wind Peacock gaurds the Bottle Garden.
There are more than just bottles in the garden.
Gary's Bear.
I am thinking paint is supposed to not be in one's hair?
Face, hands and legs either.
A postcard image of Gibbs Peak.
Another shot with the Moon above.
A third shot of Gibbs, this time with the Moon and the twin pines.
Our very own hangman's tree, the story goes that a couple
of horse thieves were caught and strung up on the spot.
Our old Junk House, tack & feed shack, after a bad wind storm hit it.
Karen enjoying the air.
Another shot of my bride.
Scratching some of her cousins?
Trying to get some family history?
Feeding some friends.
At the rodeo.
This set of signs sits on a driveway that lies about a quarter mile from the
road to Lake
DeWeese. I can only imagine how many big old rigs with boats have had to
turn around in his
yard. It obviously has driven him to the point of these signs. I laugh a
little every time we pass.
One of two astronomy shots, Luna.
Luna up close, looks the same as in Virginia.
This mini-panoramic was shot in the dark, the only light is from the near full
Moon.
I just thought it looked pretty cool.
Guess who? That is Pikes Peak, or the back of it in the distance, about 65 miles
away.
Here is a close up of the back of Pikes Peak. It was a very clear morning.
The town of Westcliffe at night about ten miles away.
Westcliffe zoomed in.
Wild turkeys feeding on corn.
Our uncle Paul.
Uncle Paul is on the right and his son Paul Jr. on the left.
Almost the same panoramic, but in the daytime.
The twin pine, Karen and I will have a home next to them someday.
Just imagine a nice log cabin right there.
Can you guess which rental car was ours?
This one!
That's all for this vacation. I hope the next one will be longer and I won't forget my camera battery charger so I can take MORE images. I was running low on battery power so I had to be judicious with my imaging, but I still came come home with nearly five hundred images. If I would have had my charger, I could have done 1200+.
Thanks for viewing!