Goodbye to our old friend

We knew this day would come--the day we sold our Chinook.  We debated keeping it for a future time when we might only want to camp a few weekends a year so we would sell the new Lance and use it instead.

But we realized we were rationalizing:  we just didn't want to part with it.



We sold it to a very nice couple who were very excited to have it.  They got a GREAT bargain on it because we wanted to make sure that whoever got it was happy with it, and that's part of feeling happy about a purchase.

Here we are getting it loaded. It was a tight fit!

Camping with Adam at South Whidbey State Park

Ian was at summer camp, so only Adam accompanied us camping at South Whidbey State Park. 

Making s'mores.  

Celebratiing Vicky's 62nd birthday

Of course we are going to have a celebration.

Me making her cake:

 Finished!



 She blew out the candles:



 And then opened gifts:

In Colorado for my father's memorial

Vicky and I went out a few days early.  We went with my mother, Kathy, and Tonia to visit some places that had meaning to us as a family.

First, though we went to Kathy's choir performance.  They're good!



Big Thompson Canyon, on the way to Estes Park, Colorado:

 

 In 1960, when we moved to Fort Collins, my cousin, Rick, worked here in Drake.  It was a "dude ranch" where horse rides were given to tourists.



This was the cabin in Estes Park that my parents bought in 1963 or 64.  Owned it for several years.  In 1966 my father and I drove up here once a week to work on it together.  That was after school and four hours of working at Steele's Grocery.  On the way home I slept--wonder why.

We ate a restaurant close-by to their cabin.

This was the house that my Uncle Homer and his family built and lived in for a few years in the early 1960s.  I went there often to spend time with my cousin Randy.

 This was a place where my parents frequently went to hike, west of Estes Park.

 At this spot, in the 1950s, my father was taking a movie of me when a squirrel jumped onto my shoulder.   It was on Trail Ridge Road.

My old junior high school.  Lescher Junior High.

 This gas station north of Fort Collins is where I hung out with my high school friends.  One of them worked there.

 The house on Lake Street.  We lived there from 1960 to 1967.

This was the church we went to then.  And the one where my father was Pastor and my mother was in charge of music.

 My high school, which no longer is a school:  Fort Collins High School:




By 2012 Steele's Market on Mountain Avenue had been torn down.  Now just an empty lot.

 The house on Terry Ridge Road my parents moved into in 1967.  I stayed there for one summer--1967.

One summer, in 1956, we lived in Boulder Colorado, in Chataqua Park.  This was the movie theater.

The cabin we rented;

 Then the family arrived.

And we had my father's memorial:

We celebrated Soren's birthday: