We Were Missing The Heat

No photos tonight. Sorry. We are a little preoccupied. We mentioned yesterday that GrandDad's knee was acting up. It was serious enough that we came back to Phoenix today. He will look for an Orthopedic surgeon starting tomorrow, with the expectation of arthroscopic surgery soon.

It is supposed to be 110 tomorrow. It was 74 in Ouray yesterday. What a shock. No more hot tubs for us.

Ouray Must-Do Items For Our Last Day

What a whirlwind trip. It seems we are doing something nonstop. Take this morning for instance. We had a Continental breakfast, hurried over to the laundromat and spent the morning there, then it was time for lunch. Buen Tiempo, the local Mexican food spot we always go to at least once.

It was too early to check in the hotel room, so we headed out to Yankee Boy Basin. Actually, as we mentioned in yesterday's blog, that was always the plan. We spent quite a while there, maybe 2-3 hours. We didn't work on the Walker dam, and did not even go over there.
We ended up staying at the twin falls the entire time. We have never seen that much water. It is a result of over 21 feet of snow this winter. In fact, there was still a lot of snow up there. There was evidence of a number of avalanches all over the trail.

Here is a path from one of the avalanches.

Before we left, GrandDad and Kathie and Randy hiked all around both of the falls. Randy took a bunch of pictures, but it was GrandDad who had the defining moment.
"The Hills are Alive..."

On the way back to town, we started up the trail to Imogene Pass, but made it less than a mile. It was just too rough. So, we headed back into town and passed through a nice pleasant summer rain. In keeping with our breakneck speed, we only rested an hour before going to dinner at a sandwich shop at the north end of Ouray. Yes, we did get ice cream after dinner.

GrandDad's knee is acting up a bit, so please be praying for that.

Tomorrow, we leave Ouray and head north towards Gunnison.

Over Ophir On Our Own

We have not been hurrying out in the mornings. Today we drove over Ophir pass, and for some 20 minutes, we were the only people there. It's true. Look here.
Here is a photo Randy took using his remote control that shows the four of us, standing in the empty road at Ophir.

It was amazingly quiet up there. There was much less snow than the family reunion. With only four of us there, and all seniors, no snowballs were thrown. The marmot fussed at us...as usual. We drove past the little lake below Ophir and avoided the mosqitos. We drove over to Telluride and drove up to the base of Bridal Veil Falls. It was running strongly after an exceptionally high snowfall during the winter. In fact, the small number of four-wheelers we saw may have to do with how many trails are still closed. Here is a photo taken at the base of the falls in the mist and rain.

We visited Telluride for lunch. We wanted to drive Last Dollar Road, but it started raining. So, since Keith wasn't here to help with a new song, we avoided the muddy road.

Tonight, just as we have the last two nights, we will end with a soak in the hot tub. We start in the 105 degree pool and then cool off in the 102 degree one.

Tomorrow, maybe Imogene and then Yankee Boy Basin. We are not sure if we can pass the rocks in Imogene this year, but we will try.

An Easy(?) Day

Hey, this was supposed to be a lazy day. We ended up walking/hiking all day. I think Randy's new camera is pacing our trip. We started out downtown and did a little shopping. Randy had to buy a new tripod because he forgot his. While we were there, we hiked up to Cascade Falls. Here is GrandDad taking a photo of the water. It was flowing very nicely, it wasn't very crowded, and so we stayed quite a while.


After lunch, we went up to Box Canyon Falls. It was a little warm in the afternoon, but quite cool in near the waterfall. GrandDad, Kathie and Randy hiked on up to the High Bridge to look down on the falls. This is a shot Randy took as we entered the falls area.

The town reopened the San Juan Odyssey and so we saw it after dinner. It was fun to see, but we miss the old version. This one was on a screen and they are thinking of making a DVD of it. The old show had 5 different screens and so included a lot more images.

It looks like we will drive over Ophir tomorrow morning, lunch in Telluride, and end up on Last Dollar Road. Many of the passes remain closed due to snow, so we are having to adjust our schedule.

Getting There Is Half The Fun

We made it from PHX to Ouray in one easy trip. We made just a few stops for obvious reasons. We are staying at the Hot Tub Hotel (it's name is actually Box Canyon Lodge), but needed to stretch our legs before hot tubbing. We still don't know what we will do tomorrow, but we are OK with that. It's a vacation! It's pretty and cool here. We can hear the river outside our room.

Here is a shot along the road between Telluride and Ouray. The sunset colors caught our eyes and we had to capture it while we could.

Check back for updates later.

San Diego

We took a trip to San Diego with Carey and Leigh this week (Monday thru Thursday; came home Friday). Jay had the opportunity to join us, but chose to work instead. He's working at Kyrene schools with the group where Carey works. Paul has had a similar job in past summers.
Back to San Diego. We stayed at a hotel on the beach, but the water is too dang cold for swimming. I did get my feet wet, twice. Went to Sea World,

Wild Animal Park,


And, my (Grandad) favorite, visited the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Midway.

The last picture is sunset from our balcony on Thursday night.

disneyland and graduation stuff

Caleb graduated from high school this month. We drove up to Pahrump to help celebrate. We had never been to a home-school graduation before. It was a good time for us all. Katie and Justin drove down from Redding for the occasion, too. Caleb wore a blue cap and gown, and got lots of presents and cards. They also invited special friends from the church. There were speeches from family and friends. The ceremony was wrapped up with a Chinese dinner from a local Chinese restaurant. We took photos, a few anyway.
Sunday we all went to church. Keith, Lauri, Caleb, Dad, and I sang a cool arrangement of "Jesus Loves Me", and Kim accompanied us on the piano. We had Sunday lunch at a local country club. Katie and Justin had to leave soon after to head back for Redding. The rest of us napped. There were some activities at church that Keith and Kim had to attend later.
Monday we all packed up our cars and headed out for Disneyland! Laurie drove until we stopped for lunch, trying to get in enough hours driving to qualify for her license. We got to LA and spent the evening at the Disney Village looking and browsing in shops, then played a domino game before we went to sleep.
Tuesday we literally spent the whole day in Disneyland. Got lots of pix, and had lots of fun! But when G-dad rode Space Mountain he got "beat up" pretty bad. He was sick the whole next day, but the rest of us, being the kind of people we are, went to the California Adventure for most of the day, with a quick run over to the other park later. Thursday G-dad felt some better, and joined us for part of the day. After a good breakfast at Denny's, we all headed out for our respective homes.
We have more trips planned this summer...stay tuned for further reports!