Wednesday started out as a normal day, the guys were still fishing and I have bowling and volunteer library duties. Eli loved the bowling center, he ran around in big circles: down onto the tile floor where the tables are and then up the ramp onto the carpet where the restaurant and the lockers are, around and around. He wasn’t my lucky charm for bowling, because I was pitiful. Our team lost 3 out of 4 points – 2 games and total pins, and our opponents were missing one bowler! Sue was minding the store so Jay and I could play grandparents. Thanks, Sue! Uncle Teddy joined us for lunch at Rancher’s Roost, inside the bowling center, which was very nice.

We were concerned that Eli might “give out” before I finished shelving at the library, but we gave it a try. We brought out the stroller and Jen tried walking him up and down Main Street to see if he would fall asleep in the stroller. But before he accomplished that, it started to rain. Jen reminded me that my windows were open in the car, so I dashed down the block in the rain and rolled up the windows before it started in earnest. But earnest it was, a good hard rain with thunder. Eli did fall asleep in the stroller and Jen got some time on a library computer. But before I finished shelving (I still had half of the fiction and all of adult nonfiction to go), Eli woke up and we decided it was best to take him home.

As we drove up the driveway, almost to Barbara’s guard rail, we noticed a tree on the left side of the driveway was on fire, with flames!, and smoke rolling down the hill. We immediately assumed lightning strike and called 911 as soon as we walked in the door. We decided to go down to the end of the driveway and direct the firefighters when they arrived. We stopped and took pictures of the fire on the way down, since we knew the trucks came from town and would need at least 25 minutes to get to our house. Two firetrucks arrived, #4 and then #15. They were not big, we only had a small fire, and they came with lights flashing but no sirens. Our firefighters are all volunteer, and are very professional. Our community was recently the incident command central for the firefighters from all over the West, who battled the Medano forest fire, which was started by lightning in the Great Sand Dunes National Park. So fires started by lightning strikes are taken seriously in the West, as I am sure you have seen on national news coverage.

Eli liked watching the bright red fire trucks arrive and we followed #15 up the drive. The firefighters were very happy to hear that the tree in question was on the side of the road and not off road in the middle of the forest . They foamed the tree very well, disturbed all of the ground cover at the base of the tree, mixing the foam in and looking for hot spots, and made sure that the fire was out and the tree cool before leaving. I took video of a lot of the process from a distance, I didn’t want to be in the way. Eli was interested for a while, but it was a slow process, and moved on to his own entertainments… snack & pretend driving the car with the emergency brake on.

I checked with the head guy as they were leaving. He said they felt the tree had been hit at the top and the energy traveled down through the tree to the base. The road side flames were out by the time they arrived, but there were still flames on the hill side of the tree which we could not see. They thanked us for calling them and we thanked them for their excellent work.

Jen and I felt that if we had been at home, we would have known that there was a nearby lightning hit, but we could not see the tree, the flames or even the smoke from the house and we knew where it was. The fire could have progressed dramatically and we would not have known it for a long while until it was very dangerous. So we think it was very good luck that Eli woke when he did and that we did not dawdle but went straight home. It was an adventure that was exciting and had a good outcome, no forest fire!

Eli brought his parents to Colorado last Friday, July 24th. He was a great traveler and patient while Wallace installed his car seat in the Santa Fe. We all went to lunch at Chili’s, then started our 3 hour drive back home. We hoped he would take a good nap in the car, but it was a short one. The long drive between cities and our home is not one of Eli’s favorite things. We drove straight into town and got to see Grandpa’s store and Uncle Teddy, before heading home. Eli has enjoyed the dogs, fortunately they are older now, and calmer, unless Jay pulls into the driveway, when they go ballistic to get him to play ball with them. Eli got to play ball with dogs the first night and likes trying to throw the ball for them. He has gradually worked his way up to petting them, likes to look for them and know where they are all the time, and doesn’t enjoy getting dog kisses, but doesn’t get upset about it either. Day one was a long day and Eli had a hard time settling down to sleep that night.

Saturday, after a leisurely breakfast, we took a ride into Florence to go to an estate auction. However, the directions were skimpy and there were no signs, so we didn’t find the auction, but ended up in Canon City at their history museum. It was really very nice with a lot of mounted animal heads, a bear rug, a family of 4 full size stuffed mountain buffalo (mom, dad, baby and youth), an antique gun collection and a wonderful antique music box / phonograph / jukebox collection among many other things. It was a docent led tour, just for the 5 of us. It was funny, because there was something in each collection that we could point to and say, “We have/had one of those”, in one of our homes or the store: jukeboxes, Victrola, buffalo and caribou mounts, bear rug, antique gun, but we didn’t want to burst the docent’s bubble or her presentation.  Speaking of Buffalo Bill and Caribou Carl, Eli didn’t notice them on the wall in the living room until this morning. But he can be excused, his line of vision is not that high usually. After lunch, we headed home so everyone could take an afternoon nap before dinner.

Sunday, Wallace and Jay organized all of their fly fishing equipment and took a trip to a nearby creek for a trial run before they headed north for their big fishing retreat. Jen, Eli and I took a trip to town to buy vegetables at the grocery. We found the park with the baby swings and climbing equipment on our way home. Eli had his first experience with beets on Sunday. He liked them, but then he likes most food, especially vegetables. I took some pictures of Eli, hoping to use them in an art quilt project (more about that later), and I will continue to take more so I have a good selection to choose from.

Today was D day for the fishing retreat on the Poudre River. Jay and Wallace left before 7 am to pick up our friend, Steve, our friend Charlie, the fourth fisherman was meeting them there. Jen, Eli and I stayed home all day. We played, ate, napped, worked on a project, ate, played and went in the hot tub. I am getting the feel of Eli’s schedule, so I can be a good babysitter when his parents go to do adult fun things like hike to a gold mine or raft down the river. Eli had a lot of  red foods today, cherries, grapes, watermelon, spaghetti with meat sauce, more beets. He enjoyed dinner in his skivvies, in an effort to protect his clothing! He played peek a boo with Grandma while I was in the kitchen fixing our dinner. Eli enjoyed his first time in the hot tub a lot and learned to blow bubbles in the water for the first time!

Eli is so smart for fifteen months old, we hope to be able to post a video of him naming all of his body parts, making animal noises, and using his baby sign language. It is amazing how well he can communicate with sign language when he doesn’t have the verbal vocabulary, but definitely has the knowledge of what he wants to say.

Tuesday and Wednesday will be visits to town for quilting and bowling. I am looking forward to showing him off to my friends. Daddy and Grandpa get home late on Wednesday and then new adventures will unfold.

Eli will be a busy guy this month. He is spending 9 days in northern California visiting his maternal grandparents, Jerry and Rikki, while his dad was in Japan earlier this month. He will be bringing both of his parents to Colorado next week for 10 days so his dad can go fly-fishing with grandpa Jay. So part one will be pictures from California and part two will be pictures from Colorado… duh!

He went to San Francisco one morning to see his granddad’s office and have lunch in the city.  I am sure he was the big hit of the day and the center of attention. Another morning they went to a toy/teacher’s supply store and the toys selection is similar to Terra Toys in Austin. They were there a lot longer than expected because it was like Disneyland to him. They had a train table set up at his height. He made car, train, and airplane noises and lots of OOOOOOH’s. Of course, there’s a whole store full of cool toys and he LOVED the shopping cart and push broom his size. Just like Terra Toys the toys are good quality, but big $$$ too. Best part of the week was that Eli gave his grandma Rikki a hug at the toy store and again after he got up from his nap. These were hugs that he initiated. I know it made her feel SO good.

Wallace reports that he knows all of his body parts and can make all kind of animal noises (Eli, not Wallace). Julia reports that Eli now has the skill to string more than one “sign” together and is making baby sign language sentences.

Jay and I are really looking forward to having the kids here with Eli. I have collected the child gates from the storage unit, hopefully they will work and keep him from tumbling down our wood stairs. We are anxious to see how he gets along with Amber and Lacey. Jay has several fishing trips planned for Wallace and some hiking and or float trips with Jen later in the week, after Eli gets comfortable being leflt home with Grandma. Part 2 will come later in the month, yeah!

The day dawned bright with a beautiful blue Colorado sky. We got an early start at 8 am to drive into Cañon City to meet our friends, Tim and Marilyn, at the Fremont Campus of Pueblo Community College. We left our car there and traveled with T&M to Guffey CO for the 25^th Annual Chicken Fly. There were yard sales and craft vendors in abundance and we spent much of our cash at various locations, picking up treasures. Some were free, some were incredibly cheap and some were just so unique. Jay found a coal heated iron (for clothing) and a sheep herders stove, (the size of a hard cover book) with mica windows to see that the fuel was lit. We intend to do some research on those items. We figured out how the chicken fly works and Jay and Tim paid $5 each to fly a chicken in the contest. There were 10 chicken flyers in each heat. They had just finished heat 2 when we signed up, Jay was #10 in heat 5 and Tim was #1 in heat 6 and we were told it would be about 1 pm when their turn would come. So while the band played music from the bandstand, we wandered to more yard sales, the library book sale, the classic car show, the Rocky Mountain Wildlife Foundation booth (rescued wolves), and chicken bowling. Chicken bowling was a short homemade bowling lane (10 ft?) with 3 pins at the end, the wood was warped and rough, and there was a manual ball return. The goal was to knock down all three pins with one ball to win a prize, but you got three chances for a buck. We saw a young man make it on his third try, which was a challenge, because it is very hard to tell how the ball will roll. The prize was a painted bowling pin with Guffey Chicken Fly painted on it.

We were watching the chickens fly when we heard from across the field, “last call for Jay, heat #5.” This was about an hour earlier than we had expected. But no fear, they let Jay start the next heat, he was #-1, heat 6. We still had about 30 minutes before heat 6 took flight, so Tim and Jay picked out their chickens. Tim picked a reddish rooster, Jay picked a greenish hen. Tim kept giving the rooster exercises to prepare him for the contest, Jay’s little hen was feisty at first, but settled down quickly. He gave the hen a pep talk. We were joined by a young lady, about 14, who was on her second flight in heat #9. She actually lived on a poultry farm and regaled us with stories about chickens, how to hold them, and about their habits. It made the time go quickly while we waited. Ok, this is the process, at the top of the turkey launcher, was a mailbox with a door on both ends attached to a rail. Bill Soux, the founder and driving force of the Chicken Fly, announced the contestant and his/her chicken’s name, opened the back door and helped the chicken in, followed by a toilet plunger. Bill opened the front door, and the contestant plunged the chicken out, and the distance the chicken flew was measured with a very long measuring tape in feet and inches. Some chickens flew a decent distance, one flew to the roof of a nearby building, some just settled gently to the ground at the base of the tower. On the ground were several helpers with what looked like fishing nets on long poles to capture the released chickens. Jay went first as contestant -1 and his chicken was named, SPLAT. Splat flew 41 feet and 1 inch to great applause. Tim as the second contestant, #1, was next. His rooster was named FOGHORN LEGHORN. It was surprising (or not) how many adults and none of the children could relate to Foghorn Leghorn. Can you? Poor Foghorn only flew 27 feet 8 inches, but looked magnificent as he did. At the end of the heat, Jay was still the leader with 41′1” and got a first place prize from Bill Soux himself in the City Hall Saloon Museum. The interim event between chicken fly heats was a hula hoop contest, which we decided to miss in favor of lunch, by this time it was after 1 pm. The local restaurants were overcrowded and slow, so we decided to head to Cripple Creek, CO for our next stop, first place prize heat #6, and treasures in tow. It was a great day in Guffey CO for the possibly last Chicken Fly. We hope not, it was great fun.

It was about a half hour drive through gently rolling hills, rocky outcrops, and curvy roads to Cripple Creek, and about 1400 feet rise in elevation. We thought it was quite humorous that the elevation of Cripple Creek was 9,494 feet, the same number as the last four digits in the telephone number for the pawn shop. As we were walking we discovered a big sand sculpture for Cripple Creek Donkey Derby Days, which was last weekend. Cripple Creek also had a band in the park, with a barbecue vendor, and homemade ice cream. They were really making the ice cream right there in these neat ice cream makers. We ended up eating a buffet lunch in the Double Eagle Casino, which was what you would expect from a casino buffet, filling but nothing to write home about. We decided to take the scenic route back to Cañon City, via Phantom Canyon Road. Our goal was the third stop of the day, the community college, where Marilyn is the Academic Advisor and Jay will be a teacher again this fall.

The Fremont Campus PCC hosts the community on their north lawn each Fourth of July for the past several years to enjoy entertainment and watch the Cañon City fireworks display from Skyline Road.  In the third picture, look for the antennae on the top of bluff, that’s where the fireworks will be shot from. The school offers popcorn and free watermelon donated by City Market (Krogers), water play for the kids, a bounce house, a live band, Applewood, and a grassy area to sit and play. The local 4H club had a food cart serving hot dogs, brats, and other festival type foods. Families brought full picnics, fast food dinners, quilts, camp chairs, etc to enjoy the evening. At 7 pm as I write this, sitting in the shade with a light wind blowing, it feels like the mid 70s, just wonderful. The band played 50s and 60s music which was great for us and the children dancing before the stage could care less, they were having a great time. The college had 3D glasses for sale for $1 each to watch the fireworks. I bought everyone a pair and we wondered what would happen when it got dark, with daylight the view was just slightly fuzzy with hints of color. Well, I am not sure I would want to watch fireworks without the 3D glasses again. The lenses fractured the view into 9 squares (I kept thinking about a nine patch quilt block), the center square was mostly clear and reflected the color of the firework, the other 8 surrounding squares were a reflective image of the firework in colors of red, blue and/or green. It was amazing and so much fun. We had perfect seats and the fireworks were plentiful. There was martial fireworks type of music playing from the bandstand, reminiscent of the Boston Pops Fourth of July programs we have seen on PBS stations over the years.

After helping Marilyn tote in tables and chairs, we rested inside the school for a little bit waiting for the crowd to leave. In addition to the people on the grass on the north lawn, there were hundreds of cars in the parking lot with families just sitting there to watch the fireworks. It was almost 11 pm by the time we got home, a long, yet wonderfully refreshing Fourth of July, a winner all way round. Hope your day was wonderful too.