My Last Long Blog!! But not to long!

I know this probably will not work but I guess I can try.  I was informed by a family member that I have to write more often.  Like once a week. We shall see how that goes.

1st and foremost.....do not be Monkey #4

I have not taken a picture of a tree lately and I know you all miss my tree pictures so here you go!!  You are welcome!!

Been meaning to make a snowman ice cream cone for a while and finally had the time.  He turned out pretty awesome, but I think I will stick to the simple ice cream cones to give to kids.  This guy has to many things to bite off and choke on!!  I don't want to kill kids! 

As many of you may know, my brother is a truck driver who delivers liquid chocolate.  At the end of his runs, he gets all the chocolate left in the pump tube and saves it all for family, friends, neighbors and honestly perfect strangers.  The stockpile in his house is crazy.  The stockpile in my home from him is little to none after covering these.  Yum, but he should come visit me to replenish my stash!!  

Pretty rainbow over the mountains!!  So many rainbows this year!!  It rains, it shines!!

This is Marshall.  Dick disc golfs with him almost daily.  He is also a crocheting dude.  Making long hooded super warm robes.  Talented dude!! He closes mines for one of his many jobs and is also a prospector!!  Took us looking for treasures and it was so amazing.  You cannot get into these hills without 4-wheel drive.  We drove to one of his favorite spots and found many a treasure. My Arizonia rock garden will most definitely sparkle.  I may even be rich!!  I will have to investigate the sparkles to see if they are the real deal.  Even if they are not.....I've got bling galore. 

Took another 4-wheel drive trip up to Telluride across Ophir Pass, elevation 11,789 with some friends in their vehicles.  What a blast.  There is a disc golf course on the ski hill so they all played a round.  We went on the gondolas and went into town to walk about and have lunch and beers and headed back over.  An adventure to be remembered for sure.

This fine vehicle with a side car was outside of the brewery.  Probably not for tourists to sit in but nothing can stop this guy from a photo op!

We headed up the hill to a bar that has a large outdoor venue.  This particular weekend it was Gatorfest.  A Cajun fest where every year they build a rather large alligator structure and burn it.  Lots of crazy people and Cajun food and plenty of beer.  It was a fest we would return to should we return.

Just more crochet stuff!

A lovely lady in Tucson gave me a crappy white box and I painted it pretty.  Now to find someone to give it to.  

More Moose on the loose!!

Harriet visits!!!  Yippy!!  Roni and Dan too!!

Picture in the park of happy people.

4 wheel adventure to the mountains and a picnic!!  What could be better.  Well on the way we saw moose and Roni almost peed her pants. She was a moose virgin and was so very excited.  

A hard day of riding the dusty trail deserved a luxurious bath!

Spent some time at the library in town and then the park outside.

Out of order pictures of moose and more of the 4-wheeling ride.

We headed to Ouray for a little hike and a soke in the hot spring!! Such a relaxing day for sure.

This is a pretty darn good picture of us!

These are all the women I work with at the camp and then a picture of all the women with the guys.  What a great group of people we had to work with this year.

Well, I cracked one of the lenses on my phone and now there is a foggy, streaky thing going on so you are just going have to deal with this in my blog pictures until I get a new phone when we return to AZ.  It does not happen all the time but when it does it is sometimes for the best.  I think the picture below looks pretty old fashioned and it is a great picture of this lovely family. 

We took the train to Durango to spend a few days with Roni, Dan, & Harriet.  We had such a great time.  I might have walked the soles off my feet but it was well worth it.

Took a side trip to Mesa Verde National Park, where I purchased a lifetime senior pass to the National Parks.  Yup $80 gets me in all the park forever. Great investment.  We took a guided tour which was awesome.  The Pueblo Indians sure knew how to make it look rough to build a home!!!

Another Picnic!!  We love picnics!!  Everyone should have a picnic more often.

A streaky picture so you know what to expect sometimes!!

Just a girl who loves throwing rocks in a river.

The spirt of the Navajo is strong.

Ride the rails with spooky Harriet and my awesome camera.

July and a little of June

 So...I don't always take all the pictures, so when I get around to asking Dick for his I have already posted so if some pictures look like you may have seen them, just look at them again!! OOPS!

Dick is a happy camper here!!  He has found his group of people who love the sport of Disc Golf as much as him.  He plays nearly every day and sometimes twice a day.  It helps to have the course 2 blocks away, but we have gone within and hour and a half to other courses.  Glad retirement plan is working out!!

I painted these a while ago and we hung them around the camp for a bug scavenger hunt for kids.  There is not a lot of things for kids to do here in the way of planned activities as there have been in some other parks that we have been in so we and the folks at the park put together a few things for kids to do that can gain them access to the prize box. Happy campers have happy kids!!

The guys at the park put this up as a happy hour tent.  Every Thursday from 7-9, anyone who wants to gather and chat about the trails or the moose or the bears comes out and brings their cocktails and snacks.  Fun time!  we had some live music one time this month too.  I am not a country fan, but the guy was awesome.  Obviously, there was a cover put on top of this structure and a propane fire pit with comfy furniture was added.  Nice space to gather.  I brought watermelon sluch to share one time and a Wisconsin cheese buffet!!

Getting kind of fancy with the jewelry lately. 

So.....Do you see the brown in the middle of the mountain??  This is called a tailing.  They are all over the mountains here.  You probably may have noticed these as you drive around thinking they are just bare spots or rockslides but no!  They are a rockslide in a sense, but man made.  Everywhere you see this there was a prospector digging for treasures.  YUP, mining or now abandoned mines.  I have for sure told you this before, but these people were crazy.  The tailings are a great place to find some treasures though. You can certainly find gold, silver and other stuff but you also have to have the crushers, separators and chemical to extract it all.  What a process!!

People travel miles and miles to see all the wildflowers up here in the hills.  So beautiful!!

We took a hike up through the cemetery to a little water feature in the hills. So much water flows from where I do not know!  I do know that it is beautiful!!

This particular water is some sort of source for the town so it must be coming from somewhere good.  Or maybe it is used for sewage treatment plant.  This girl will never know. 

This rock wall just spoke to me!  

More nature and flowers!!

I made a pie without a pie plate!  It was delicious!  It would have been better with ice cream but our frig just does not freeze it solid and I really do not like mush on my pie.

So days we have this fogginess across the mountains, and it is so pretty.  Not the best picture of this but we like it.  The little building is a rental for the campground. It is called Creekside cabin in case anyone wants to get online and rent it to come visit us.  We will be here next year June, July and August too so if you think you don't have an opportunity this year, there is always next year.

We love our front yard! No neighbors on the front side, just trees and my crafty crap tent!

4th of July water wars parade was a long walk but so much fun.  Our float took 3rd place which is awesome for the campground first float entry ever.  We were soaked at the end of this event.  Had totes filled with water and many a squirt gun to blast the crowd.

We walked next to this funky thing with beach balls and water in the back   People just thought this was the coolest vehicle.  Probably because it was manned by the coolest people!!

After the parade Dick found some new friends.  Guess what! They were from Wisconsin.  Hacky sacking with the cheeseheads! The old guy still have the moves to hang out with the gang decades behind him.

DUCKS !!!  So many Ducks!  So this is a 4th of July annual fund raising for the town.  Buying ducks and hanging at the creek bank to see if your duck makes it to the finish line first.  We didn't not win.  It was a great event to watch.  Hundreds and hundreds of ducks!

The fireworks in Silverton are known for miles around.  They were Amazing!!!  Shot off a hill just a short distance from our front yard!  If you are ever close by on the 4th.....GO!

Off to another disc course. Top of the Pines was about and hour 15 away and worth the drive.  Dick got an ACE and I got pinecones. The views were awesome as well.

This Mill is across from the campground up on the mountain.  It looks so awesome from below and up close it is even cooler!!  It was a hike to get there but I didn't die.  Almost though!!  This uphill stuff just doesn't get any easier.  I am really going to have to get in shape this winter for next year.  Truely everything is uphill both ways.  So when I am old and tell the stories of UP HILL both ways......I am not telling a lie!!

Dick was pulling out a rusty nail for me.  Love my rust!!

Lacy Rose is the hotel/eatery in town and they have amazing cheese curds with a bacon jalapeño sauce. Super yum.  We have had these twice and hope to have at least that many more times while here. 

I ordered cheese from Wisconsin.   All were delicious.  These are the ones I took to happy hour.  Loved by all.

We walked to the park to make sure it had acceptable trials, play equipment & views for our upcoming visit with Harriet (the youngest Granddaughter). August 20th cannot come soon enough. I am sure we will run out of time to do all the things we want but any time is better than none. 

The Camp has a Jig for making parachute bracelets.  All the stuff too.  I couldn't not make a few!!  I sent 3 to Lily (oldest Granddaughter) She can share with friends or not.

The campground had a contest to see which couple could get the most google review that had their names tagged.  Guess who won!!  The certificate was for $75 at the local brewery/pizza joint.  We were meant to win this as these are two of our favorite things.  The owners wanted a picture of us with the certificate and Dick was out golfing when they delivered it.  We took a picture but with a modified certificate and sent the picture back to them.  They posted the picture to the workcamper site and no one noticed that we changed it to $75,000.00 dollars. CRAZY!!

Just a tree!!

Took a walk through the marshy area below the Mill.  A girl was walking about the camp in the willow brush the other day and was knocked over by a moose that was startled by her.  She survived but I surely would have died.  The moose love this marshy area, and we watched and listened while on this walk after this incident.

We that's is it for July!!  We have 2 more full months here and will surely enjoy all the walking about town and the hills.  Looking forward to the family visit and more adventures in August. 

Stay tuned!!