Scavenger Hunt and Host Family Weekend

So the end of this week was a Friday afternoon "Regional Learning" time. This included a trip to the Colorado Capitol Building and a scavenger hunt around downtown Denver. The Capitol Building is beautiful, with lots of cool history and unique stone. here are some pictures...



After we left the Capitol Building we realized that we had lost our scavenger hunt sheet, so we just spent the afternoon hanging around Denver, went to the library, got ice cream, and walked around the 16th street mall. After Wrap-up, I went outside to catch the bus to go home, but Daniela didn't get out there 'till 5:31. Now, on a normal day this wouldn't be a problem (the bus comes at 5:32) however, the bus was early on Friday, coming at 5:30, and I wasn't going to ride without her, so I let it go by. When Daniela came out we could still see the bus stopped at a red light, and ran to catch up, but whenever we got close, the light would turn green, this continued for about 5 blocks before we went to another stop and had to wait for the 6:32 bus home, so we got home late that night. The positive to this is that I finished New Moon, the second book in the Twilight series :)

Saturday was our only Saturday off in the four weeks of staging, so we all packed up and went to Rocky Mountain National Park for a day of "hiking" which consisted of 100 yard walks to scenic overviews and lots of riding up curvy mountain roads in the SUV.





There was beautiful scenery and lots of wildlife,











from the fighting chipmunks,




















and the rock-licking marmot,














to the lounging elk, this was an amazing place.

When we got to the lodge at the top of a ridge I hiked to the top to see the view. Nobody would go with me, so I went alone to the top and had a friendly tourist take my picture to prove that I was there.


In the second picture I am over the top of the ridge that is in the first picture. The sign reads, 12,005 ft 2.3 miles above sea level. I also got a picture from the top of the path.




After leaving RMNP we drove to Winter Park and went to a jazz festival and to an art festival that they were having there. We stayed overnight in a hotel and then this morning went up the ski lift to the lodge at sunspot, in Winter Park. The view was amazing and there were lots of mountain bikers going up the lift then riding down the mountain. After going back down the lift Daniela and I rode on the alpine slide, a half-pipe concrete slide that you ride down on wheeled sleds. It was so much fun!

We then left Winter Park, and on the way back home stopped in Empire to get ice cream, I got an amazing banana split. When we were leaving there was a sheltie that was just walking up with his owner, and I had to stop to love on him. That little sheltie may be half as big as Shep, but it made me really miss my Puppy puppy.

Tomorrow we start week three here in Denver staging and we have the cast photo. I hope that this week isn't as hard as the past few, but I doubt that it will be, I think that I've finally acclimated to the altitude, humidity, activity, and time here, so I'll keep on keeping on. I'll update soon, so check back.
~Mandy