How Long was Jonah in the Whale?

It was a year ago that we moved into our Whale.  We are back in the first Park that we stayed in, Cherry Creek State Park in Aurora, CO.  It's a beautiful place and we have enjoyed our time here and the time we have had since April 11th with our family and friends that live here.

Today is a rainy day and we hope that the temperature doesn't fall below freezing making it turn to snow.  The mountains are getting snow.

It did snow on us the second day we were in Colorado.

We have enjoyed the wildlife and the beach and lake that are here.

Friends came and camped here for a few days and it was good to have time with them. This is their Class C RV.

We took their Labradoodle out for a walk one day while they were gone for the day.

We have been able to watch Kyra play in the band and on her Volleyball team.  Cooper was incredulous over the fact that I played Volleyball in college.  You could see how hard it was for him to imagine his grandma ever being young and trim enough to play.

It's been fun to attend several baseball games and spend time with Collin, Carter and Cooper!

At one of the ballgames we met Moose, a 185 pound Mastiff. Thankfully, he was a very gentle and friendly dog.

Friday night we went to a ball game in Castle Rock.  You can see the cities' name sake in the background.

Typical Colorado weather allowed us a beautiful, although a bit windy, day yesterday to spend with Tana and 3 of the kids.  Barry and Carter were at a firearms class.

The kids had a training run getting ready to run the Bolder Boulder at the end of May.  Craig ran a couple of laps with Cooper.

Grandpa and Kyra on the way back from a nice walk down to the lake and back.
It has been great to renew friendships and have fellowship with Craig's brothers and their wives!!  

It's raining today and only 40 degrees here at 10 am.  We are getting ready to go to church and thinking the afternoon baseball game may get cancelled.  It may be a good day for a movie.

We have added a couple more days to our stay here to let this weather system move on through and past the Midwest.  Our next stop will be to see friends in the Indianapolis around May 3rd and then on to Crown Point for the month of May.

Hope to see you along the way!!

This is a day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it!

Kathy

Deja Vu All Over Again

We had a busy morning.  We looked at a condo near Tana's home and we are praying and waiting to see how we feel about it in the morning.

It will be one year ago on April 23rd that we brought our new home (the Whale) to Cherry Creek.  It was cold and snowed on us that week.  After the snow we had last night, we waited until it was nearly melted this morning to try to get in to the State Park.  The trees are just starting to bud, but they were frozen hard last night and probably again for the next two nights, so I hope they can survive. 

There was a heard of mule deer to welcome us in.

Here's our new spot for the next two weeks.

There are several other campers here.  In fact, we have people in a tent in a spot near us.

We set up and then headed over to Craig's brother's house.  Pudge had made a very nice meal for us and then we had a nice chat before heading back to the RV.  It says that it's 29 out now. brrrrr.

Tonight is the "blood moon".  I'm pretty sure I won't be seeing it, but who knows????  I just looked out of my window and there is a full shot of that huge moon.  I think I'll see who took pictures of it in the morning.

Blessings,

Kathy

The Whale in Snow

We escaped the winter without snow, but now that spring is here and we are in Colorado, it's a normal thing to go from 70 to 20 degrees.  The sun is shining this morning, so it should all be melted by mid day.  It's a grand 22 at the moment.  I guess this is how Colorado welcomes us back to the area.

Craig went out to brush the car off (we only had a whisk broom) and see if the two older kids needed a ride to the bus.  He was winded when he took this for me.  I'm still nestled in to the warm Whale.

Today we are going to have to move from the curb at Tana's.  Their Home Owner Association doesn't allow an RV to be parked at the curb for more than a couple of days.  We are early for our reservation at Cherry Creek State Park, but we are going to see if we can get in.  If not,  Craig's brother, Chuck, has graciously offered to let us move there.  Aurora is not overly RV friendly and it has been a problem for us when we are in this area.  It would be a great place to open a nice private RV Park. I think most RVer's go to the mountains and not Aurora when visiting CO!

I can only imagine what it's going to be like in Indiana today.  Cover your flowers.

Blessings,

Kathy

Grand Kid Sports

Here's a photo of the people we got to see and worship with on Wed. night.

Gary, Diane, Craig, Kathy, Janis, Dan, Rosemary and Jack.

We headed out Thursday morning going north on I25.  We spent the night in Walsenburg and then stopped through Colorado Springs to visit an old friend that we have know since our time in Germany 1975-1978 and then on to our daughter's home and our legal address in Aurora, CO.  We are parked for a couple of days in front of her place.

We had a great night's sleep and then had to hit the ground moving on Saturday morning.  Kyra (Tana's only girl) had a volleyball tournament that started at 8:30 am.  Her team did a great job and got third place.  She is tall and very good.

Kyra has the pink middle band.

Before the tourney was completely done, we had to rush on for the first of two games that Collin and Cooper played today.  

Collin at bat.

Cooper at bat.They won both games and the weather was so very nice.

Brothers.... Collin, Carter and Cooper

Tomorrow they are predicting snow here.  We are hoping it will skip over us, but I may have some snow pictures for tomorrow.

Blessings,
Kathy

From New Mexico to Colorado

We so enjoyed the three days that we spent parked near Albuquerque, NM!  We had lots of laughs and meals with our old friends and even celebrated Craig's Birthday with them on the 8th.

Janis and Charlie Richards with Craig and cake!

Wednesday night we drove out to Mountainair, NM to spend a great night of fellowship with a group of friends that we have known for several years, but haven't seen for a few years.  It's always great to worship the Lord together and hear what's going on in their lives.

We woke up to a great looking day for travel.  We said good-bye to our spot at Leisure Mountain RV Park and headed east on I40, turned up north on 84 until we joined up with I25.

We are learning to avoid mountain driving if possible, so that's why we didn't just head up I25.  The road was flat and the traffic was very light.

We still had a few mountains to drive through, but nothing like the Rockies!!! We drove through Las Vegas, New Mexico before getting to Raton, NM.

Here's the border between New Mexico and Colorado with the sign that reads, "Welcome to Colorful Colorado".  It wasn't too colorful today.  It looks like it need some spring rains and tonight there are clouds rolling it, but the humidity is pretty low.

We drove along the east side of the Rockies and we could see the snow caps.

Raton Pass is pretty mountainous, but just so much easier than driving up I15 through the Virgin Pass and four hours through the Rockies.  We found a small, but quiet RV Park to spend the night tonight. It's still 80 at 7pm.

This is our view tonight.

 

The Whale is recognizing our "home state".  We have reservations at Cherry Creek State Park for two weeks from the 16th to the 30th.  We will be arriving on the 11th, so we have five days to stay other places.  We have options, but we have also heard that Sunday will have a high of 40 degrees.  We are spoiled after wintering in Arizona. I don't believe we have had a day that cold since we left Colorado last April.

We still aren't certain if or when we will buy a home.  We have decided that when it's time to know, we will.  Hope to see lots of good friends and family in Aurora, CO.

Love and blessings,

Kathy

Albuquerque

Hiking the 8 miles up and down Oak Creek Canyon wore us both out.  Tana's family drove back to Colorado on Sat and Craig and I spent the day catching up on laundry, straightening up the RV and getting things ready to head down the road after a month in the Sedona area.  Sunday we headed out and drove about 300 miles to Milan, NM to spend the night.  The Park was next to a train track and I had a bit of a restless night.

Monday we woke up and decided we were in no rush to get back on the road.  It was windy and we hoped that it would settle down a bit before we headed out.  Mom needed some help with her computer and it was good timing for that since we had a great internet connection for the first time in a month.  We were all set to head out when I couldn't find my set of car and RV keys.  Not a good thing.  We retraced and knew that we had driven in with that set of keys, but we looked in just about every place we could think of without finding them.  We finally decided that they had to be in the RV SOMEWHERE, but after much prayer, we still couldn't find them, so we pulled away thinking we would have to have a new set made.  Craig decided to look more as we drove the last 100 miles to Albuquerque.  He looked down behind this fold out desktop that we have and saw them down inside.  That was a miracle.  He had to work at it just to get them out.  It was a huge relief to know that the lost had been found.

It was mostly a drive in the windy desert and then you suddenly get into those wonderful rock formations.

When you can see the Sandia Mountain Range, you know that Albuquerque is just at the base.

 Albuquerque, NM has an elevation of over 5,000 feet.  It could also be called, The Mile High City.

We actually drove up into the mountain range to the Leisure Time RV Park in Tijeras, New Mexico.

Here's the new home for a couple of days.

Charlie and Janis drove up to visit with us and then we all went out for Mexican Dinner that was very good.  We will be seeing them tomorrow and have some fellowship with old friends on Wednesday night.  The wind is still blowing, but there is no train around, so I'm hopeful for a much better night's rest.

Well head to Colorado up I25 once we feel the weather is warm enough to make it over Raton Pass.

Hope spring is coming to a place near you!!

Kathy