Royal Father's Day Treatment

Crystal and her Daddy on Father's Day

The wheels have been silent and we have had some time to do a little cleaning and sorting... not much, mind you, because we are visiting with so many. Also, we find that our bodies, which are accustomed to sea level, tire quickly at this mile high altitude.

Sunday was a busy and wonderful and exhausting day. Crystal went with us to the Colorado Railroad Museum in Golden where some of the Galloping Geese were running and folks like us were riding. See pictures below. Click on any picture to enlarge it.

We rode motor number seven. While just a tot, Richard, along with his family, rode Engine # 4 quite a lot when his mom taught school and cooked for the miners at the Alta, CO. A special part of history came alive today.

Goose #7 handles her load flawlessly at the Rocky Mountain Railroad Museum.

Father and daughter head out to explore.

After poking around the various outdoor displays, which included quite an array of rolling stock and motive power as well as a round house, we headed for the quiet and cool of the library and browsed the excellent photo albums on display. It was a delightful, albeit tiring day.

Work area inside the round house.

The round house and turntable were especially interesting. Members of the Rocky Mountain Railroad Club really know their stuff and take excellent care of their cast iron charges. Richard shot an excellent picture showing the work area inside the round house.

Later, Crystal also took us out to a very posh restaurant as a Father's Day treat, and we continued the railroad theme by playing Rail Baron (an elaborate railroad board game) at Ronnie and Crystal's house for the next several evenings. It is a game we, as a family, have played for many, many years. Richard is the most frequent winner, but Crystal beat us handily the first game, however, he did regain his top dog position in the rematch.

I forgot to mention the Raisin Cream pie Giovanna baked Grandpa with the guidance of her mother. It was great, and I don't even like raisins!

Crystal perusing RR history pictures,

We should be working on the rig, we have it jam packed, full of stuff to distribute to our kids and other family all over the country. The packing went well early on as we prepared for life on the road, but as our departure date got closer and the space got used up, our packing became more erratic and we were stuffing things any place we could squeeze them in. We have dribbled stuff from state to state all along the way, and there seems to be no dent in the volume!

So, yesterday, we sorted the closets and some interior areas, and emptied all our bays except for our ladder and spare tire. All our boxes and tools and equipment is sorted, rearranged and stowed logically... but now, it doesn't fit very well... And we'll be moving some at the next stop. I gave away a lot and more goes this weekend.

Crystal and Kaylah planning their next move.

Today, we left early to meet daughter Kim and her hubby Steve at Black Hawk, a Colorado mining town that has been transformed into big casinos. We spent all our time in one casino. They played table games, but I am not ready for that. I went outside and took pictures but discovered my memory chip was down the mountain in my computer... so no pictures really exist except in the memory chip between my ears.

We spent the evening and ate with Crystal and family and will give our rig a good cleaning tomorrow. Yes, even on our full time vacation, we must clean house and pay bills.