Our time is winding down for CO

We have a few precious days left in paradise. I am anxious to see my family, but I will truly miss being in this beautiful place. 

We had a little excitement on our morning hike today. We both almost stepped on a rattle snake. He was on the trail and thank The Lord we stepped where he wasn't. Buck must have woke him because he didn't alarm until I stepped by him after Buck passed. The sound of that rattle sent me into Nina mode. I still have Nina moves at my age, tis true. 

As you can see he was no baby. 

Here are some more calming shots from today's hike. 

My best buddy and hiking partner. 

After our hike we had a picnic in one of the many parks in COS. 

And our view for lunch

Tis all for now. 

Good bye CMSP ~ hello Mountaindale campground

We moved to our new digs yesterday. This is a lovely campground and the spots are very large. The grounds are landscaped beautifully. The only drawback for us is that is 20 miles from anything. And we miss our hiking trails at CM.  Our plan is to make a trip about every other day to hike at the park. 

This was CM's good bye to us:

And here is our new home for our last week in CO. 

This and that

We are just enjoying hanging out at the campground and taking more hikes.  We decided to seek out some local flavor for lunch and quite literally. We found a food truck called Local and had lunch with them. They use all local and organic products. And they make them yummy. 

I had the burger. It had bacon jam on it. Enough said. 

Buck had the pork grilled cheese. It came with an Asian salsa which I tried on my burger and it was excellent. It was a bit spicy for the old man. ;-)

They also had their own sodas. I got the hibiscus fizz and Buck got the vanilla. Both were terrific. 

These are a couple of photos from our morning hike. The mushrooms are everywhere due to the rain. My friend Molly is going to take a mushroom identification class soon. I wonder if these are the safe kind?  :-P

We took the trail closest to the NORAD road. I guess they don't want people to try and climb up either. 

Another thing I have been working on since we started our journey is some crocheting. I am making baby blankets for Project Linus. Here is what I have so far -

Still working on this one. 

And we stopped at Target today and I couldn't resist this -

(I think I miss our pups)

Coolarado ;-)

The weather has turned a bit chilly due to a strong monsoon season. I think the high temp was about 70 yesterday for maybe 10 seconds. It did rain quite a bit in the afternoon and evening, but it's dry today. Buck was cuddling up in a blanket last night -

And I took it over this morning and watched the fireplace for a bit. 

After enjoying a cool breakfast we went on a 1.4 mile hike. We saw a few creatures along the way today. I tried to take a pic of the bunnies, but they were too fast. 

Here are some pics of our hike. 

Later, tater!

Buena Vista

We journeyed out to Buena Vista on Sunday and returned "home" today. 

My friends Ron and Molly have a house there and they invited us to come for a visit while we are camped in CO. What a beautiful place. It is at a higher altitude -about 8000 ft in town and a little higher at their house. And when we go up by Jeep it is about 9k or so. 

The first thing we did was to feed the hummingbirds. They have an abundance of hummers in the area. There are probably 20-30 that feed from Molly's 3 feeders. She pours a little syrup in a red cup and they will come and feed from it while we hold it in our hand. They buzz all around checking us out between drinks. It is one of the most amazing feelings. 

  

I wish I could upload one of our videos, but I can't :(   If I can figure out how to load one to YouTube I will post a link. 

This year the wild raspberry crop that grows in the mountains near their home is very good. The berries on the table in one of the following photos was what we picked in about an hour. And then we made jam. :)  yum. 

The picking crew minus me. 

Chief raspberry picker and mountain man - aka Ron. 

The view from the mountain trail. 

Berries! (And Molly)

Jam!

These are some photos of the flowers in bloom around their property. 

Yesterday we fished in the reservoir just below their property in their neighborhood.  Ron caught one trout and I caught 2!   

These are from our fishing outing. 

This Mt. Princeton very near Buena Vista. So beautiful and HUGE.  It is a little over 14k feet.  Molly is quite the hiker and has hiked 2 other "fourteeners" in the area.  Yes, all the way to the top. 

As we were shopping in downtown he was checking out what was going on. 

Sorry Texans but I have to rub it in a little. This was the temp as we got up our final morning there. 

As we arrived back at our campground this little fella was there to greet us. 

 

That's all for now!