bobanddenisewanderlust

Saturday- We left and drove to Broomfield to the Omni Hotel to attend Choctoberfest.. Bob had a Groupon- 2 for $5. Regular price was $5 each. When we arrived at the hotel there was a long line for a ticket, but the Groupon line was short. We had to buy tickets for the tasting. That was okay, except most of the pieces of chocolate were very small. We would split them for a taste. Bob was also able to taste some chocolate stouts. One of them was a 4 oz. glass, and on basically an empty stomach, that made him a little tipsy. It was okay since I am driving now.

We had a great time tasting. We arrived after the unveiling of the Peyton Manning statue.  We had seen on the TV news that it was as statue that they put chocolate over.  The same for the dog below.

There were various classes offered, like pairing chocolate and wine or chocolate and beer. We were not really interested in those.

We found some excellent fudge. We tasted the Amaretto fudge and it was very good. Not the pink and chocolate kind. They had the amaretto in the fudge directly. We also tasted their pecan. The guy gave us a free taste of their 2015 winning fudge in the Colorado contest. It has pecans and cherries. We bought a 1/4 lb. of the Amaretto and the prize winner.

We left at about 12:00. We drove home, ate a very small lunch, and took a nice nap. We went to social hour. We decided to eat dinner in and skip the dinner at the Lodge. So we had the leftover pork chops for dinner.

Sunday- We had a quiet day. We did our usual bill paying and budgeting. At 11 MST we watched the Redskin game. They played very well and won this time. I laid down for a short nap. In the afternoon we went to social hour. Ernie and Rallene were there. It was nice to see them. We found out we have a pot luck tomorrow evening. We had  taken chicken out of the freezer for dinner, so we quickly decided we would make a crock pot meal of that for the pot luck.  We also found out that when the Rockies win by 7 points, there is a special at the local Taco Bell’s. 4 tacos for $2. So we decided to go over to the Taco Bell and pick up tacos for dinner, as the Rockies had won by 8 points last evening.

Monday-  We drove out about 9:30 to go to the Ophthalmologist. I have a film which has formed over the lens which was placed during my cataract surgery in 2012. The Doc is zapping the film with a laser. I hate eye care. So this is not fun. He had said that there was nothing to it and there really was not. They put in the dilating eye drops and then the Doc did the laser treatment in 15 seconds.

I thought that blinking was going to be a problem, but he said he wanted me to blink. So there was nothing to it. I saw some red floaters. When he finished he talked to us for a few minutes, then asked if the red floaters were gone. Yup!

I did have a brown floater in the top of my eye. That also went away in about 1/2 hour. He said I would see better later.

We left and went to the massage therapist’s pet store in Littleton. We arrived and the store was closed for a family issue. So we continued on to the Yard House at Colorado Mills Mall. We ordered the chicken nacho’s. We had learned in California that one order was enough for both of us. We even brought home leftovers!

We returned home. I took a short nap while washing the sheets. Bob took the towels to the Laundromat.  We went to the social hour. We also had a pot luck dinner, the last of the summer. We had a great variety of foods.

Julie is in the chair to the left, standing was Chuck, his wife Lynn, then Sharon. It looks like there is no one there, but there had been about 20 people.

Tuesday- I got ready to leave for PT and Dan, the RV repair tech arrived. Bob had called him to come check the topper to our big slide. Bob thought that the spring had broken. Dan found that Bob was right and replaced the spring. He also checked the step. He unplugged the step,then plugged it back in. It worked, so we hope that fixed the issue. We will see.

I went to PT. Yipee, I was able to pedal the bike! Finally!!! I was able to do it with the left leg at 5 weeks, the right at 7 weeks. I am so glad. We will see how much more PT that I am going to need.

I stopped and dropped off the DVD and some books. I also picked up some books. Only a few more weeks, then we leave.

We ate lunch, then went grocery shopping. We retuned home and I worked on lining up some recipes for crock pot meals while on the road. Bob took a nice nap.

We went to social hour at 4. There were some new folks there who had just arrived.They brought some plums that someone had given them. We sat chatting until 5:30, when we returned home to eat leftovers from the pot luck. We had taken Cheesy Chicken Spaghetti, a Pinterest recipe, on my crock pot board.  It was pretty good. Most of the dish was gone, but there was enough for dinner tonight.

Wednesday- At 9:30 I had my Dexascan scheduled so we took off to complete that test. Then we stopped for gas at Costco. The car was filthy, so we stopped at a carwash. We needed a few items at King Sooper, so we stopped there. The new add was out, so we grabbed a few sale items.

We ran home, ate lunch, then took Roxie to the Vets for her pre-teeth cleaning blood work. That was a quick visit and Karlie was happy the visit was not for her!

We returned home and went to social hour. Friends Susan and Dale Prichard had arrived, so we went to dinner with them driving to Longmont. We met up with Judy and Darrell Turner who are Alfa owners and live in Longmont. We went to Q BBQ which was very good. We had a great time!

From the left, me, Bob, Darrell, Dale, Judy and Susan.

Thursday- I was off to PT at 11. I was still able to pedal the bike. Sara measured and I have hit 120 degrees! Yippee again!! Bob worked a bit around the MH. We ate lunch and went to purchase some dog food for Karlie.

The dog food store was close to Sweet Cow so we stopped in for some ice cream. They did not have the Chocolate Oatmeal Stout, but they had Bourbon Cornflake which Bob really liked. He said it tasted a lot better than what it sounds. I had German Chocolate and I brought home a pint.

We went to social hour and then met up with Susan and Dale for Taco Thursday. We stayed until about 7:30, when we noticed that the Redskin game was on. So we said good-bye to them, as they are leaving in the morning and returned home to watch the game. 

Friday-  Bear with me, we took 138 pictures today! Taking the dogs with us, we drove out of the Elks Lodge at 8:10 to go “ leaf peeping”. We took I-76 W to I-70W to I-470S-to Hwy 285 W. We followed the highway, stopping at a Subway for sandwiches for lunch.

The scenery was spectacular, although it does not show up as well in the pictures.

As we were driving we passed through Santa Maria. This statue was off the highway to the right. In front, on the ground was Santa Maria written out in rocks.

We stopped while I was taking the pictures and Bob walked the dogs. We started back up driving and Karlie started whimpering and squeaking. We told her we would pull over as soon as we can. We did, thinking she needed to go…. Nope! When Bob had re-hooked her harness to the seatbelt, somehow the hook had come off the seatbelt. She is just so smart! She was letting us know that something was wrong. Bob re-hooked her and both dogs went to sleep!

Our first destination was Kenosha Pass. We arrived to find a crowd, which only became larger the longer that we stayed. We topped and took pictures, then noticed a dirt road that went up into the hill so we drove in.

We stopped at the vault toilets and walked the dogs. Then we rode through the campground where we saw this trailer which we thought was interesting.

We stopped on the road on the way back out and took pictures in various directions. The parking was limited because of horse trailer. There were a lot of hikers, mountain bikers and horseback riders. Hunting was limited. All of the yellow trees are Aspens.

These views are looking back the way we came and how we are leaving.

We back tracked to Hwy 62, to the Guanella Pass Scenic Byway, only about 5 miles. We learned while talking to people while driving this beautiful highway, that the road had been just redone with asphalt. It had been dirt and gravel. Thank you Colorado for doing this just for us, LOL.

Not far along the road, we stopped to see this brook. Unfortunately the picture does not even remotely resemble the beauty of the area.

We were not sure what the fencing was for, but it was in an area near a stables. For the next picture, I slammed on the brakes and Bob gave me the camera. Unfortunately we must have scared the deer.

We started to climb the mountain and stopped because a group of people where stopped at a pull off.  They were looking at big horn sheep on a path just below where we were standing. One of the sheep stood and posed for me, but with the sun so bright, I could not see him well with the camera and missed his pose. I did catch him moving along.

We could hear water rushing, so while Bob walked the dogs I walked up the hill a short ways to a waterfall.

We continued on our way up to the pass.

We continued along our way.

We tried to stop at various parking areas to eat lunch at a picnic table. There were only three and they were all in use. We finally stopped at a hiking trail where there were some flat rocks. We took the dogs with us and sat on the rocks eating our lunch. Bob walked the dogs a bit, while I kept being asked to take peoples pictures. All that picture taking at Breck has made us experts on using different cameras!

Hwy 62 finally ended in the town of Georgetown. We had driven past the town numerous times, stopping for gas, but had never visited. Here are a few scenes.

These small towns are picturesque with lots of cute little shops. We drove out to I-70 towards Denver. It was only around 12:30 at this point, so we decided to take the road, Hwy, 40,  to Winter Park Ski Resort and Rocky Mountain National Park Colorado. We had never been this direction, so this was new to us. We had entered the park from the other direction and gone half way through the park in 2010.

This was another spectacular road trip.

Interesting to us, the road led to the ski resort, but the town was past the resort and that appeared to be where most of the hotels and condo’s were located. We drove through town and continued on to Granby and we turned onto Hwy. 34, taking us to the National Park.

On the way, we passed Lake Granby, Shadow Mountain Lake, and Grand Lake.  The three lakes are connected by the Colorado River and are all very large lakes. These were all in the Arapaho National Recreation Area. The town of Granby looked like a nice little town, but we continued past. There were several RV parks and a National Park RV park which looked like the sites were large enough for us to get into them.

As you can notice by the sign it is the 100th anniversary of the park. Tomorrow is also a free National Park Day, so we were glad that we had done this trip today. Using Bob’s Geezer Pass, we were able to enter the park for free anyway.

We entered the park and stopped a one of the trailheads to give the dogs a change to walk. Bob walked them up the trail a short ways and came back huffing and puffing. He could already fee the altitude. We were at about 10,000 ft. at this point.

We continued up to Fairview Curve where we stopped again.

We continued on past the Alpine Visitor Center. We had been there before and there was no parking left. It was very busy. We make the curve past the lava cliffs and there were cars and RV’s stopped all over the road. There were Big Horn Goats up on the inside of the road. We had nowhere to stop and were unable to get pictures. We continued on to the Forest Canyon Lookout. I took the camera and walked out. Bob walked the dogs near the car, as dogs are not allowed on any trails.

The walk was only about 50 yards, but I was huffing and puffing when I got there. We were at almost 12,000 ft.  Whew!

We continued on, starting our downhill trek. We rounded a curve and here were was the Elk herd. It is rutting time for them, but they were just grazing.

We continued on our way, leaving the park and entering Estes Park. We turned onto Rt. 36, which took us back to Boulder. We stopped at Costco for gas, then returned to the Elks. We arrived at about 5:30. Bob quickly walked the dogs and fed them. Then we walked down to the lodge for dinner. Marianna and Fred and Thelma and Mel were there. We ate dinner then left and returned home to collapse after a fun day.

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