Miscellany from Vickie's Visit

Aunt Vickie left this morning to return home. What a fantastic visit. If you haven't been following along, here are some highlights covered in other posts:

Mount Herman Trail hike
Class 3 whitewater rafting
Gators and Gorges
Rocks and Railroading
Alamosa, CO
Pool with Aunt Vickie

And below are some miscellaneous final pieces...

A church downtown Colorado Springs. We were walking around with Susan.

The Lucky Dumpling, Brother Luck's newest restaurant.
The "Not So German Egg Rolls" really aren't very German! But very good.

Mochi Butter Cake.

Da da da dum, da da dum, da da da dum.

Mount Herman Trail

There's a Mount Herman Trail here in Colorado Springs area. It's also known as Monument Preserve Bike Loop. And there's a Mount Hermon in California that's a very popular church camp and conference center. Who knew?! Today, five of us set out for the trail just north of the west end of Baptist Road (Monument, CO area): Nana, Aunt Vickie, Fina, AJ, and me. We didn't cover anywhere near all of it (the area is riddled with unmarked trails), but some of us did make it to the rock formation. Below are Vickie's pics. Jamie's pics are here. Oh, we were told by another hiker that there was a bear spotted in the area this morning. While I kinda wanted to see it, we never did.

Seen only in the photo. AJ is convinced it's an angel.
Some odd light reflection thing, no doubt.

(One of my pics so we get Vickie on here.)

First Band Concert

Matteo took up trombone a mere six lessons ago (started last week). The school district has summer lessons for beginning instrumentalists in bands. They happen to hold the lessons at DCC (our school, how handy!) but kids from all over the district participate. They had a concert today for friends and family. The beginning band was about 100 strong! Their repertoire went from whole-note pieces to Good King Wenceslas.

How about Catcher?

Look who wants to be a catcher... AJ. Wish him well for upcoming tryouts.

Class 3 Whitewater Rafting

I said it was a once in a lifetime opportunity, meaning once in my life was going to be enough. But now that I've done it, I might just go back. You should be able to find Matteo, Aunt Vickie, Nana, and me in the photos below (well, the 2nd one anyway). Turns out it was a pretty big year for snow fall. The Arkansas river was running as high as 5800cfs (cubic feet/second) recently. They close some sections of the river (Class 5) above 3200cfs. That's not a record, but pretty darn high. The area along the Royal Gorge Railroad was closed. But our Class 3 section was open, so off we went. Our outfitter was Raft Masters of Canon City. There are a few more photos here. They took all the photos.

Gators and Gorges

Who knew Colorado had alligators?! Well it does, at the Colorado Gators Reptile Park. It's located about 15 miles north of Alamosa along Hiway 17. It all started with tilapia farming back in 1977. They brought in Florida alligators to be waste disposals. They still farm tilapia in 5 different locations, and the alligators still eat the waste (and supplements as well). It turned out to be well worth the stop. We ended the day with dinner on the Royal Gorge Route Railroad. All the photos are here.

Who knew there was a red-tail catfish?

Arkansas River at Canon City. We rafted just upstream of here.

Rocks and Railroading

Wait, what?! Rocks and railroading together! Yes, please. Papa and Matteo took a ride on the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic RR's once-a-year Geology Train today. Below are just a few of the pics. For more of my text about the event, go here (includes a link to "all photos"). To go directly to all the photos (no text), go here.

Aunt Vickie and Nana dropped Matteo and me in Antonito, CO.

We walked through 1.6 billion year old rocks.