8_05_2014 Pente's Tenth Birthday - A Celebration

Today is Pente's 10th birthday! Just a few weeks before we wondered if we would be celebrating it.

Glad we are! To celebrate, we invited Pente's Kamp Kranz parents - Dan and Michelle - over for a dinner celebration.

Here Dave (a birthday boy in five more days) and Pente pose for a photo in front of Pente's birthday cake. 

Later, Pente started partying HARD. She likes Belgium beer it seems.

The cat opened her gifts from everyone and then....played with the bag they came in. She really is a cat!

Not only was the bag irresistible, but the ribbons were too.

We finally put her new toys on her and she wore them proudly!

Portrait of a ten year old cat. :)

Next to her goodies.

The birthday pair.

Michelle made Dave a special chalk bag (I embroidered the dragon on it). He liked it and found it also worked as a beer holder.

The cat is in the background actually playing with her toys (versus wrapping).

Nearly passed out...

Why is the room spinning?

Dave leaves tomorrow for several weeks in the Sierra.  It'll just be me, the birds and the cat in the house. Going to be quiet...

08_05_2014 Flowers at the House! Gorgeous!

The flowers at the house are amazing this year! The grass is the best in Boulder, the trees have really grown, but it's the flowers that are mind-blowing!

Our black-eyed susans are monstrous! Lots of hummingbird mint int here too. 

Can't recall what the little white flowers are but they act like they were exposed to radiation and are blooming nonstop! I love it.

The Coreopsis are past prime, but they are still gorgeous. Our trees are large enough to actually hold several birds. Maybe next year we'll get a nest in our tree!

Another view of the yard. Awesome. 

Flowers!

I love coneflowers (aka echinacea).  We have tons of it in the yard and it's going nuts.

Final photo. I'm going to miss the flowers when winter comes.

08_03_2014 Two 14ers...Grays & Torreys Peaks

Dave here....I drove up late on the second and got up early to head out. Here, I am heading out of the parking lot to hike Grays and Torreys Peaks with 200 of my closest friends. :)

Just one example of the some of the creative outfits you see among the 14er crowd.

This bridge is just outside the parking lot.

Looking up valley with the summit of Grays Peak just above my head.

A view of Torreys Peak with the Kelso Ridge on the right skyline. I decided to ascend the Kelso Ridge in an effort to lose most of the other people ... however there were still probably 15 other folks on the Ridge.

Another view of the Kelso Ridge on Torreys Peak.

A traffic jam of college coeds on one of the steeper sections of the Kelso Ridge. On several occasions like this I was able to climb around the side via a different route and get past the clumps of bodies.

(Looks like Everest and the Hillary Step. Ha!)

Looking down the lower part of the Kelso Ridge. Great views!

Looking up the upper half of the Kelso Ridge.

Looking down from the Ridge to the Bakerville exit on I-70...just visible in the center of the photo.

The final few hundred feet of the Kelso Ridge to the Summit. Some cool exposure here.

Some mountain goat fur along the way.

A couple of people on the summit of Torreys.

Looking down the entire Kelso Ridge from the summit of Torreys Peak.  This is definitely a more interesting alternative to the standard walk-up route.

Summit Selfie!

Other folks on the summit of Torreys.

More people on Torreys with Grays Peak in the background.

Nice view.

Looking over at Grays.

Looking back at the summit of Torreys from the saddle between the two peaks.

On top of Grays Peak. 

Solitude?  No.

But it is another summit selfie!

Descending Grays with the masses. The trailhead is down in the green valley below. 

Looking back at Torreys during the descent.

Another fine fashion display by the 14er crew. :/  Note the man wearing the derby hat, and a skirt of some sort.

Nice wildflowers this year!

And finally, more flowers near the trail head. Great time!

07_23_to_31_2014 Tensleep WY - Final - Part III

Another nice view of some of the canyon and Dave

That is a photo of Hound Dog wall. You can see the guy named Kimball about dead center. Beautiful climber.

Maybe a little easier to see Kimball now?  Bright green shirt?

The next day out climbing, we headed out the Lake Pointe. Neither of us had been there before. It has rained a bit and it looked sort of threatening but he headed out anyway.

Dave was ready with the stick clip. Seems like we never used it except to clip Dave's ear.

More hiking...

On the first climb it started raining. Not fun.

And it started raining hard. Everything got wet. Boo.

So back to the camper to entertain ourselves for a rain day. Fortunately the cat was feeling well and entertained Dave for a while. 

So, about 4-5 years ago, my family sent Dave a weather station. We've had it in the pile of 'things to do' but we JUST got around to getting it in the camper and setting it up. Too bad it took us forever since it was great fun! Note the excellent forecast...rain rain rain and even some evening snow (it never snowed). 

At least Rufous was happy.

An the cat started ignoring us during the night which is a sign she is feeling better. 

We got out the last day...and although the forecast wasn't totally solid, the day was. We ended up going someplace I already can't recall. :/  Fun climbs though.  This place had some really good climbs.

Yet another canyon view. Are you sick of them yet?

Putting on shoes

Climbing...

I'm up a climb too.

This about sums it up - great canyon, shoes, rope tarp, clip stick and a guide book by a clearly insane person.

We managed to climb a fair amount this day.

As we sat at the base of one climb, a rat peeked his head out of a hueco above Dave's head!  Cute little thing!

Dave headed up the route careful not to put his hand in the hold.

See the mouse sticking his head out of the hole near the bottom center of this photo. Pretty funny!

Then Dave found sounds cracks to climb. 

So he climbed them.

Two cracks plus a challenging 11b extension (which he's on in the photo).  By the end of this, we'd fed enough mosquitoes and were ready to head back.

We needed to get the camper set up because we planned to leave early in the morning.

Great trip and certainly a contender for fifth wheel destinations.