Before we started chronicling our vacation, I wanted to post about the quilt Veronica made in Denver. Our friend Kyle is a professional artist and seamstress, and she helped Veronica make a quilt. Click on the link to see Kyle's blog with the story and photos.

Meanwhile, here is Veronica showing off the backing when she arrived home at SeaTac last week.

There is Judy's car tucked away while the wagon is loaded up and ready to roll.

We stopped at The Original Pancake House for a little nourishment before the drive. Pr. Erik, Aoife McCarthy, and her dad joined us. Theresa (not pictured) was there too. Thank you Theresa for house sitting while we are away. Veronica took the opportunity to attack the famous apple pancake. Hard to believe the kids will be hungry within the next 100 miles.

Kyle tours Denver with her surrogate daughter. Kyle loaded about 200 pictures of their adventures onto dropbox. This blog entry is a subset of those pictures. If you would like to see the rest of the pictures, please write and we can send the dropbox link. There are videos too!

Kyle writes...

Denver & Elitch Gardens: I took Roni to a store called Rocket Fizz filled with candy and unique sodas, thus all the candy shots. The starburst are from my friend Meg. Her inlaws brought her some Russian cocktail starburst and she shared them with Roni. Elitch Gardens is an amusement park less than a mile away. We rode bikes over and will go again this week. Last set of images is Roni and I doing a test setup of the tent before going camping.

Denver Cruisers Themed Dress Night: In Denver every Wednesday from May until the end of Septemebr they have the largest organized bike ride in the nation. Each week they have a goofy theme to dress up as. This was Dress Night so you'll see pictures of dudes in dresses too. 2-3,000 cyclists ride through the city in the evening and meet up at a local park where we ride around and dance to music eating at food trucks until the park closes at 11pm. The girl you will see in a lot of the pictures is my friend Meg, who gave Roni the Russian starburst.

Road to Camping: Pictures of our drive down to The Great Sand Dunes National Park. We took the longer route down as it is through mountain passes. We made a quick stop at Red Rocks but we'll be going back this week for her to see it. You'll see pictures of food. We stopped at a national forest and ate lunch under a tree next to a creek. Any scenic areas we saw I pulled the car over to get pictures. There are lots of pictures I'm going to stitch together on photoshop to make as panoramic images.

Great Sand Dunes National Park: Setting up camp. Roni used her knot knowledge from camp to tie down the tent as it was windy in the evenings. We set out early the next day and hiked 8 miles on the sand dunes.

Zapata Falls: The road was a slow 3.5miles up a steep gravely, bumpy, crappy road. Then you walk a half mile up to not see a waterfall. Instead you have to get in the water and hike up the rapids using metal ropes attached to the mountain to keep you stable to see the waterfalls. The falls are located up in a rock crevasse. The water is ice cold but so worth the hike. Got some great views up on the mountain where the falls are located.

Sunset Sand Dune Pictures
We did a night hike with a park ranger this same evening but my camera didn't take any good shots. It was a perfect dark clear evening so we got to see the whole Milky Way.

Mollie Kathleen Gold Mine Tour: Pictures of the drive up. Saw a llama farm and had to stop. The gold mine takes you 1000 ft under ground. They show off actual mining equipment in action, took videos of that. Roni tried pushing a 1 ton ore cart with little success. Mollie Kathleen was the first female to strike a claim for gold. 

Garden of the Gods: Camera died so these are all taken on my phone. The rock formations are similarly made like that of Mushroom Rock. These are located in Colorado Springs.

White Water Rafting: Did a whole day rafting trip. We went out of Buena Vista, CO. It was about a 5hour trip through Browns Canyon. Roni fell off the boat once when they had us stand on the edge of the boat. She lost balance and went in. It was a pool of slow deep water so she was fine. I fell off and back slapped a rock during some rapids when the other boat smashed into us. Roni went into the air about 2 feet but the guide, Justin, grabbed her before she flew out. The pictures of Roni in the water are voluntary jump ins. The water was deep and slow so they let passengers jump off for a swim. For the last rapid of the day, they allowed volunteers to ride the rapids with their body. I captured a video of Roni doing this. When we got home we took Roni out for sushi.

Richard, Veronica, and our tour guide Kyle. Thank you Richard and Kyle for sharing your wonderful summer with Veronica.

Need I Say More...

So, there are gin people and non-gin people. Steve and I are gin people.  However, I would like to note that the majority of non-gin people who I question about which gin they have tried (and didn't like) answer, "Tanqueray." Ugh. I don't like Tanqueray either! Drinking a Tanqueray martini is like skiing into a pine tree: icy, pine-y, and painful.

Anyway, with the hipster-driven artisanal cocktail craze going on now, there are a lot more small-batch gins being made. About four months ago, Steve and I finally got to visit Essex, which is 3/4 mile from our house and has many gin cocktails. The bartender poured us a free sample of Ballard's own Big Gin. We liked it a lot, and I bought a bottle the next week.

We finished the bottle yesterday, and I am commemorating it here before I recycle the bottle (love you, Seattle!), since, as you can see, it was from Batch 26. I'm sure the batch numbers will soon be in the triple digits (I just bought a second bottle and it is Batch 48.) Cheers!

Our exchange student from Japan, Taichi, has been studying English and American culture all week, but we have the weekend free. The students are going as a group to all the big Seattle tour spots (Space Needle, Pike Place Market, Museum of Flight, a Mariners game) so we have been showing him around Ballard.

Thursday night we walked down to Golden Gardens.  Here is proof that Taichi touched this side of the Pacific Ocean! (Okay, the sound.)

As we were walking back to the steps, I saw the original steps that were built in 1936. In the winter and spring, there's usually a waterfall going down them which is why I hadn't noticed before.

Today, we decided to ride the bike around to Ballard/North Seattle sights. We loaded up the panniers with a picnic lunch and headed down to the Ballard Locks.

Steve on top of the large lock gate, and a train going over the bridge.

We watched the boats ride down to Sound level in the small lock, and went to the viewing windows of the fish ladder, which was full of Chinook salmon. The boys walking back over the gate, with the Ballard Bridge and Fisherman's Terminal beyond.

We got back on the bikes, and rode the Burke-Gilman trail to Gasworks Park, where we ate our picnic lunch.

Starting home, Steve asked if I wanted to go by the Fremont Troll, and I stupidly said yes, since it means going up a really steep hill!

 Since we were already halfway up the hill, we continued north up Fremont Avenue to Woodland Park, and seriously, I thought I was going to die. Ahhh! We finally made it up to the top of Phinney Ridge and had a glorious coast on Phinney/Greenwood Avenue. We had planned to head west on 77th back to Ballard, but then I remembered we were very close to the Greenwood Space Travel Supply Company, and that Taichi had said he likes space ships. After we stopped there, Carl requested to visit the comic book shop around the corner (I will note this is a super-friendly store, they are always so nice to Carl and have given him free comics even when it's not Free Comic Book Day.)

Finally we made it back home, where we will be grilling a well-deserved steak dinner tonight. By the way, one year ago today was the day we left Wichita and started driving west.

Today I dropped Veronica off at SeaTac. This is her first flight alone. Orkila was not enough adventure, she is in for about two weeks of Colorado Rockies!  

I got the privileged of escorting her to the gate. I am sure all is well but I did break down when she asked for a goodbye hug. She asked if our friend Lisa could be her assigned Flight Attendant. Sadly no, Lisa does not fly airplanes with ducks on the tail.

Look out Kyle, flying Mallard heading your way!

Taichi Kimura joined us today.

Emma and Veronica chat it up with Doug and Julie Findlen. They are seasoned veterans of hosting and showed me the ropes at the Student/Host pizza party. The staff made introductions, matched students with their hosts, and sent us on our way.

Smooth talker Étienne became an instant friend to Taichi Kimura (left) and Shuhei Yuge (right). I brought Shuhei home for another family that lives a few blocks away.

With jet lag, Taichi fits right in playing the Wii with Étienne.

As of today, there are 1125 pictures posted from Camp Orkila. Here are the four with the kids.

These first two were posted on day 1 and show the kids in there groups.

Here is proof that Carl is happy and wearing more than one shirt throughout the week. Veronica is on a bicycle all week and is not at the main camp. I was hoping the bike guides would shoot pictures and maybe get them back to camp once or twice during the week for posting on Smugmug. These are lower resolution files. If you want the full res for printing just drop me a line and I can get them for you.

Today Étienne and I took a picnic ride. I finished my chores, made a few sandwiches, and loaded the tandem. Our first stop was Golden Gardens. That put me down a very steep and winding road to get to the beach. I remember the days of +40 mph on the bike and now I ride the brakes all the way down. Étienne still thought it was to fast.

We stopped along Shilshole to look at Leif Erikson. The plaques along the outer circle list the Scandinavian immigrants right up to today! Follow the link and find the connection to Ballard First Lutheran.

Our next stop put us at the Chittenden Locks where we ate lunch. I also packed a partial jar of frog balls to snack on.

After lunch we headed across the Ballard Bridge to get to Office Max. I was not sure how to negotiate the bridge. We were on the South side of the ship channel and the roadway dumps me on the very West edge of the bridge. That will put me on a multi-use sidewalk traveling against traffic. I met a Northbound cyclist just before entering the bridge and he confirmed that although it is preferred to ride bikes on the correct side (in this case Northbound traffic should be on the East side), a road was closed and it was next to impossible to get there. He validated my plan to ride North on the Western side.

After all that hair raising navigation, I stopped at Top Pot to get Étienne a doughnut of choice. Nothing like creating a sticky mess at the restaurant instead of my house. This also gave him the energy to complete the ascent to the house. Great job Étienne!