Tag Archives: Colorado

Arizona, Colorado

We’re late, We’re late, for a very important date… (Casa Grande, AZ)

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It took a lot of work… but we’re finally back on the road!  Goodbye ol’ house 😐

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On Thursday, with the help of my Dad, (Thanks again Dad!) we finished up some last minute details on the house and then concentrated on loading the Harley into the pickup along with any last minute forgotten items.  Back at the Elks Lodge, Stilla had some of her German friends come by the Coach to say goodbye.

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On Friday morning, (our travel day), I found myself up on a ladder trying to get as much ice off the roof as I could.  I had to use a hair-dryer and broom to get the chunks of ice off the slideout awnings so we could retract them.  I gave up trying to get the ice off the roof.  A lot of the snow had melted the previous day and turned into 1 – 2 inch thick ice that stubbornly refused to break up and fall off.

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While I was working on the ice problem, good friend Danny surprised us by stopping by to say goodbye.  Bye Dan! We’ll keep in touch.

We finally decided it was best for Stilla to follow me (at a safe distance) in the truck.  I didn’t want any of the ice chunks falling off and going through the truck windshield.  So, down the road we went… with ice chunks slowly melting and falling onto the highway behind us… goodbye cold Colorado… we’ll see you again when it’s warmer.

It took 70 miles before enough ice had fallen off the roof of the Coach so we could hook up the truck up for towing.  We even stopped at the rest stop just before Pueblo, where I got out the ladder and tried to break up some of the ice, but it was still too thick.

Just as it was becoming dusk, we stopped at the casino/gas station after Santa Fe but before Albuquerque to get fuel and noticed that my running lights weren’t working on the truck.  The brake lights and turn signals were fine, but the driving lights wouldn’t come on.  I’ve had this problem before.  I think it has to do with the Vansco Multiplex system the Coach employs.  I’ll have to work on it once we get to Quartzsite.  Since we didn’t have tail lights on the truck, and I didn’t want to just hook up an emergency flasher light, (which I carry), we decided to spend the night at the casino.

They charge $20 for electrical hook-up at the casino but gave us each a $10 players card.  We enjoyed their buffet for $20 and spent another $20 playing the slots.  Fortunately, we won just a little at the slot machines so we pretty much broke even by spending the night there.

On Saturday morning we got rolling about an hour after the sun had come over the horizon.  We made it to Casa Grande just as it was getting dark again.  Whew!  Time to refresh ourselves for the night, catch up with brother Steve & Cheryl, Mom and Stepdad Jimmy.

This morning, (Sunday), I’ll download the Harley from the truck and upload the ATV which has been stored here at the farm.  Hopefully, we can make it to Quartzsite at a reasonable time this afternoon.  The party already started there and we’re late…  I’ve already heard from some of the Alpine Coach group that are there, hope they saved us a spot in the desert 🙂

 

Arizona, Colorado

There and Back Again (Colorado Springs, CO)

We made the final road trip to Casa Grande on Sunday with “stuff”… made it back to COS on Tuesday.

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Cloud bank coming over mountains near Santa Fe NM

On Sunday: We, (Stilla, Little dog “Coach”, and I), left our house at 6 AM after hooking up the fully-loaded trailer and made it to Casa Grande by 9 PM.  After 15 hours of driving, we met my Mom, Stepdad (Jimmy), Brother Steve and his squeeze (Cheryl), for a late-night dinner at the Iron Skillet Restaurant just South of Casa Grande. The 900 mile trip down here took us 15 hours and we only got 9.2 miles per gallon with the heavy load.  Every time we pull the trailer, it’s like having an open parachute behind you.

After a good night’s sleep at the “dirt farm” in my Mom’s house, we spent Monday recuperating from the trip.  We also downloaded a few items from the trailer to the Conex.  Most items, we left in the trailer.  Then we gave the trailer a good washing with my brother’s pressure washer.  It also took a good amount of carwash soap, buckets and ladders to clean off all the road-grime and magnesium chloride.  That magnesium chloride is nasty stuff.  They put it on the roads for ice control and it’s hard to get off the under-components of your vehicle.  The stainless-steel wrap on the front of the trailer and fenders have spots all over that will have to be buffed out now to get rid of the effects of the stuff.  We parked and locked up the trailer in a safe spot on the farm.  (Thanks Steve, Cheryl, Mom & Jimmy)!

On Monday:  We got a 6 AM start back to Colorado Springs.  What a difference without the trailer (parachute) behind us… we made the 900 mile trip back to COS by 8 PM and we got a much more palatable 14.8 miles per gallon 🙂

On Tuesday:  We picked up my 90 day refill of meds from the Ft Carson hospital that I had requested the week prior and we stopped by Home Depot (again) for a couple last minute things to finish up the house that’s for sale.  I had to special order some 3-toggle light switch plates that they didn’t keep in stock… I needed them to match the others that we had already replaced.  I also finally finished up the carpet and trim pieces on the garage steps, which is yet another home project that I never got around to completing when we lived there.  Now, if the weather would just cooperate, I can finish staining the rear deck and painting the front porch.  These are the last items on our list to complete so we can head South.  Hopefully we can complete this quickly and hit the road with the Urban Escape Vehicle.  We’re late for the Alpine Coach Rally in Quartzsite.

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Looking West from the driveway – For Sale sign in yard.
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inner garage door steps (finally completed trim pieces and tacked down carpet)
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front porch with partially completed concrete paint (using “Restore” product from Home Depot)

With any luck, my next post will be coming to you from the warm Arizona desert 🙂

BTW- If anyone else out there is selling a house, beware of scam artists on Craigslist.  We had someone use our pics and name to represent it as a rental… hoping to con someone into sending them a deposit.  My realtor found and fixed this on Craigslist but not before someone stopped by to look at the “rental”.  I guess these scumbags try to get people to come by and look at the house through the windows, and when contacted, the scumbag says he’s out of town, but if you send him a deposit to secure the rental – he’ll send them the rental contract and keys…  scumbags!

Colorado

House for Sale (Colorado Springs, CO)

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Yay!  We finally got the house on the market.  Link here to Zillow. Or here for the MLS.

1111 Hill Mesa Pic

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It’s been a grueling couple months… Now we can just hope it sells quickly.

Regardless, it’s time to move the Urban Escape Vehicle to warmer climes.  We plan on being in Quartzsite by the 14th or 15th for the Alpine Coach “Desert Rat Rally”.

I still have to make one more trip with the trailer to Casa Grande AZ.  I already loaded it with the final garage stuff (tool boxes, wall lockers, etc.,) and will probably head down in a day or two.  I’ll leave the trailer there this time and come back to get the coach and the Harley… then we’ll be free again!!  Can’t wait.

Colorado

We Can See the End (Colorado Springs, CO)

We are finally getting close to being able to put the house on the market.  The carpet is finally done, I guess the adage; “3rd time is a charm”, is true.  The original carpet guy finally just paid a competitor to order and install the carpet at his expense since we had already paid.  Here’s a view of the stairs in progress.

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And, here’s a picture of the finished stairs for your viewing pleasure.

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The downstairs “family room/game room” looks a little weird with the light brown color carpet (called Honeycomb 201).  It used to have a light blue/gray carpet that complemented the wall colors.  I hope a potential buyer doesn’t “dislike” it.

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This is the bar that we’re including with the house.  I just wasn’t going to remove that back piece off the wall because I anchored it with lag bolts to the studs and ran electrical outlets to it when I originally finished this room.  Removing it would just create too much additional work with drywall, paint and texture issues.

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We had new carpet put in the Master Bedroom and walk-in closet along with the stairs and everywhere downstairs except for one of the bedrooms where we decided to leave our King Size Bedroom set.  We just didn’t want to move it again and figured it might add value and an additional incentive to buy the house for the new-owner(s).

This is the chandelier we put in the dining room.  The old one was just fine, but it was brass.  This was no easy chore due to the extremely high vaulted ceilings.  I even had to make another trip to Home Depot to get more black chain so it wasn’t hanging too high.  It doesn’t look too bad I guess.

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The driveway concrete repair has been the most expensive task so far.  This is where I used to park the Urban Escape Vehicle and the concrete just wasn’t thick enough to handle the weight.  It had some pretty major cracks and had settled in places.  The concrete guys did all the tear out and re-pour in one day.

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We were finally able to paint the Den after I got the tenant’s stuff out.IMG_5446 IMG_5447

Here’s a view out the front Den window looking up the street.  We haven’t been able to easily look out this window for a while due to the “stuff” I had to move out from the former tenant’s.

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We still have to clear the previous tenant’s stuff out of the Master Bath so we can give it a good cleaning and re-caulk where needed.

And there’s some wood-laminate flooring repairs I still need to make in the Great Room… sure glad I kept a couple boxes of the original floorboard.

We still need to finish re-staining the deck also, but that’s contingent on good weather, hopefully it warms up soon.

With any luck, we’ll finally have the house on the market at the beginning of the New Year.

I’ll try to keep you updated.  Stay tuned…

 

Colorado

Taking a Day Off (Colorado Springs, CO)

We finally took a day off (Sunday) from working around the house to help our friends Daniel and Monika move their daughter’s belongings back to their house.  Dan keeps up with the blog and knew about the new trailer purchase.  We were happy to be able to help, because as you know – what goes around comes around.

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Daniel

We were able to make quick work out of all the stuff that needed to be moved, the trailer ramp made loading easy.

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While we were on the way back to Dan and Monika’s house with the trailer loaded, we stopped by the house of our mutual friend’s – John and Angelika.  The Christmas lights and decorations are looking good Angelika 🙂

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We wanted to drop off a Coca-Cola Cooler that we gave them.  It’s much more satisfying to give some of our things to friends or family as opposed to selling them at greatly reduced prices or even taking things to Goodwill or ARC Thrift Stores.  We already gave John and Angelika our “retro” Jukebox that Stilla got for her birthday several years ago.  At least it’s in good hands and getting some use instead of being put in storage.

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NSM Jukebox “Digital Thunder” on the wall at our house (pic is a few years old)

While stopped at John and Angelika’s house – I used the opportunity to install the load-leveling hitch that I just got in from Amazon.com.  Their little cul-de-sac is much more level than the one at our house, and it’s important to do the installation on level ground.  With John and Dan’s help, we did some measuring and got the hitch installed at the correct height.  The load-leveling bars take a lot of weight off the hitch ball and distributes it more evenly, I’ve heard it described as functioning in a manner similar to a wheelbarrow.

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After we unloaded the trailer, Dan and Monika treated us to lunch at Applebee’s.  Thanks again Dan and Monika!

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We visited for a while back at Dan and Monika’s beautiful home and admired their awesome deck while our little dog “Coach” checked out the back yard and probably left his “calling card” somewhere… sorry about that Dan 🙂

Dan and I also made tentative plans.  If the timing is right, Dan offered to help me drive our stuff down to storage in Casa Grande.  With his help, we could drive straight there, drop off a load, maybe spend the night and then get right back in record time.  Dan is a professional truck driver by profession, (after his illustrious Army Career), so he’s no stranger to driving long distances.  We’ll have to see if the timing works out…

After chatting for a while and saying our goodbye’s, we drove straight back to the Urban Escape Vehicle which is safely parked at the Elks Lodge overlooking the pool that is (sadly) closed for the season.  This is the first day in – what seems like ages – that we didn’t spend the day at the house cleaning or painting something.

It was a good day off 🙂

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Urban Escape Vehicle at the COS Elks Lodge RV Park

 

Arizona, Colorado

Thanksgiving (Casa Grande, AZ)

Our work on getting the house ready to sell has been progressing fairly well, albeit slowly.  We (Stilla and I), often find ourselves asking things like; “Why didn’t we replace those outdated exterior lamps earlier?  Or why did we wait until now to change out that brass dining room chandelier?”  We’re drawing the line on putting in granite countertops and stainless appliances though ($$).  🙁  Early on in this house-selling escapade, we decided to not upgrade our white appliances and formica (or whatever they are) countertops as suggested by the realtor.  We’ve been just fine with them, and they still look and function great.  Hopefully, a potential buyer feels the same way.

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The interior repaint is almost done.  Just a few touchups here and there.  We hired a guy to paint most of the upstairs because of the extremely high vaulted ceilings… the last thing I need is to have another hip replacement because I fell off a ladder:)  The baseboards and trim have been the most tedious of tasks even though I’m only touching up the scrapes and dents for the most part.  By the way – I will never, ever, have another house with high-gloss white paint on doors and trim!  Er yeah… no problem there, the Urban Escape Vehicle doesn’t have  any painted trim – just real wood.

On Monday the 24th of November, the carpet guy that was scheduled to start replacement didn’t come through.  His associate ordered the wrong carpet!  The result is another week delay.  So I used the opportunity to get an early start on my promise to be in Casa Grande for Thanksgiving.

I left in the Silverado around 3 in the afternoon and got to my Mom and Brother Steve’s “dirt farm” by 8AM or so on Tuesday.  Stilla stayed behind in the Coach in order to help oldest daughter Jennifer watch the grandson while she was at work.

Here’s a front-view of my brother’s triple-wide.  My Mom and stepdad Jim have a super-long, single-wide at the front of the property.

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I got put to work right away with some fence projects.  Although, I did more supervision than actual physical labor as i’m sure brother Steve would validate.  In the pic below, we are using my stepdad’s Jeep to stretch the fencing.  My brother’s Steven and Ronald look on.

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Ron and Steve tacking the fencing to the post.  Ron is visiting from California and plans to stay and help around the “dirt farm” for a couple weeks.

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Stepdad Jimmy inspecting the mirror that brother Steve broke.   Just like my Mom always told us kids when we were growing up – “We can’t have anything nice.”

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We had quite a gathering of relatives on Thanksgiving day.  It was great seeing everyone.  Only my brother Donald from Florida was missing, however, his two kids Matthew and Christopher were there to represent him 🙂

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A good time was had by all.  Great food and great people!  It was also my brother Steven’s long-time girlfriend, Cheryl’s birthday!  That’s her holding the golden goose.  We ate and played games into the night… and then ate again.

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Here’s my wonderful Ma and her sister Kathy.  We affectionately call Aunt Kathy “Aunt Squirrely”

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On Black Friday, I decided to go trailer shopping.  So with my ever-helpful stepdad Jimmy in tow, we drove North to Phoenix and visited a few trailer businesses.  I did research on line and had determined that trailers seem to be cheaper in Arizona as opposed to Colorado.  We need a trailer to move all our “stuff” from Colorado and mitigate the costs of storage units.  I already have a storage unit in Colorado Springs and hope to be able to start moving stuff to the “dirt farm” as soon as we get the house on the market.  We’re also considering buying a “Conex” with the help of Mom and Jimmy to place on the “dirt farm” towards that end.

So here’s the result of Black Friday shopping:  A 7′ X 16′ dual axle cargo trailer from TrailersPlus.com.  It’s the “LoadRunner” model.  They had one model that was better, called the “ProSeries”, but it also came with a hefty price.  This one was a “Red Tag” special that ended up costing me ~$6,200 after taxes and permanent AZ plate.

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After sad early morning goodbye’s… I hit the road by 7:30 AM on Saturday in order to get back for the carpet install which was rescheduled for Monday the 1st of December.

I decided on an alternate scenic route out of Phoenix that saved me about 100 miles off the 900 mile route.  I took 87 East to Florence, then 79 North to connect with 60 East.  However, instead of taking 60 all the way to I-25, I turned north on 117 at Quemado which dropped me off on I-40 just West of Grants.  After that, it was a short interstate drive to Albequerque where I got on I-25.

It turned out to be a beautiful shortcut as the following pictures can attest:

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I drove straight through and made it back to Stilla at the Urban Escape Vehicle parked at the Elks Lodge in Colorado Springs by 10:30 PM on Saturday night.  15 hours total travel time.

Of course, on Monday the carpet guy calls and tells me that his associate(s) put in the wrong order AGAIN!  He will give me a $500 refund off the $2800 I already paid and I don’t have to pay the $500 upon completion.  He contacted another carpet company to do the work and they came by in the afternoon to measure everything once again.  So here we go again… I’m scheduled to finally get the carpet replaced next Tuesday.

Meanwhile, I used the time to put Thompson’s Water-Seal all over the wood on the inside of the new trailer.  I also ordered a load-leveling kit from Amazon.com and some E Track components for load management.

Stay tuned for more house selling adventures… hopefully, we can put all this behind us soon and get to warmer climes.  We definitely need to be in Quartzsite for the annual Alpine Coach “Desert Rat Rally” in January.  But I’ll probably be making some trips with the Silverado and trailer to put stuff in storage at the “dirt farm” before then.

 

Colorado

Uncle Alan’s (Floride, CO)

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On Tuesday I rode the Harley over to my Dad’s house to help him load a log-splitter into his trailer.  My Uncle Alan (Dad’s youngest brother) needed it at his house for some logs that are too big to do by hand.

Stilla chauffeured our visitors from Germany around town in the Silverado to do their own thing.

Meanwhile, I chauffered Dad and Stepmom Elaine in their Jeep with trailer attached up the pass (I-24 West from COS) to my Uncle Alan and Aunt Beverly’s house.  They live on approximately 10 acres that borders the Florissant Fossil beds.  It is halfway between Florissant and Divide, CO so my Uncle calls his homestead “Floride”.  Get it?

Here we are after unloading the heavy log-splitter from the trailer.

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My Uncle Alan (Dad’s brother) got a quick block of instruction on how to operate the splitter from Dad.

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Here’s the wood he wants to split.

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And here’s some of the wood he already split (by hand!).

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And here’s more piles of wood he already split!… Unk – I think you got enough to last awhile…

Here’s a picture of the Hobden homestead in “Floride”, CO.

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We then had a picnic, complete with campfire, at a spot near the house that Alan keeps on the ready with picnic table, chairs and fire pit.  Here’s Uncle Alan burning some hot dogs.

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Stepmom Elaine and Aunt Beverly set the picnic table.

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Dad & Elaine tried out the comfortable swing while waiting for the dogs and beans to finish cooking.

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After our fine picnic, Uncle Alan loaded the extra picnic accessories into his little trailer to take back to the house.

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We had a little fun touring around the property in Alan’s older model ATV.  Here’s Dad going for a spin.

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Off into the horizon…

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For the afternoon, Uncle Alan suggested we go on a hike to take a look at a house that sits on over 300 acres located on the West side of Pikes Peak.  Us folks from COS would call it the “back-side” of Pikes Peak but my Uncle says it’s the “front-side” for him.  I guess it’s a matter of perspective.

Interesting story – a gentleman by the name of Harvey Carter owned the land and house until his passing in 2012.  He was a pioneer rock-climber and entrepreneur that envisioned a ski area being developed on his land, but alas, it wasn’t to be.  Here’s a couple links for more information on the guy: Link here for obit and here for a short video.  It seems that the Broadmoor Hotel bought the land and house after Harvey’s passing and worked some sort of trade deal with the National Forest Service.  It is now NFS land.  The Colorado Springs newspaper, “The Gazette” did an article on this here.

My Uncle is a real-estate agent by trade and met this guy a couple years ago.  He got an exclusive personal tour of his land and first- hand account of Harvey Carter’s vision.

We had to park about a half-mile away from the house and hike in.  The spot where we parked at is at the end of the dirt road past the Crags campground.  It was good to walk off the hot dogs we had for lunch, but it was slow going due to the high altitude.

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Here’s a view of the trail we hiked on the backside of Pikes Peak.

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Many of the Aspens still have their leaves, but not for long…

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And here you can see one of the peaks just coming into view as we hiked the road on the back-side of Pikes Peak.

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We came upon a tree that had fallen across the road.  Unsure what could have caused it – maybe high winds.

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Pikes Peak as viewed from the West side.

Once the trail we walked joined the main road.  We could see that the road had been clearly widened and graded recently… not a good sign.  Alan speculated that the forest service may have already demolished the house and had widened the road to get the dump trucks and bulldozers in.

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We hiked and hiked… Alan kept telling us that it’s “just around the next bend”.  And he’d say the same thing after the next bend…

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View of Pikes Peak from the West side (you can see the “Crags” on the left)
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Uncle Alan at the end of the road ahead of us where the house used to sit.

When we finally got to the end of the road, we found that the house had been demolished.  All that’s left is dirt and boulders.  Hardly any evidence that a house was ever there.

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Sure must have been a nice view from the house back in the day.

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We tromped around on the dirt that had been brought in to cover the old homesite.  There was still some glass and electrical wiring mixed in with the dirt.  Whoever did the demolition for the Forest Service must have been the low bidder as usual.

We enjoyed the scenic views… and then headed back down to the Jeep.

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We said our goodbyes to Uncle Alan and Aunt Beverly when we got back to his house.  Thanks for another memorable day Unk!  See you soon.

We hooked the empty trailer back up to the Jeep and headed back down the pass.  Dad treated at Wendy’s in Woodland Park where we stopped for supper on the way down.

It was already dark by the time we got back to Dad’s house.  So after storing the trailer, I jumped on the Harley and went straight home to see what Stilla and the Germans did for the day.  I think they spent some time at Helen Hunt Falls and did some more shopping.

In other news – I heard about the eclipse of the moon tonight, so I set the alarm for 4:15 AM and got this picture.

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Hopefully you can see the moon almost eclipsed.  I took the pic with my iPhone and probably should have pulled out the Canon S100 but didn’t.  As usual, if you click on any of the photos in this blog, it should enlarge for easier viewing.

Until next time… stay tuned…

 

 

Colorado

Yay! Willi’s Here (Colorado Springs, CO)

I spent most of Sunday detailing the Silverado after I downloaded the Harley and everything else we’ve been carrying around in the truck for the last several months.  I put the bikes, the motorcycle, the inflatable Sea-Eagle boat, the trolling motor, metal detector, firewood, etc., into the garage because we needed the room to pick up son William and his new girlfriend Jasmin from the airport in Denver.

They came in on Iceland-Air from Frankfurt, Germany to DIA.  I was supposed to drive to Denver to pick them up with Stilla and youngest daughter Joleen, but I got bumped at the last moment when oldest daughter Jennifer and grandson Kaan wanted to go too.  So I stayed home and waited while Stilla took the rest of the family to meet the flight’s expected 7 PM arrival time.

They came in on time and Stilla got everyone back home by 9 PM.  They were pretty jet-lagged, so we didn’t stay up too late.

The next morning (Monday), Stilla made us all a hearty breakfast of eggs, sausage and toast.  Then we all piled into the Silverado again for a fun-filled day of sightseeing and shopping.

We started off by driving through the Garden of the Gods park after a quick stop at Wells Fargo bank to exchange Euros for Dollars.

Here’s William and Jasmin in front of the Balanced Rock.

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William and Jasmin in front of the Balanced Rock in Garden of the Gods park.

 

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William and Jasmin in front of the Balanced Rock in Garden of the Gods park.
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Rock formations near the Balanced Rock in Garden of the Gods park.

After checking out the Balanced Rocks, we stopped at the Trading Post in the Garden of the Gods to look at souvenirs and then we went on over to the Kissing Camels to walk around a bit.

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Kissing Camels rock formation in the Garden of the Gods

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L to R: Joleen, Jasmin, William, Stilla and little Coach in Garden of the Gods park.

I almost forgot what the Silverado looked like without the Harley sitting in the back.

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After our tour of the Garden of the Gods, we stopped by my Dad and Stepmom Elaine’s house.  They live just down the street from the Trading Post and were glad to see William again.  It’s been over 2 years since he was last here.  We didn’t stay long because everyone was getting hungry and it was almost time to pick up Kaan from school.

The rest of the day was spent shopping at the various stores in the Broadmoor Towne Center aka Southgate.  William and Jasmin were interested in stocking up on some new clothes to take back to Germany.  We also ate at the Panda Express located there.

I think I’ll take a break from the sight-seeing and shopping tomorrow.  I’ll let Stilla be the chauffeur for the day.  I think my Dad could use some help getting a log-splitter up to my Uncle Alan’s house near Florissant, CO.

So, til next time.. stay tuned.