Monday morning was Memorial Day, and the running of the Bolder Boulder 10k for Amy, my Uncle Walter and about 50,000 other people. It was a beautiful day in Boulder, CO:
I waited at the finish line hoping to snap a photo of Amy dashing by, but never saw her. When I caught up with her in the stands shortly after she finished, it didn’t look like she had even broken a sweat:
Amy ran in honor of my dad and the others we know who have served in our military:
Amy and my Uncle Walter after the race:
A couple hours later, we went back to a full stadium to watch the elite runners finish (they started much later than the rest of the crowd) and a short Memorial Day ceremony. There was supposed to be sky divers from each branch of the military landing on the field, but they had to scrap that due to high winds. Bummer.
A picnic on the lawn outside my Uncle Walter and Aunt Sue’s hotel:
That evening we went to a place called Larkburger in Boulder, which had one of THE BEST burgers I’ve ever had:
Good shakes too:
Tuesday morning, my Mac went on the fritz again; this time it was the hard drive. I don’t know why I’ve had such a run of bad luck lately, but my GOOD luck is that I’ve been in places where a Mac repair person has been just down the road. Rick at Macintosh Computer Itech was able to salvage all of my precious data and get me back up and running by the end of the day. Thank you Rick!!!
That evening, we took a stroll with our campground neighbors Shawna and Matthew into downtown Golden. There was some crazy bicycle event going on:
Nice sunset over a nearby hill:
We ended our walk with some frozen yogurt:
As I mentioned last week, Shawna was one of my girls’ first (and favorite) babysitters from when they were little, so they really enjoyed spending time with her in her RV. Plus, she and Matthew have a cat:
…and a PlayStation 3:
More girl stuff at Shawna’s:
During a mid-week shopping trip, Carrie got her ears double-pierced. It looks great on her!
We intended to go on a hike with Matthew and Shawna on Thursday, but it got too late. Instead, we strolled around the fairgrounds and visited the horses:
Friday, however, we did do our hike up South Table Mountain, which is sort of the icon of Golden:
It was more of a walk than a hike, but it provided a spectacular view of Golden. We got there just in time to watch the sun set:
That’s the Coor’s plant down below. I wanted to take a tour (and try some free Coor’s) but we couldn’t fit it in to our plans for the week. *Sigh*…we can feel the time running out for this trip.
I found a nice and quite spot to work just down the road from our campground: Red Rocks Community College.
The peace and quiet was wonderful, but the stupid-fast internet was even better. To put this in perspective, I need about .5 Mbps to do my work. I’m really happy when I have 1 to 3 Mbps. It’s a luxury when I get 6 or 7 Mbps in a 4G area. This was almost 60 Mbps. I’ll still be talking about that place to my grandkids.
Saturday, we drove up to Rocky Mountains National Park. As expected, there were in fact many beautiful rocky mountains:
The weather was a little flakey though. It thundered and rained during lunch, so we had a picnic in the car. (Natalie doesn’t like thunder.)
The rain stopped after lunch and we did some climbing:
Future river rocks, just waiting for their year to tumble down into the water:
A park ranger had a monocular sighted on a big-horned sheep grazing on a nearby mountain side:
I loved this place, but it was crowded. We’re not really used to that, but we figure we should expect to encounter more crowds now that schools are letting out.
Amy wanted to see how it would be running at 12,000 feet. She seemed unaffected, at least with a short distance.
This was the highest point that the road would take us: 12,183 ft.
Click on the image for a larger 180-degree panorama:
Snow!…
Even with the ominous clouds, the Rocky Mountains were simply breathtaking:
Saw a marmot too:
Amy is making an effort to get me in more photos, so here you go:
We had passed several elk off in a field or up in the woods, but this guy was hanging out right on the side of the road:
Our final hike for the day got rained out. Only Amy and Em were brave enough to handle it; the rest of us stayed dry in the car.
This morning we hit the road but didn’t get very far before we had to cool our heels. Literally…the brakes were smelling bad after a long decent from the mountains.
It turns out that our supplemental brakes (the contraption that presses the brake pedal in the car when it feels the RV stopping) wasn’t working. Not good. Here I am trying to do some troubleshooting:
I got it working again, and after letting the RV brakes cool for about an hour, we hit the road. However, just a few miles down the road, the supplemental brakes were failing again. I was not about to tow a car down another mountain without the car being able to help us stop.
We pulled off, disconnected, and Amy and Em drove the Scion separately:
Good thing, because it was more of this for miles. It would have been smelly brakes all over again:
Emily took this photo from the Scion as they drove behind the RV. I like this because it shows a part of Colorado that I didn’t have an opportunity to photograph. It was a beautiful drive with the roads winding through the mountains, and even a quaint tunnel or two. I also like this photo because it’s the only one we have of the RV lumbering down the road:
We wanted to get to Moab, Utah, but we’re going to have to Walmart it tonight in Grand Junction, CO. We need to get our supplemental brake fixed before we do any more traveling, because driving separately is a real bummer.
It’s hot here. Hard to believe just yesterday we were playing in the snow.
[UPDATE 6/4/2012: Turns out the brake malfunction was simply due to the thin air of the Rocky Mountains. It’s working fine now. That’s great news that nothing is wrong with our unit. Or is that bad news that it doesn’t work where we needed it the most…in the Rocky Mountains?!?]