I knew it had been a while since I’d written but my goodness! I guess it’s been more than a while. It’s not that we haven’t been doing things or taking pictures. We climbed a mountain, rolled back to Kansas, helped host a bus rally and attended a 50 year class reunion. I just haven’t turned those things and the ensuing pictures into a blog.
Before we left Colorado, we hiked up Raspberry Mountain, a 7.8 mile round trip hike with an elevation gain of about 1,800 feet, starting above 10,000 feet, I think. We didn’t even know about this trail although we’ve driven past the nondescript little trailhead many times since our kids were young. We even had our first backpacking experience in that very area. Raspberry Mountain gets its name, I think, from the wild raspberry bushes growing there, but it could be derived from the jumble of rocks at the top that resemble a raspberry. Wherever the name came from, the 360 degree view from the top is spectacular and worth the relatively easy hike to get there.
We enjoyed looking for wild strawberries on the way up, too. The few we found were tiny but fairly sweet. This one may look like a regular strawberry but was about the size of my pinkie fingernail. That’s a medium size pine cone in front.
Before we left our RV park that morning, we stopped at the office to let them know where we were headed since we’d be hiking alone. While it’s unlikely, if something should happen it’s nice to have someone know where to start looking. The result was a rumor around camp that we had climbed Pikes Peak that day! While it gave us a lot of status, we tried to make sure our reputation was not unduly expanded by a trek we didn’t make.
On Sunday August 11, we headed back toward Kansas for the Eagles International rally at Lake Afton the next weekend. We, along with our friends Bob and Karen Ward, had been volunteered to host that event and since they had done most of the legwork over the summer, we felt we needed to be back before the buses started arriving on Wednesday.
This was about half the coaches that came from Arizona, New Mexico, Nebraska, Colorado, Texas, Illinois, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Kansas. We had a great time with old friends and several new ones, as well. The catered meals for which LeRoy had been responsible were wonderful and no one went away hungry.
The following weekend found us in Alton, KS for the Alton Jubilee and my high school class reunion. Alton is a tiny little town in north central Kansas but every August a crowd of several hundred descends to celebrate its history and importance to those of us who were raised there. The town was originally called Bull City after one of its founders but the people of the town later voted for the more genteel name of Alton. Each year a troupe of local actors present the Bull City Opry on Saturday evening of Jubilee weekend. The script is written by two local women and this year it was a Duck Dynasty parody called The Elkhorns of Wildcat Canyon. (When there was a high school in town, the mascot was the Wildcat.) We enjoyed the festivities very much.
The primary reason we attended this year’s Jubilee was for my high school class reunion. I graduated in a class of 11 in 1963 and 6 of the remaining 9 of us attended the reunion. We chose to walk in the parade rather than ride on a trailer or in a pickup because we still CAN!
Left to right, we are Virgil Yost, Shirley Van Meter Russell, Carolyn Bartholomew Stonehock, Carol Brent Fogo, me and Sherry Guge Workman. Carol, Carolyn and I went to school together from first grade through our senior year. What a great group of friends! We don’t plan to wait 5 years to get together again.
Later in the afternoon we got together to reminisce and were joined by classmates from several years around our class. While we were there, we took a little less windblown picture. There were so many cameras clicking, we could hardly decide which way to look!
And now we are back at The Landing east of Sedgwick, doing our best to stay cool. LeRoy has been using this time here to do some necessary repairs on Liberty and is getting ready to add power steering, which will make it much more likely that I will drive for more than short stints to relieve him. Most of the things we’ve done or had done in the last several months go unseen by passersby but are greatly appreciated by the driver!
Until next time, and I’ll try to not let it be so long!
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