The Colorado Adventure

Block party 242, what is the 242 you ask? 242 stands for Acts 2:42, which says:
42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

So, once a year we have a giant, free friend day to celebrate with everyone. In fact it’s how we found the church 4 years ago. We came for the 11:35 service and they said, we’re not having a late service today, but come on out and enjoy the free food and fellowship. So, we did and we do!

Friend day this year was called block party. We had a drama based on a block party theme. I didn’t see it as I was holed up with 21 two yr olds, but I heard it was good. After service we took the kids outside to play on the bouncy things, pony rides and train.


That spot on Hannah’s nose is from her crash down the stairs. She was wearing Bethany’s boots and walking down the stairs, not a good combination. She made it to the last 3 steps and then tripped and fell right on her nose.

We listened to some music, saw some friends and ate hot dogs to our hearts content. We had so much fun we went home and napped (well two of us did anyway.) We thought we’d get out for dessert after dinner, but the ice cream fairy was against us. McDonald’s had no ice cream; so no shake, no mcflurry and no sundaes. So, we ate pies and went home. I also bought some of those coupons they have right now (12 for a $1.) Get them now, because they don’t start until Nov. 1, but they run out way before the end of the month (I know that from last year.) From Nov-Dec we’re going to be rich in free cones, drinks, apple dippers, fries, cookies and pies.

The mountains got a smattering of snow last night, here’s the view from the church parking lot.

Saturday we had to go to Cherry creek for Bethany’s dance class and rehearsal. Class went well and then we waited for the hot dog guy to set up by the fountain. He was late. But, at least he showed up, he has great frozen lemonade. I told Joel that it was a lot and a small would do, but he said get the large. ‘Wow, that’s a lot of lemonade’, he remarked when he got it, ‘I guess we could have gotten a small’ (yes, I know that’s why I said small.) Rehearsal went well, they are starting to work on smaller parts of the whole to get that right. They still haven’t run through the whole thing from start to finish yet. When they do I’ll time it to see how long she’ll be on stage. I’m guessing 15 minutes; maybe it’s more though. Another mom asked if I’d gotten tix yet, guess I’d better get on the ball or I won’t be able to get a seat and see her. After going by Wal-mart to return the tights and get some different ones we went home and chilled out. Joel was having a friend sleep over and Sun. was friend day at church, so we needed to rest.

Today after presentation club we went to the ‘living history day’ in Arvada.

It’s sort of like Little Bear Wheelers’ program, but instead of one person dressed up telling you America’s history; there were lots of people. We saw the Virginia militia lined up ready to recruit us to fight the British, we dipped candles, planed wood, sawed firewood, watched the making of a rifle, and more.



Everyone there was great at being in character and telling us what life was like in America in the late 1700’s. Here are the girls dipping candles, and yes that’s a picture of Grace getting her picture taken (with a much better camera, I’m jealous.)


Not content to just pet the chicken, Grace caught the chicken (she’s an expert at chicken catching sine the head-less chicken festival, ya know!) and they wore out the duck chasing it and finally got to pet it too.



Hannah said, “Goat poo?’

The old fashioned games were cool. Bethany played hunter/hunted and then Grace played cup and ball.

They even had a see-saw made from a tree trunk and plank of wood; it’s been a long time since I’ve seen a see-saw (or is that since I saw a see-saw?) Everyone got to grind some corn, that’s not much corn; I have a feeling we would starve.


Also they drilled holes in some wood for pegs, which Hannah eagerly attacked with a wood hammer.



On the way home Bethany and Grace handled their candles too much and melted them. Grace squished hers and Bethany’s fell off the string, now we’ll never know the warmth of an animal fat candle.

We went to the river today to fish and play.

Joel caught ‘0’ fish, but he had fun trying.

The fish got hot dogs so they were happy too. The girls and I went further upstream, no I guess that was downstream, and played in the water.

I heard, ‘Can I get my feet wet?’, then, ‘Can I get me dress wet?’, then , ‘Oops I got my underwear wet!’


Hannah ended up with no dress on wading around. Bethany collected a bucketful of rocks and Grace was busy throwing rocks back in the water.



How long has it been since you sat with your feet in the creek? That’s too long! It was nice today, not too chilly, so I sat and plopped my feet in the water.

We saw lots of butterflies, dragonflies and some ducks while we played.

We also saw that the milkweed plants had popped open and silky, white seed puffs were dancing by on the breeze. We caught some in here:

This bush was turning a nice shade of orange and red and some of the cottonwoods were getting yellow leaves.

All too soon it was time to go home, but I promised a trip next week to ‘fish’ again.

I’m recuperating from the camping trip. Just a little.

Monday we had school, worship dance and CAP. I have to go buy new leotard, tights and pants for Bethany because, yes, someone did steal them from the Burger King in Cherry Creek. Tuesday we did school, went to the library and Grace had her DIEBELS test; I forget what it stands for…. diabolically intrinsic evil boring….no, just kidding. It’s a reading fluency test that COVA gives twice a year (or maybe three times a year I forget) to make sure kids can read. Grace needed to get a 4 on the first part, she got 8.5; then she needed 2, she got 38; the last one doesn’t have a benchmark but she got 31. I’ll be looking to raise those next time now that she knows what she’s supposed to do. Wednesday we skipped park day to do school and work on presentations for this Friday.

Today more school and then fishing in the Platte river. Joel wanted to go fishing when we camped, I tried to tell him we were headed to a desert/grassland, but he thought I was wrong. Surely there is somewhere to fish in the desert he thought. Well, we did pass a few creeks, but they weren’t accessible. So, today we’ll try to fish, I doubt he’ll catch anything and if he does I’m not touching it!

So, tomorrow’s presentation club and the topic is stories. Joel and Bethany are done and Grace will be done today. After that I think we’ll come back home a do a little school and wait for James to get home. It’s his Friday off, but he has to go into work, maybe he’ll get out early. Saturday we have to go to Cherry creek for dance lessons and rehearsal. After that I plan on going by Washington park to see if the huge sycamore tree leaves have changed color yet. Gosh, it seems like I was just there seeing that! Oh, and lastly I wrote a camping haiku:

wind why do you blow
thrashing and twisting my tent
postponing my sleep

(AP) Fifty years after federal troops escorted Terrence Roberts and eight fellow black students into an all-white high school, he says the struggles over race and segregation still are unresolved.

The showdown soon became a test for then-President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who sent members of the Army’s 101st Airborne Division in to control the angry crowds. It was the first time in 80 years that federal troops had been sent to a former state of the Confederacy.

So, it’s been 50 years, are we any better at race relations? To some extent yes, and to another…..we have a long way to go. I remember when my Mom told me that there weren’t any blacks in her school for a long time when she grew up. She said they had to drink out of a different water fountain and sit in a separate place. I thought, ‘How weird is that? I go to a school that has lots of blacks and whites and mexicans and we all seem to get along fine.’

It’s strange to think that it really hasn’t been that long since schools were integrated, people of color couldn’t sit wherever they wanted and we couldn’t all share the same fountain. How could a society function like that, or for that matter go back a little further when slaves were considered less of a person and counted less than a whole person for a vote.

I hope that we learn from the past and that the future looks brighter for everyone no matter what their color.

The kids and I are drinking orange juice and eating rolls waiting for the sun to come up over the mesa. The ranger let everyone go in before the sun came up so we could see what we were supposed to be looking at. The cave is very small.

The ranger sits at the top of a slope in it and 2 or 3 people go through the narrow opening and climb up a rock to see the marks. No, I wasn’t the only one there, there were probably 25 people there.

I had probably driven the furthest though; one guy was from Kansas and depending on where in Kansas he was, I may have driven more than he did. So, we looked at the ruins of a dust bowl house and barn and waited.


Finally, there it is.

Joel and Bethany go in first, then Grace and I. We see this:

Joel isn’t impressed; he thought it would be bigger and grandiose. I remind him that he just saw the 2nd day of this year that the sun lit up those markings. We climb up here and Bethany found a neat marking.




Here is the dust bowl house.

More marks.

When the sun came up the rocks went from a pale red to a glowing red-orange, aren’t they pretty?

After getting one more look at a mostly dark wall we had to leave. How very cool to see the sun peep through the crack in sandstone that formed this cave and look at markings that mark off the season. Today is Fall and we know it!

The ranger locked the cave and we went back to our tent.


We got to camp right in front of the canyon wall.

As we walked around exploring I finally realized what that ‘thunk, plink, plunk’ sound was from last night. I thought it was rain, nope. It was grasshoppers. They had all different sizes from baby to Grandpa grasshoppers. Grace found this one.

He wasn’t a very fast hopper. We walked around the side of the camp site and found some more markings.


Then the girls climbed up here, well Hannah tried to climb up there.



Then it was time to take down the tent and pack it up. Now that I had gone the back way, I knew how to get back home and cut off 50 miles. Doesn’t sound like a lot, but believe me 50 miles less in the car is a lot. Here are some leaving the canyon pics where we go from canyon back to mesa and then grassland again.



Back on road 18 (roads aren’t important enough to have names here, so everything is road BB or road 13) I kept seeing yellow things on the side of the road. I pulled over and pick up little round, yellow squash. I guess they planted them on either side of the road to prevent washout. They couldn’t have been wild squash it was too neatly planted.

I can only imagine the flooding if they get rain here where everything is dirt.

Going a different way home meant we went towards Trinidad, which has nothing and passed though a few more nothing towns until Pueblo. We stopped there and ate lunch then went straight home and unpacked the filthy car.


Even though the wind gave us a sleepless night the opportunity to see something that happens just twice a year was well worth the drive and stay.

After rehearsal and eating at BK (where Bethany changed out of her ballet clothes and left them in the restaurant; I know you’d think Cherry creek would be safe from stealing a little girl’s ballet clothes, but apparently someone thought they’d look good on their daughter and took her tights, leotard and pants) we headed out to camp. Not just anywhere, we were headed to the Southeast corner of the state to go to Picture canyon and see crack cave.

What’s so great about crack cave? Glad you asked. Crack cave is a very small cave (with an opening like a crack) in the canyon. At some time when local Indians inhabited this area they stayed in the cave at some point, probably for shelter from the horrendous winds (more on that later.) While they stayed in the cave they noticed that twice a year the sun peeped through on a particular day in the morning for about 20 minutes and lit up one wall. So, they put markings on that wall and now, twice a year, the park ranger opens the gate to the cave and you get to go in two at a time at dawn and see the sun reveal the markings. The other theory to the markings is that Celtic explorers made them. I have a hard time believing that they stayed long enough to observe a few years of Equinox days to do this. Now a group on non-Indians might make the other marks in cave, they are different, but come on. People came here to explore and only made marks right there? I don’t think so, also I think most primitive markings look similar, so maybe that’s the answer.

You can go see Indian markings on the outsides of the cave area too and along the canyon walls.

So, we drove. And drove. And drove. Never trust a googlemap. I normally look at the big picture when I googlemap, but this time I took it at face value. 4 hours it says. Right. 6 ½ hours later after traversing po-dunk towns and dirt roads we saw the sign for Picture canyon. It was getting to be dusk at this point and I was getting a little freaked out because I knew we were looking for a canyon, but all I was seeing was grassland.

We were in the middle of Comanche National Grassland and there were plains of grass every which way. But, finally we descended into the canyon. You don’t see it until you’re right there because you’re on top of the mesa. We pulled up and put the tent up fast! Grace thought she’d help by dragging the sleeping bags to the tent, but she got sticky burrs all over them, so I had to pull them out. There was cactus too.

We hadn’t bought firewood (because po-dunk towns don’t sell it) but our tenting neighbors had some (no, we weren’t the only ones camping!) and we roasted marshmallows and hot dogs before going to bed.

Now, we didn’t actually go to sleep for quite awhile because of the wind. It twisted and pushed the tent and finally caved in the right side where Bethany and Joel were sleeping. Every time the tent went in, Hannah went “Aieee!” This continued for a few hours. I went out and hammered down the spikes and pulled more string to tie down the top (repeat about 5 times.) Finally about 10:30 I sent Bethany and Joel into the car to sleep and about 11:30 I got Hannah asleep. I fixed the tent (one pole was way out of the ring) about 1am and of course the wind died down about 1:30am! My biggest fear was that I was so tired I would miss the ranger driving up and we’d miss the event in the morning that we came for. But, thanks to a pack of coyotes howling at pre-dawn, I was up and we were ready to go right after the ranger drove by.

At GS today Hannah got a purple marker and marked all over her face and arms. I noticed the package didn’t say ‘washable’ and I thought I was in for along haul. However, on the way to Wal-mart to pick up Grace’s new glasses, Hannah dumped a bottle of water on herself. Besides making her soaking wet, it soaked into the marker and it came right off! Which is good, I think. Anyway we picked up Grace’s new blue frame glasses, so now she looks like the Grace we have come to know again.

Woke up early ate my breakfast too soon-
Now I’m hungry way before noon-
So I went to the mess Sgt. on my knees-
Said ‘mess Sgt, mess Sgt. feed me please’-
Mess Sgt. replied with a grin-
‘Son you wanna be airborne, you gotta be thin!’

That was the cadence the kids sang at the drill co-op today. Here they are at ease, checking cover and marching.



Joel had fun, because he ‘already knew this’ from CAP. Bethany managed to turn left/right face correctly and liked the marching part. Everyone enjoyed the song, ‘cuz it’s funny!

After drill we stopped by Ft. Logan cemetery and walked around for a bit. We saw one guy from the Spanish American war! Joel saw Generals and PFC’s placed side by side, a few POW’s and some purple heart and bronze medal recipients. I like to go to cemeteries and just see the names and try to imagine what the people did; especially when they were born so long ago (earliest we saw today was 1889, but I’m sure there were a few older than that.) But, I like to go to military cemeteries just so the kids can see and honor Americans who fought and died for their freedom. I was so moved by the stone markers that I wrote this:

Sea of White

All around a sea of white,
As far as the eye can see.
Men who fought and died,
To keep our freedom free.

Underneath stone markers lie,
Men who endured so much.
We look and remember as we glide by,
The marble smooth to our touch.

A gun salute in the distance,
Reminds us that even today -
Someone gave their life,
And now in a sea of white they lay.