Denver, CO - Aug. 22 - 29, 2006
On August 21st we arrived at Hungry Horse Campground in Dorr, just south of Grand Rapids. We arranged to spend one night at the campground, then put our home in storage at their facility during our trip to Denver. The folks at Hungry Horse were very helpful and accommodating. The facilities were attractive and we would have stayed there after we returned from Denver but they had no vacancies over Labor Day weekend.
We had a great treat the evening before we left for Denver. Roxanne Henriquez, a friend of Susan's from Sacramento, was in nearby Kalamazoo on business and we were able to meet with her for dinner. It was wonderful seeing a familiar face after so many months away from our former home.
On August 22nd we flew from Grand Rapids to Denver, via Chicago. It was just a couple of days after the security alert was raised to orange so there was some confusion and delays at Grand Rapids and O'Hare. Suffice it to say we were about three hours late arriving in Denver.
Our stay at Linda's, Susan's sister, was warm and welcoming - as usual. However, I would advise everybody not to play Monopoly with Linda. She made Donald Trump seem mild mannered as she gleefully gobbled up property and forced her competitors into bankruptcy.
One day we happily got slightly lost going up to Evergreen. We suspect that Amanda realized we needed a mountain high after being in the Midwest for six months and purposely missed a turn. If that is the case we were very thankful. The Rockies were so beautiful and a welcome relief to these flatland eyes.
While Bill attended his training, Amanda, Linda and Susan visited Denver's downtown to check out the Cowparade. You may recall we saw a cow exhibit while in Madison, Wisconsin, so Susan was interested in checking out Denver's version. Amanda apparently got thirsty, and decided a nice fresh slurp of milk was the just the thing - Yikes! She went for the udder.
We all got together with Dave and Anita White for our traditional afternoon of bowling. The bowling tradition goes back to our first year of marriage in Sacramento when Dave was stationed at McClellan AFB. On this particular occasion, the bowling gods were not with us. However, had we been playing golf the scores would have been quite respectable.
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Point & Surf: Ok, little about this new business of ours that took us to Denver. As anyone who follows our travels knows we use a satellite dish to access the Internet wherever we may be. Often we get questions as we set up or take down our dish. People have commented that they wish they could buy such a thing. We refer them to others that sell the dish who we know are reputable dealers. Not unexpectedly, Bill got the idea that he could become one of those dealers. After some investigation he figured out how to make it happen. To "commission" a dish to receive a signal a dealer must be "certified". The training in Denver (along with a load of paperwork) has allowed Bill to become certified. We have a new website established for the business and hope you visit it if you are interested in seeing what we are doing. We hope it will be fun with maybe a little extra cash thrown in to sweeten the pot!
