Flying Saucer RV Park in Englewood, CO

There is a little place tucked along Bear Creek and the Platte River and squeezed in between Riverpoint shopping center and Hampden Ave in Englewood, CO called the Flying Saucer RV park. This seemingly innocuous RV park has been in existence since the 1950s (as a mobile home park) and converted to an RV park sometime in the late 80s.

Flying Saucer RV Park in Englewood, CO

We came to stay here in December 2016, as a semi-permanent landing pad. Our current RV is a 2012 5th Wheel Wildcat bunkhouse with an extra bathroom.

This is very similar to our layout, except the master bathroom is on the opposite side and the bed is angled. 

We've been in it for the last year, having spent last summer on a farm (more to come) and visiting family the rest of the time. Jessica turned 16 last September and got her driver's license . She works at Chick-fil-a and keeps her calendar filled with plenty of social events.

The cousins love hanging out!

Liam will be 15 in October. He relishes the fact that he's taller than me and frequently steps in to reach those out-of-reach objects! He is my right hand when it comes to fixing stuff around the RV. Like when we replaced the thermostat in the heater and switched out our hot water heater and did maintenance on the air conditioner. Whew!

Kyla turned 13 in December. She is most like me and LOVES good books. I often find her immersed in a page-turner and have a hard time pulling her out to do school and chores. Again. Just like me at that age.

We've spent many days this summer hanging out in hammocks and tubing down Clear Creek in Golden. One of our favorite things to do to beat the heat. Bear Valley Church has been our church home for the past few years. The kids attend every event they can and God's immersed us in an amazing community of believers. I even volunteer as a barista once a month at our most excellent coffee bar, making lattes and designer coffees.

Life continues to be an adventure full of laughter and tears. But in everything, God is faithful.

Family is a rich tapestry

During my side-of-the-road wait for our tow truck driver and my attempts to compose shaking hands and a pounding heart, my father calls to remind me to wish him a happy birthday...  He was at my sister's house enjoying his favorite meal: home-made mac-n-cheese, just like mom used to make, and Rocky Road ice cream.

Leaving DIA

He decided that he missed my kids terribly and wanted to fly them out to Indiana unaccompanied, for the summer.  This took a little bit of digesting, but I knew that God's timing is always perfect and that the kids would have an amazing summer.

So, on the Fourth of July, they flew alone, all by themselves, without any adults.  It was challenging at first to let them go.  But I trusted my family to be at the other end.

Arriving in Chicago with my Dad to greet them!

The kids got there just fine and my parents met them at the gate.

They've been gone a week and settled into a routine.  I receive phone calls and facetime calls almost every day.  My sister wrapped them into her schedule.  They do devotionals and chores in the morning.  Then school.  Then free time.

I realized that this summer is God's gift to all our family.  To my husband and I, because we haven't been alone like this for over thirteen years.  Our relationship has blossomed and rekindled romance to a whole new level...  Plus, his new job is taking a lot of creative energy and time.  And my camp hosting job requires more of me than I'm used to giving to people outside my family.  And I don't have to worry about them. 

My parents and siblings get to meet my children.  Get to know them in a way that is impossible when I'm around.  For the cousins, because it brings them closer together.  More like siblings.  And for my children, they are experiencing the rich tapestry that is family.  That is grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.  It truly takes a village to raise children.  And for years to come, they will cherish the time they spend together.

Cousins!

Golden Gate Canyon State Park

I'm sorry that some of these posts are out of order.  Over the summer, we stayed at some different state parks.  Golden Gate Canyon is close to Black Hawk and Central City.  We were there for about a week.  The first time was about the middle of May, right before Comic Con, and it snowed.  So I only stayed for a couple of days.  But the next time we visited in the middle of July, which is much better.  For being that high, I think I did very well with altitude sickness.

Power only and uneven pad, but look at the view!

We tried a recipe from a camping cook book. 

Split hotdogs down the middle, add half a piece of string cheese and wrap in bacon.  Cook...

Bill came home right as they started cooking.

Yum!

Liam is trying to cook as many mini marshmallows as possible...

 The kids preferred regular hotdogs and then made campfire cones using waffle cones, melted marshmallows and chocolate chips.

Kyla rarely sits still for a picture.  She is savoring this yummy treat!

We worked on the Junior ranger handbook and hiked along a couple of trails.  Gorgeous vistas and beautiful flowers.

While we were up there, I decided to re pot some of our seedlings.  As an excellent science experiment, we purchased a tiny tray and planted seeds, just to see if they would grow.  Amazingly, what never worked outside in a garden, thrived in our tiny house.  The girls spent several minutes decorating the pots with paint, including Jessica's marigolds.  We left them out to dry and put them next to the RV as outside decoration. 

The next morning, we discovered some severely mangled plants.  The golden-mantled ground squirrels (we learned about them in the junior ranger hand book and laughed when they ate the mini marshmallows and chocolate chips that dropped to the ground --how cute) had helped themselves to our plants.  They ate the marigold flowers and buds, utterly destroying that plant, and the parsley.  They also sampled the oregano (as the scattered oregano leaves testified), but didn't like it and left our catnip completely alone.  Now, our plants stay inside...

Morning after squirrel devastation.  Sigh...

Taking a break during our hike!

All in all, a great place to stay if you are visiting Black Hawk and Central City and want to experience the real outdoors...   

Visiting downtown Denver and the Denver Mint

Denver, Colorado, has been our home for over ten years.  But we didn't take advantage of all the wonderful attractions available, instead just took them for granted.  So this summer, I decided that we would act like tourists and go to as many different places as possible.

An obvious choice is downtown Denver.  With all the museums and shops, how can we go wrong?

Brown Palace. Beautiful.

One of the places we visited was the Museum of Contemporary Art.  The kids enjoyed some of the art pieces and we tried to really look at it and understand what the artist was trying to say.   Everyone agreed that it was interesting, but nobody really liked it.


http://www.mcadenver.org/

 A South American artist put this multimedia sculpture together, with wires strung up in one room going through the wall, then attached to the the televisions and such on the other side.  We thought it might have represented the overabundance of technology in our life...

 This plastic silicone stuff looked like drips of paint mixed with trash.  Maybe making a statement on the environment and trash?  Anyway, it was the coolest thing there.

The bubble garden was supposed to be a fun place for the kids to play, but that lasted about five minutes...

We rode the 16th Street mall ride.  A convenient way to travel and you meet very different kinds of people, but we don't like being crammed in with strangers on a smelly bus..




Bill made reservations for the Denver Mint in June and the soonest we could get a tour was September 5th.  Which happened to be Jessica's 13th birthday...  She wasn't too thrilled about being there, but took it like a good sport.

If you get the chance to visit the Mint, it is a marvelous experience.  So much history and security.  We couldn't bring any bags in, except for a pocket-sized wallet, and had to shut our phones off.  Then walked through a metal detector.  Through the tour, we had at least two escorts, plus the tour guide.  Everything is behind glass and you can see the coins being made on the ground floor.   There were some great pieces of old machinery and some funny stories.   

Cherry Creek Reservoir

A boat in the middle of Cherry Creek

After our trip to Gunnison, we stayed for two weeks at the Cherry Creek Reservoir.  They have nice, wide sites with decent amenities, like laundry facilities.  It rained most of the time, but we did spend a day on the sandy beach.

My son's favorite part was the shooting range.  Bill, my husband, took him shooting several weeks later for a special father/son bonding time.  Reasonable rates and all day shooting make for lots of fun.

digging a hole and having fun!

No place like a cold lake on a hot day!

Blue Mesa Ranch Resort --Part 3

After the exhausting day at Black Canyon, we took a down day and enjoyed the amenities at the resort.  Watching videos on the vcr in the game room cracked me up.  We watched "Jurassic Park" and "Forest Gump," as the kids had never seen them.  I reminded Bill to rewind the video (hadn't used one of these in YEARS). 

Then, on the coldest and rainiest day of our vacation, we rented the pontoon boat.  Not by choice.  They had scheduled us on Thursday and we couldn't do another day.  Since it was only overcast, we figured we would get a couple hours of enjoyment.

Bill let the kids take turns driving in huge figure eights. They did really well and had a blast.  For the first couple hours.  The girls and I jumped in briefly to relieve the pressure on our bladders.  Problem. No ladder.  How am I going to get back on?  By much perseverance, a nasty bruise on my left knee and sheer force of will.  Between Bill pulling and me hauling, we managed to get me back on.  Ouch.

And then the weather took a turn for the worse. Rain poured down in sheets as we miserable huddled under the soaking wet towels.  Bill hauled rudder for the dock.  We decided freezing and fast trumped slow and cold. 

Blue Mesa resort (the lake is in background).

We thawed out in the hot tub for a couple hours and decided that pontoons are fun in the sun, but not the rain.

After that, we continued to enjoy the amenities that Blue Mesa offered and reveled in each other's company without pressing schedules or looming deadlines.

The only fly in the ointment came with the Friday morning presentation.  We had committed ahead of time to listen politely and decline any membership at the end.  Our presenter, Virgil, seemed like a really nice guy.  In his 70s, he is based out of Verde, Arizona, and came to Colorado to help sell memberships.  I have to hand it to him, because Virgil is a born salesman. 

He painted this marvelous picture of going all over the nation and staying at these fabulous resorts.  In addition to the membership package, he skated right into the condo and cabin package.  I had overheard other patrons talking about two year or five year memberships and asked him about that.  Never one to let frivolous questions derail him, Virgil pressed on.  Raving about the lifetime membership package and able to will it to your heirs, he continuously waved his hand around, brushing aside any concerns I managed to express.

I felt like a train track being run over by a steam engine.  In the end, we decided to give it a try.   Later, after dinner, we passed him driving down to the dock in his shiny red convertible.  Hmmm.

With $8500 total (to be made in monthly payments), we signed a contract for a...(wait for it)...lifetime membership.  WHAT?  You say.  A lifetime membership?  That's crazy. Why would anyone do that?   

A very good question.  We had five days to do research and break the contract.  After reading the fine print (they don't give you much time to peruse the contract), I realized the enormity of the commitment.

Immediately, I called their front desk and figured out what I have to TO CANCEL.  After some finagling (they don't make it easy), we got out of the contract.

 In the end, we had a great time and reaffirmed our vow to never sign a contract under pressure.

 If it's too good to be true, it probably is...

Blue Mesa Ranch Resort --Part 2

Gunnison, Colorado is absolutely beautiful.  In a spare sort of way. The landscape is mostly sage and a few scraggly junipers.  But when the sun goes down, the shadows flitting across the blue mountains change to a deep purple. I'm not fond of Colorado's desert-like landscape, but rolling clouds that sweep across the wide-open sky satisfy my need for green things. 

I don't know if that makes sense.  After living in the desert or desert-like conditions most of my life, I long for cool, quiet walks in arched trees.  We lived in Hawaii for about three years.  You could grow almost anything in that soil.  The avocados were as big as footballs and tasted like butter. The pineapples are so fresh and sweet.  But my favorite are the coconuts.  At the flea market, vendors sell young coconuts snuggled in barrels of ice.  They poke a hole and put a straw inside so you can walk around and drink the marvelous milk.  Then, when that is all gone, they wack off the top with a machete and hand you a spoon to scoop out the quivering mass of coconut flesh.  Still ice-cold, it is the best treat on a hot day.

In contrast to the lush tropics --the southwest is a stark, raw beauty.  Rugged and untamed.   By mid-July, the heat has sucked any moisture out of the grass and it becomes dry and brown. 

I digress.

Our views this summer have made up for the heat. (I know that Texas, New Mexico and Arizona get hot --over 100 degrees in the shade-- as I lived there.  And it doesn't account for humidity.  I'm just saying...hot is hot). 

Close to Gunnison is the beautiful Black Canyon.  I had heard it described like a miniature Grand Canyon.  What a perfect combination of homeschooling credit and playing tourist...  We drove out to the Black Canyon on the hottest day of our trip.  Isn't that the best time?

Painted Wall

According the National Parks website, "the Gunnison River through Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park drops at an average of 95 feet per mile. By comparison, the Colorado River through Grand Canyon National Park drops an average of 7.5 feet per mile.

They describe it like this: "Prepare yourself for 2,000 foot tall, narrow canyon walls dropping almost vertically to the Gunnison River.  The Black Canyon is known for crumbling rock, dizzying heights, and a lack of places to place protective equipment. Rock climbing is a challenge limited to highly experienced, expert climbers only.

Big enough to be overwhelming, still intimate enough to feel the pulse of time, Black Canyon of the Gunnison exposes you to some of the steepest cliffs, oldest rock, and craggiest spires in North America. With two million years to work, the Gunnison River, along with the forces of weathering, has sculpted this vertical wilderness of rock, water, and sky."  

Black Canyon 

We took advantage of the Junior Ranger Program and filled out all the pages.  It was a great way to explore the canyon and learn at the same time.  The kids didn't agree.  Much wailing and gnashing of teeth on their end.  I used our end-of-the-journey ice cream trip as leverage to make them finish the program.  After that, it went much smoother.  Plus, the kids liked learning about the gneiss (pronounced "nice") and the schist (different kinds of rocks) They snickered and said it sounded like a bad word. 

After that long, hot, exhausting, and beautiful drive, we decided to head into Gunnison itself and buy dinner.  Quite a splurge as we normally try to eat at home.  We ended up at the Gunnisack. A local restaurant with American cuisine.

We ordered wings and burgers and admired the decor.  Great food!  But our favorite was the dessert. The cookie is baked right in the dish and a huge scoop of vanilla ice cream topped with whipped cream and chocolate sits on top.  We divided it up between the five of us and scarfed it down!

Funky Rock the kids climbed at a local park. 

We also headed to the big park downtown.  It had a huge climbing rock and several interesting sculptures.  The kids immediately went to the top and I sat down at a table to finish my crocheting project for Kyla: a cat scoodie...