Fun in Lake City

Carsten and Grant playing on a caboose at the Lake City Museum.

The view from Susan Kirkland's deck in Lake City.

Carsten and Grant in the "jail" at the museum.

The last picture is of Grant at a local playground.

We are having a good time in beautiful Lake City, Colorado where our son-in-law's mother owns a summer home. Lake City is a cute little town located one hour east of Gunnison. The elevation here is over 8600 feet!! It's a killer on bike rides!

Dennis and I drove here with our grandsons on Monday and Rena joined us yesterday. Poor Rena got stuck behind a accident on the way here yesterday and the normal 5.5 hour drive turned into 9 hours. We had a very fun day today taking the boys to a park in town and then to a great museum. The boys had a great time in the caboose and in the old play house. I think they could have stayed there all day. Also the museum gave out little papers with pictures of things to find all around the museum. It was really quite hard to find everything but we were determined and with the help of other people we found all the items and the boys each got a sticker as a prize. Dennis and I went on a bike ride in the afternoon but it was way to steep so we ended up just riding around town. It was okay because yesterday we rode over 20 miles up the 4-wheel-drive road and back. It is absolutely beautiful here.

The trailer that we are supposed to drive back to Lyons for Rena and Nathan is not ready yet so tomorrow we are going to take off for some more adventuring. First we are going to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. We plan to stay there one night and then either head to Durango or Crested Butte. We would prefer to go to Crested Butte but we don't think we can find a place to camp or even a room there because on Sunday they are having the last qualifying race for the Leadville Trail 100 mountain bike race. We would love to go watch the race and might just go for the day. Our plans are very much still up in the air. We do plan to come back here to pick up the trailer early next week and head back to Lyons.

We are starting to get tired of being on the road and living out of our van. It is hard staying at so many different places and trying to keeping everything organized. Maybe our summer of love will be ending sooner than we think.... We will keep you posted.

Love, Dana and Dennis

We made it to Colorado!

These are some pictures I took out the window yesterday. The one above was taken at a pretty rest stop in Utah.

Snow covered peaks with one of several trains we saw during the drive.

A pretty little town along the way

Here is Dennis and our grandsons, Carsten and Grant helping him wash the car.

The drive yesterday went well overall and we arrived in Lyons at 3:45pm. The last part of the drive was challenging and we were surprised to see worse drivers here than in California! Or maybe all the bad So. Cal. drivers moved here. At any rate, we saw 2 very "close calls" and then we were in stop and go traffic for over a half hour because of a big 5 car crash. All of this was on a 30 mile stretch on South I-25 between Fort Collins and our turn off to Lyons. Dennis said he was ready to turn around and go back home. (Oh yeah, we have no home to go back to) Ha-ha!

Another interesting thing we saw yesterday was at a rest stop in Wyoming where we were eating lunch. A unmarked police car pulled up and 2 officers proceeded to escort 2 prisoners to the bathroom. The prisoners were very young (WAY too young) and were in handcuffs and ankle shackles and wearing white prison garb. We have never seen that before!

Driving through Wyoming was pretty desolate and flat but we did see a lot of prong horn sheep in the feeding in the fields.

We are happy to be here and Rena and Nathan are throwing us a "welcome" party tonight with a bunch of their friends. So nice of them! Dennis and I went to the local Wally World(Walmart) and then drove through some neighborhoods in Longmont. We saw some nice homes that we hope to look at eventually. In the mean time, on Monday we are taking Carsten and Grant and heading south to Lake City, CO to visit Nathan's mom and pick up the trailer her neighbor is giving the kids. If all goes well, we plan to take the trailer and hit the road for another 2 weeks. We are having a hard time giving up on the "summer of love" quite yet.

Living it Up In Utah

We drove 675 miles today and are spending the night in Tremonton, Utah. We are staying at a cheap hotel and ate at Denny's for dinner. Yeeha! The drive today went well. We traveled east on highway 84 out of Portland along the Columbia River and across northern Oregon. We then traveled through the bottom of Idaho and then turned south into Utah. Tomorrow will be a shorter drive and we plan to arrive in Lyon's Colorado around 5pm. We are very excited to see Rena, Nathan and the boys!

We miss everyone and wonder how things are going back "home".....

Love to all, Dana and Dennis

Elsie's Baptism

Yesterday we headed back to Portland and today Elsie Ryan was baptised. Dennis and I were honored to be her God-parents. My mom and Larry were able to join us for the simple ceremony. What a special day.

Miss Reagan Eileen Faulkner.

Miss Katya Ann Faulkner.

Mountain Biking in Leavenworth

Beautiful country and sunshine!

Dennis on the trail.

Mark on "the rock" high in the Cascade mountains above Leavenworth.

We made it to the top--yeah!!

Leavenworth, WA

Mark (with his broken fingers), Tosia, David and Dana in our campsite outside of Leavenworth.

Leavenworth is all done up like an old Bavarian village. It was quite the tourist trap but fun to visit.

Tosia, David, Dennis and Mark at Uncle Uli's Tavern located on a main corner down town. It was fun to watch all the people go by and enjoy beer and brats.

David and Tosia enjoying the sunshine!

Mountain Biking in Oregon

Taking a break along 8 mile trail on Wednesday.

Riding along 8 mile creek on 450 Trail. Beautiful county.

We made it to the high point of High Prairie on Thursday. It was an epic day of riding 26 miles. We were out for 6.5 hours (with lots of breaks)!

Lunch break. (Mark Dunivent and Dennis Thompson)

Looking toward Mt. Hood along the road.

Cloudy Days in Hood River

Here we were starting to cross The Bridge of the Gods over the mighty Columbia River.

View of the River looking East. We were crossing from the Oregon side and heading into Washington.

Bridge of the Gods---heading north into Washington.

Olympia visit

Here is my mom with her friend JoAnn Kroll who she went to High School with in Olympia.

We took our granddaughter Katya with us to Olympia to visit her great-grandparents. It was her first time away from her parents and she had a great time.

Here is Katya in front of the playhouse that was my mom's and her sister's when they were little. My mom had it re-built and it is SO cute. It has real windows that open and a front and back door and lights in both the "main room" and the "kitchen". For those of you who don't know, my mom and Larry now live in my mom's childhood home. It is wonderful to take our grandkids here where we have so many memories.

Elsie's Homecoming

Mountain Biking with Mark

We had a great mountain bike ride on Thursday with my brother Mark near Mt. Hood in Oregon. It was scary being on single track again but I did good and am getting my confidence back. Mark is a maniac on the down hill sections but he is so fun to ride with because he is never in a hurry and wants everyone to enjoy the ride and the beautiful trails.

Fun with Katya and Reagan

We had fun day entertaining Katya and Reagan and getting ready for Brenda and Elsie to come home. The girls were so cute!

Baby Elsie

I didn't take many pictures with my camera because I was so busy consecrating on taking pictures with Brenda and Craig's camera. The ones above are a few I took. Katya was beside herself with excitement at meeting her sister. She ran in the room and yelled, "Elsie!" and just laughed and laughed. She asked what color her eyes were and when Brenda said they are blue right now she yelled, "I wanted her eyes to be blue!". It was so cute and amazing that she was so happy. Reagan on the other hand hardly looked at her sister. She was more interested in looking around the room and drinking Brenda's ice water. You could sure see the differences in age and development.

After the hospital visit, Dennis, Craig, Katya, Reagan and I went out to dinner at the restaurant where Craig works. It was lots of fun for us all and Brenda got some resting time. After dinner we took Craig back to the hospital and Dennis and I took the girls back and got them to bed.

Brenda says Elsie is sleeping a lot and she is worried about her not wanting to nurse. Hopefully she will get the hang of nursing in a day or two. They should be coming home late in the day tomorrow and we will be having a birthday party for Elsie along with balloons, cake and presents for all the girls and champagne for the adults.

Craig came home to get a good nights sleep and will go back to be with Brenda tomorrow while Dennis and I watch the girls and get ready for the homecoming/birthday party.

Dennis and Craig are celebrating with a cigar and scotch on the patio right now.

Thank you Lord, for little Elsie!

Elsie has arrived!

We came back to Brenda and Craig's after a great time in Hood River and Brenda went into labor this morning. Baby Elsie Ryan was born at 12:06pm after just under 5 housr of labor.

She weighed in at 8lbs 10oz!!! Her shoulders got a little stuck so her birth was a little stressful at the end. It was amazing to see her born. Thank you, Brenda and Craig for allowing me to share in the birth of your beautiful daughter and giving us our 7th grandchild.

Hood River

View from the window this morning in the room we slept in.

Dennis with my brother Mark picking veggies for dinner.

Mt. Hood---what a beauty!