Morning gathering at the amphitheater. We also got together here each evening for speakers, singing, and some fantastic drama presentations.
The crowd in the mess hall/cafeteria. The cook staff - composed 100% of illustrious members at FCCC - did a truly amazing job of keeping everybody happy in the calory department. The only people who were disappointed were the ones who didn't like burgers, chicken, spaghetti, bacon, eggs, pancakes, breakfast tacos, peach cobbler, cookies, brownies, more cookies, ice cream, and rolls. In the words of Matt Davis, "If you were hungry this week it was your own fault."The following shots are from our first day in Colorado. We'll be here through next Friday morning. We plan to be home either late Friday night (if we mad dog it back in one day) or early afternoon on Saturday.
Here's a view of the house. Note the large pile of dirt and rocks in the front yard. This is not permanent.
Here's the view from the back porch. Those peaks are about a mile or so away and they're over 14,000 feet high. We'll be doing some hiking up there this week.
Here's the view from the front porch showing the moutains on the other side of the valley. Westcliffe is over there somewhere, but it's hard to see.
After a great week at Camp Bandina we arrived this afternoon in beautiful (and I do mean beautiful) Westcliffe, Colorado. Westcliffe is about 80 miles south and a little west of Colorado Springs. We're staying at my brother Greg's newly built vacation home, and let me tell you, it is nice (and I do mean nice). Westcliffe is a little town of about 600 permanent residents and as Vicki would say, it is "cute". We drove around downtown with Greg and we can't wait to go back later this week to really check it out. I can tell you this, milk is cheaper at the Westcliffe Super Market than it is in Sugar Land, so if we only eat cereal this week we'll do fine. However, that won't happen because for dinner tonight my good brother grilled us some bratwurst, to which we added some fresh Colorado corn on the cob. Yum! As you can tell from the pictures, this place is a real dump, and all you can see in all directions is mountains. And, if that's not bad enough, the temperature was only in the low 80's when we got here, and it's supposed to go down into the 40's tonight. How do these people live in temperatures under 100 degrees?
The drive up from Lubbock today was uneventful, except for Vicki getting stopped by a DPS trooper. As many (or probably only a few) of you may be aware, Texas recently passed a law that requires drivers to move to an inside lane or reduce their speed to 20 mph under the posted speed limit when they pass a police officer who has pulled one of his or her victims over to the side of the road. This morning as we sped north on Interstate 27 between Lubbock and Amarillo we came upon just such a situation. As Vicki went by the trooper she not only didn't reduce her speed from the posted limit of 70 mph, she didn't make much of an attempt to move to the left lane either. As a matter of fact, I estimate that she came within about four feet of Mr. DPS. I noticed the scowl on his face as we passed, and made not of such to Vicki. Her comment was something to the effect of "If he doesn't like it he can just get in his car and come after me." Apparently he was just finishing up with his most recent catch when we passed, because about 30 seconds after Vicki's comment he appeared in her rear view mirror, lights blazing. When he got to the driver's side window his comment was "Are you aware that when passing a police officer who is engaged in a traffic stop on the side of the road you are required by law to move to a center lane, or if that is not possible to reduce your speed to 20 mph under the posted speed limit?" The words "I told you so" were screaming in my brain, begging to be released, but instead I had to settle for Vicki's reply to the trooper "Actually my husband just mentioned that." She said she was sorry, he took her license and went back to his car, and then came back and gave her a warning.
That's about all I have for now. I need to get my rest so I can hike in the mountains and maybe go fishing tomorrow. I hope I can find my jacket.
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