[Running has been hit and miss of late with travel being the main reason. I did run in the New Years Day 12K Steam Whistle race in Hattiesburg and that went ok.]
Christmas was quickly followed by a trip to Iowa. I flew in on Friday the 26th and left on Sunday the 28th to drive the return trip.
I then was sick and missed a couple of days of work. I was back in the office on Wednesday the 30th and Friday the 2nd of January.
On Sunday, Jan 4th we flew to Colorado to visit the grandkids. That’s where I am now. Tomorrow we fly back to Jackson, MS via Dallas.
We have two cars parked in the airport parking lot in Jackson, the old mini-van I drove up there for the post-Christmas flight and the Honda CRV (our main car) which we drove there on Sunday the 4th. We hope to drive both of them home tomorrow afternoon.
Our new house is only an hour from the Jackson, MS airport and it is a pleasant drive.
Today we took the grandkids and drove up to Estes Park. We continued on up to Bear Lake. But it was too cold and windy to walk around the lake. So we retreated to Estes and had lunch at the Egg At Estes restaurant. And after that we drove back down the canyon.
It was nice to visit Estes Again. Things were pretty quiet as the tourists are all gone in the winter and a lot of the houses and condos are vacated for the off-season. Many of the businesses and restaurants are shut down.
They have made some changes in the traffic flow through town. And other things of course. We moved away from Estes in 2007. (Next year that will be 20 years ago. )
I also drove by the house we had in Ft. Collins in 2007-2009 and it looks the same. The oak tree in the front yard is much taller.
I stayed at the old homestead while I was in Des Moines. Mother had moved to the assisted living facility earlier that week, so I had the place to myself. It was quiet but comfortable. I know it will need to be sold in the next few months and I won’t have any right to visit the place after that.
Today at the entrance station to the national park I purchased an annual pass (for older people) for $20 which saved us $10 on the single-day entrance fee of $30. The nice man told me I could get a lifetime pass for $80. There was a time in my life I could have really used that! We told him we might do that the next time.
