Diane’s last day/evening was spent in Denver. we all went to dinner at a great seafood restaurant named Jax where they give you crayons and you can write your name (or whatever) on the brick walls. Fun! Here’s some pics.
What a team!
The day after the SCI hippiefest, we three decided to go on an intermediate (class III & class IV rapids) whitewater rafting excursion. Lots of fun and thrills, and Diane did us the favor of exaggerating our experience by being ejected out of the raft in the middle of one of the class IV rapids. We thought she was a gonner, but she just kept kickin’ and was saved by her new hero, Keith the Guide. See full set of rafting pics.
Diane & I just hadn’t had enough extreme sporting for the day, so we stopped at Heritage Square to ride the Alpine slide down the side of a mountain. You have to take chair lifts up to the top. We almost took a square dancing lesson after our slide, but that seemed a bit too extreme for us old folks. 
My sister flew out to Denver/Golden to spend a long weekend with us. What a blast! Beth & her kids & Don were in Golden also for 3 nights of The String Cheese Incident at RedRocks Amphitheater. The three of us went to the concert Friday night. What a spectacular venue! As Evan said, “you’ve got to go to a concert there no matter who is playing”. I was quite surprised when one of Evan’s classmates from Monte Cassino days came up to me to say hi. We had never heard the SCI, but we quickly became fans. The audience was a treat, also. To give you a clearer idea, Diane did a little internet research before her trip and found these quotes:
“String cheese incident is like having to listen to Phish…..awful plus Patchouli oil and hits of acid are prerequisites for entry to one of their concerts.”
“The previous poster is correct about the String Cheese Incident - they are very much like Pfish. The crowd will certainly make for good people watching and you’ll most likely get high, even if you aren’t involved in the actual smoking part. ;-)”
The costumes that these young, new-age hippies had on were a treat. I don’t get the unicorn look of fuzzy bell-bottoms held on with elastic or velcro at the knees, but most of the young girls had these on. Young girls reading this blog: can you please enlighten me?
Left lovely Longmont, CO the afternoon of August 7, 2007 and pulled into the Clear Creek RV Park mid-afternoon. It’s a smallish rv park within Parfet Park, a beauty of a city park with a roaring creek, bike paths, kayak courses, intertubing, and freezing water. Jim & I rode our bikes to the Kinkos/FedEx to overnight a wedding gift to Jarrod & Ayngel, and on our journey back to the rv park we stopped at a dinosaur fossil dig display next to a temptingly beautiful golf course. Next day we drove up to the top of Lookout mountain, saw Buffalo Bill Cody’s grave, and took a nature hike. Saw some black squirrels. They’re perty little critters. Lots of deer around.
Jim and I ventured into downtown Denver one night for a flamenco class that didn’t happen, but we did have an abbreviated tour of the design district and a good Thai dinner. Check out the pics in link below, especially the ones of the design district (yellow sculpture).
Check out the full set of Golden and Denver pics here.
We went to Longmont to get service for the cord reel and the reverse-osmosis water filtration system. Went to the recommended K&C Camping World in Longmont and they couldn’t help. They just don’t work on busses. Wanted to have the engine and transmission checked out because that had not been done since we owned this thing and we’ll be spending the next several months in the mountains. K&C recommended Transwest Trucking a few miles down the road for the Detroit diesel. A great group — Matt has to be the friendliest service guy ever. See the post on spending the night there. They work 7am to midnight just like Prevost in Ft. Worth. Very professional. The motor checked out with no fault codes. Got the computer printout that tells the motor history. All good. Went to near downtown Denver to Stewart-Stephenson for Allison transmission diagnostics. All is quite well with the transmission other than a little low on fluid. Got the full history and clutch analysis. Everything is good. Learning new things all the time.
While at the KOA (which has to be the most expenseive place we could possibly stay, even though it includes putt-putt golf, hot tub, pool, canteen, free USA Today at our door, patio with furniture, hordes of yellow-shirted workers), we hooked up with Rodney (Zuniga) Hamilton, a pal from long ago. Rodney helped me with soccer personally and helped coach the girls, mine and all those I coached. A good guy. Met his two great kids, Tucker and Lilli. See these. From here, we were off to the Air Force Academy and then on to the Denver area.
We needed to wait overnight for some diagnostics on the motor before doing more mountains, (the motor is fine). Found a great place — Trans-west. They work 7am to midnight and past. We dry camped on one of their back driveways. Beautiful night. Nice dinner. Looking around, it’s amazing that this is just a regular night on the road for us. Beautiful sunset, mountains, fresh air. Off next to the Allison transmission place to have that checked out (needed 5 quarts os transmission fluid). Driving the mountains requires that everything be in perfect shape. We’re just starting to get the hang of it.
Here’s some pictures, mostly boring — it’s almost sinful to dine like this.
This is a collage (big file) of what it was like to park in a driveway.
We moved 30 miles East on Thursday, 8/2/07, to the Colorado Springs South KOA. Now this place is deluxe! Lots of great amenities that are not usually at other KOAs or campgrounds.
Last night we had a most lovely evening and dinner at Richard and Cynthia Soudriette’s new home. It’s on a golf course in South Colo. Sp. Richard has a huge, manly Weber grill and he knows how to use it. We were introduced to their fun, funny friend, Jerry. She was the realtor that found their new home. Thank you Ricardo y Cynthia! You are a delight! Click here for pics of Richard’s new wading boot; Richard’s shining alien shoes on the golf course; a holiday cheer in advance; Cynthia hand-washing forks; and the recovery room. 
We had to rush away from the UFO Watchtower before they totally sucked our brains dry. We ended up in a safe haven in Woodland Park, CO the early eve of Monday July 30, 2007. A full moon scared the alien abductors away just in time! It rained like crazy. The aliens were maddened that they did not get our tasty brains!!!
