Colorado

Yesterday morning we took off to Colorado for a few days of meetings for my husband and a few days of relaxing for me. We landed and headed straight for Estes Park, one of my favorite places. We went into Rocky Mountain National Park and took the drive looking at all of the beauty. We had been warned that the weather up at the Alpine Visitor's Center was cold and there was problems with a bike rally, but that was the extent of the warning. We talked about it and decided to continue up to the visitor's center since the warning sounded more like casual conversation and not warning like at all. We got not too far from the visitor's center and the weather changed in the blink of an eye! Almost total white out from the clouds, ice/rain and high winds. We turned in to the visitor's center to see hundreds of bikes all over the place. Not many riders were to be seen, but bikes were everywhere!

We decided we didn't need to stay up there so ran over to the restrooms so we could make it down the mountain with one less thing on our minds. Ray went first so he could tell me if the wind was too much. He came back and reported everything was fine go ahead. HE LIED!
 Apparently he didn't listen in anatomy class about the differences in boys and girls. Boys stand and girls sit. Cold air coming up the barely civilized potties don't affect boys. Girls have to actually sit on the barely civilized potties and ice cold, gale force winds shooting UP the potty is a problem. It took full forced heat, heated seats in the truck and several minutes for me to feel my bottom again.

We headed down the mountain and the ice/rain had turned to huge snow drops and low visibility. We kept passing U haul moving vans going up the mountain to retrieve the bikes. We followed an ambulance that was transporting a couple of bikers suffering from hypothermia. I have several question going through my mind but I'm afraid someone will think I am being rude or mean. Questions like...have you ever been on top of this mountain before?  If you are a local biker, don't you know the weather changes in an instant on this mountain? Why would you ride your bike up here, and only wear the skimpy clothes you have on?
I completely understand they couldn't ride back down no matter what clothes they wore. The weather was just too bad, but the ones we saw huddled in the center were in skimpy biker clothes like the kind they wear in Florida. I'm confused.

Anyway, I'm in the room now recovering from the precious 8 year old Henry that was in the pool when I went down there earlier. He took a shine to me and nearly made me want to scream. He was celebrating his birthday today. I am not sure if he is ever disciplined or if since today was his day off due to the celebration. He managed to tell me I wasn't in the pool because I was too old. Called me "mam" at least 187 times in the 30 minutes I sat there waiting for my room to be tidied up. Finally his mother called him over and told him he was being rude. I thought she was telling him to play with his sisters and leave me alone, but no she told him to ask my name. She said it was rude to call me "mam". So now precious Henry asks me my name and I tell him, and he says Hey "mam" count how long I can stay under water. I asked if he needed help staying under longer but he said no. I decided to go to my room no matter if it was tidied up or not since I wasn't prepared to go to jail in Colorado.

Tomorrow I pick up my rental car so I can go visit fun places.

Later,
Diane