Heading into the Weekend

It's been a dry month but that hasn't stopped the wildflowers from doing well.  I love to spot them as we hike, either as single flowers here and there or in big patches.  

After several weeks of no rain don't you know that we'd get a downpour on the one night we had tickets to the Shakespeare Festival.  There was a steady drizzle as we walked over to CU to see Julius Caesar at the outdoor theater.  When we got there we were amused to see the crew sweeping water from the stage and the audience well prepared for more rain.  

Good thing, too, since a heavy rain started as the last act began.  Both the actors and the audience were quite stoic about the weather and the show went on without a single actor breaking character or even wiping off the rain from their faces as the deluge continued.   

 That was last Friday and since then it's been hot and humid.  So humid that I've actually been dripping sweat when I've been out walking or hiking, which is unusual in these dry parts.  The heat is breaking this weekend and I hope the humidity does as well.

Spikey decided it was too hot in his habitat and found a more comfortable place to hang out.

Yesterday I went up to Fort Collins to see the New Legacies art quilt exhibition at the Lincoln Center and we stopped at the annual flower trials hosted by the Colorado State University.

Of course there were sunflowers.  

But also big pots of coleus.  I can see one of these on my patio next year!

This afternoon I'll be at a quilting "sit and sew" gathering so I made a point of getting out for a hike this morning.  I went to the Chautauqua Trail, the most popular trail in the park, which is being redesigned to better handle the vast numbers of hikers that use it.  Instead of going pretty much straight up the meadow to the Flatirons it is being rerouted with large switchbacks.

In this photo the new trail is where you see the two guys in the red and yellow t-shirts.  All the dirt to the right of them will be replanted with meadow grass.  Our tax money at work!  I love it.   The two guys running up the hill looked like a father and son team.  I'd guess the boy was about ten or twelve.  How's that for a father/son activity?

I got a kick out of these two magpies watching the goings-on from their rock perch.

Our family is entering an exciting time as Ben's brother's family is moving to nearby Longmont next week.  The moving van arrives in Virginia on Monday and should be in Colorado by next Saturday. Dawn and the boys are flying in on Thursday night and Ben and John are driving out one of the cars and arriving on Friday.  They'll all be staying here for a couple of nights as their belongings arrive and get unpacked.

This is a two-part move.   This first part is to get the boys settled in their new Colorado home before school starts in mid-August.  The second will be in early 2018 after Dawn retires and she is able to join her family out here and the Virginia home is put on the market.

Moving takes a lot of planning and work, but you just have to blast through it.  John & Dawn have done a great job of making decisions, getting packed up, and keeping their cool.  I'm excited for them and I'm looking forward to having them close by!