mt rushmore

I can say with shame that I finally visited a place that is in my own backyard yet known to many around the world: Mt. Rushmore.



How can I claim something in South Dakota as my own backyard? When your father has an airplane, your backyard becomes a much larger place. It took us 1 and 1/2 hours to fly up there and a little longer to get home.

tim and i on the wing

We saw both the presidential monument and the unfinished monument to Crazy Horse.

crazy horse

a smaller version of the project

We even had time to stop in at an all wooden church (no nails) built by Norwegian immigrants, but it was closed for the season. It was apparent from the multi-level parking garages and long sidewalks in front of the ticket booths that this place gets very busy in the summer. For us, it was almost a ghost town, and we enjoyed the space and unobstructed views of the monuments and the lovely Black Hills.



I knew that moving back to the US with Paul would mean finally getting to see my own country, and as with so many other things, he's making this dream come true.

breckenridge

Terry and Marilyn Brandt invited us to join them and their children, Sam and Haley, at their condo in Breckenridge last weekend, and we were packing our bags before we even finished reading the invitation. For me, it was an afternoon of skiing that made me wonder why I ever left Colorado.





We all enjoyed sledding. It snowed a little Saturday night and was warm enough on Sunday to melt the icy patches but not turn the slopes to mush.

a view of our condo complex from the top of the sledding hill

sammy off-piste sledding

sammy involved in an abrupt stop

me enjoying a gentler slope

tim dressed appropriately

paul and tim taking a break

Terry is an excellent skier and knows Breck intimately; he took Paul out for a day of intense skiing that exhausted both of them on Saturday.

paul taking a turn on a green slope

breckenridge from the top of peak 8

sammy snowboarding

terry heading down a black slope

paul enjoying the view from on high

denver

Paul and I decided to exchange the provincial life in Fort Collins for a day in Denver last Saturday. It was nice to be back among the skyscrapers and crowds. I even heard people speaking languages other than English. We started at Union Station, the original Denver train station that still functions even though we don't really have a rail service in the US, then walked up 16th Street to the capitol building.

union station

downtown denver

the state capitol building

There's a large park in front of the capitol that is very pretty and full of vagrants. We watched as two policeman ran after one man and wrestled him to the ground. Ah, the big city.

one of the more appealing residents of the capitol park

frontier statue

REI has a flagship store near the downtown and we stopped there onthe way home. They have a play area inside for kids made to look like a small mountain complete with a cave and climbing wall. Tim thoroughly enjoyed himself while Paul found just what he wanted. We didn't take the camera in the shop, sorry.