What a Sky!

We were returning home to Strasburg after a ride awhile ago and were treated to this beautiful sunset. I focused on the water tower in town to put it to scale. Isn't this gorgeous? As I zoomed in with my iPhoto program the yellow part of the sky began to look like a huge lake, complete with islands. There are dark lands beyond, between the golden lake and the blue sky. Amazing! It sparks one's imagination!

KOA Scenes

 I've taken a variety of quick photos around the KOA kampground, (it's Kamping, not Camping!) so thought I'd put up a few of them here. This is Jeff, the owner, putting a new roof on the hot tub enclosure. He is a talented jack-of-all-trades, very necessary skills for a campground owner.

 Every RV park should have its own kitty! Callie, a mostly outside cat, favors the bench by the office door when she's not wandering through the kampground, but she readily comes into the office and store when the weather gets cold and snowy. Isn't she pretty?

 Here is a great shot of David, one of our pizza makers, and a workamper here. He's had years in the pizza business so is a valuable asset to our KOA, where we make, sell and deliver pizzas to the kampers and the townsfolk. He's got one pizza half finished on the table and 2 coming out of the oven. Yum! It's delicious pizza. I've been known to make a few myself if orders come in before Dave or the girls get there!

 Ordinarily I work in the office, but here I pitched in to help Keith haul a big load of leaves. We were thinking the leaves might blow out while we were on our way to the burn pile, so I plopped myself down on top of them!

 It was a fun, though somewhat bumpy, ride out back. We are almost finished raking and hauling leaves. The trees are bare now.

One more KOA photo, taken this morning after a fresh snowfall — pretty sunrise!

Lowry Air Force Base

 Yesterday we set out to Aurora to see if Keith's computer was repaired yet. It wasn't, so to make the trip fruitful we decided just to drive around in Denver and see what we could see, not expecting the treat we found. Nestled right in the big city is the old Lowry Air Force Base, closed since 1994. Most of the buildings have been converted into housing, colleges, schools, and some into stores and restaurants. Two huge hangars are still there, one housing the Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum. This big airplane is part of the museum exhibit. We didn't go inside, just admired the immensity of the whole complex. (Click on my title at the top to read the Wikipedia account of the Base.)

 Here is the Eisenhower Memorial Chapel, still cared for in the town center. It is on the National Register of Historic Places.

The headquarters buildings covered a lot of ground. These enormous barracks along with the headquarters in the center are now converted into apartments. Very ritzy-ditzy!

 Looking down the main street towards the former headquarters buildings we saw many unique little stores, businesses and eating places.

And, the best gift of all — we decided to eat here at the Pei Wei (Pee Wee?) Asian Diner. It was packed with the lunch crowd. We got into a brief conversation with a uniformed Air Force officer while we were reading the menu board. He went ahead of us, in our indecision about what to have, and as we ordered and then headed towards the doors thinking we would sit at the outside tables, we started to walk past the officer's table. To our surprise, he invited us to sit with him! We did, and had a fascinating and stimulating talk with him as we ate our Pad Thai and egg rolls. He was a reserve officer doing some duty with the last vestiges of the Lowry base, and told us he was a lawyer in Washington, D.C. the rest of the year. It was such an unexpected treat to be invited to eat with a perfect stranger in a crowded diner, and find the talk so engaging. We returned home feeling our trip to downtown was most rewarding!

A Trip to Kiowa

  What beautiful, sunny October-November days we've been having! The photo above is what we see looking west from the Strasburg area. The Rockies are stunning even from this distance!

  Our day off yielded a trip to Kiowa, a small town south of us reached by a long partly paved, partly gravel road. The residents of Kiowa get to daily look at this view of Pikes Peak.

The main street of Kiowa is about this long! We were intrigued by the taller building in the center of the photo, a 'biker bar'. It was a bright turquoise color, which doesn't show up too well in the picture — it seems to blend in with the sky.

On the way home by yet another dirt and gravel road I spotted a 'photo opportunity'. The barn is made from sod or stucco of some kind, and the windmill, typical of the high plains ranches, adds to the scene, along with the contented cows. (Click to enlarge.)