Hangin' With The Johansons in Colorado

I flew out to Colorado June 3rd for a week of fun with Andria and her family in Colorado Springs.  Dave had suggested it would be a good week, as I could go camping with the kids and him.

This is Yukon, the new member of the family.  She is a 6 month old Brittany spaniel, sweet and with high energy.

 On the first day, Andria drove us up into the mountains to the Wolf Center in Divide.  There is a little disappointment showing here as we had to wait an hour and a half for the next tour.

 There were some large boulders for the kids to climb around on, which perked them up.

We could also watch this cute family of Swift Foxes.

A nursing kit.

A distant siren started all the wolves howling.

 That overpass is for the Swift Foxes to cross over into another enclosed area.

 Our young tour guide was very knowledgeable and passionate about wolves.  All the wolves are rescues, and can't be returned to the wild.

Those eyes are something!

Wolves have jaws that are much more powerful than any dog.  I believe our guide said they can exert a pressure of 1,500 pounds per square inch.

 Our first campsite was in Rocky Mountain National Park.  It was a pretty walk-in site next to a raging stream.

 Nora enjoying a little happy hour.

Susanna showed a lot of moxie, and seemed to love the whole camping experience (except for the long drives).

 The next morning, we toured the park.  We saw numerous elk and a few deer.

 The new leaves on the aspen trees were a beautiful light green.

 In 1982, the Lawn Lake Dam, about 4 miles upstream, gave way and sent a 30 foot high wall of water down this canyon.  It sent boulders and debris out in an alluvial fan across the valley below.  It caused another dam to break, and wiped out the campground that we had stayed in.

 Soren loves to scramble boulders, so I followed him up the ravine.  He told me several times, "Be careful, Baba."

 We then drove high up into the mountains to about 12,000 feet.  At an observation point, was a colony of marmots that lived in the base of a rock wall.

 Rocky Mountains!

 At the visitor center parking lot the snow was quite deep.  The chiseled out letters and numbers stand for "National Park Service 100 Years."

We then went back down and headed south through countryside like this to our next campground, a county campground named Reverend Ridge.

 Just as we arrived, a thunderstorm fired up and dropped some hail and rain.  We waited it out in the van before we were able to set up the tents.  Afternoon thunderstorms were the norm for the week.

 The view from above the campground.

 The campground was fairly empty, and had great loops for the kids and Dave to ride their bikes.

Selfie time!

 Back home in Colorado Springs.  Nora and I took Yukon for a walk, although I think Yukon really took us for a walk.

On Thursday, we all drove to Great Sand Dunes National Park, about a 3 hour drive, one way.

 At the picnic area, a stream runs along the base of the dunes this time of year, and provides a fun place to play in the water.  The water was deceptively swift and we had to be ready to stop Susanna, loose tubes and boogie boards, and Dave even stopped somebody's wallet!

Every twenty seconds or so, an underwater sand ridge would give way and send a wave of water down stream.  This is Colorado's beach in May and June.  After about an hour, a thunderstorm fired up, and everyone cleared out to the safety of their cars.  Most actually left the area.

We drove to the main parking area just a little upstream.  The creek is quite wide and shallow here, and a safer place for little kids.

 Dave, Soren, Nora, Yukon and I headed across the stream for a walk into the dunes.  They were a lot further away and bigger than what we thought they were from the parking lot.  In fact, they are the tallest dunes in North America, reaching 755 feet in height.

 People looking like ants!  Some had special sand boards for surfing.

 We followed a ridge about halfway up.

 Steeper than it looks here.

Nora and Soren ran down into this pit, and then crawled up the other side.

Well, it was time to head back down, and we did it in a hurry!

 Friday, Susanna and I had a dinner party for her dolls.  We had bought that basket and pink bow at a garage sale across the street.

 Then I took Soren roller skating at Skate City.  I hadn't skated in about 25 years, but thought it would be like riding a bicycle -  WRONG!  One lap around the rink, and I stuck to the carpet area the rest of the time.

Well, Saturday came, and I had to take the shuttle back to Denver, not without a little drama, though. About halfway there, an alarm started up, all the dash instruments stopped working as well as the AC.  The driver took an off ramp and called his company.  He was told to keep driving to the airport, another 30 miles!  We started to get back on the freeway when everything went dead.

After a few minutes a woman saw our plight, stopped her car behind us, and offered to take up to 6 people to the airport and she was not even going in that direction.  A shuttle passenger who got on just a couple miles before called her mom for a ride as her plane was going to depart in a little over an hour.  I rode with them - nice people!  It turned out she had just moved to Idaho from Rancho Penasquitos, the town from which Andria and family had just moved!  Well, I got to the airport in plenty of time, and Gail and I had a great Thai dinner near Little Italy in San Diego.