Relaxing

After two and a half busy months, we have had two weeks of doing little or nothing.  And have we ever enjoyed it!  We may have full hookups with 50 amp electric, but this is camping.  Way back when we were working, a trip out with our RV was usually just a time to relax.  That is what we have done during our stay at St. Vrain State Park.

We visited John's sister Cindy at her new home in Fort Collins.  She had a small home built in a senior community there and we enjoyed seeing the house and the "big house" where there are apartments, a very nice dining room and other amenities.  We then drove to the Back Porch Café for lunch.  We had a good visit.

John has been working on two diamond willow walking sticks that needed cleaning and sanding.  They promise to be really attractive.  I brought along a bowl I had turned that needed sanding and a scroll saw project that needed sanding and assembling.  I completed both of those projects.

We have both been writing.  I am putting together stories of my life.  John is finishing up a future book about his ancestors.

Other than that, we have only left the campground for groceries and visits to the laundromat.  Each day we walk five miles, enjoying the ponds in this park.  I could post the many, many photos I took here this year and last.  I could take pictures of reflections and birds all day long.  I will spare you all the photos, but here are three I took this week.

There are several pelicans that spend most of their time on one of the ponds.  They often float around in a group, looking like a small island.  They are impressive when it flight when the bottom of their wings are tipped in black.

This blue heron liked having it's picture taken, I guess.  It posed for us in this tree for over 6 minutes before we walked on.

We saw these logs in one pond this morning.

One of the fields hadn't been mowed before we passed it last week. The sun really showed off the flowers that were going to seed. They looked like a really large dandelion flower but they are probably some plant I don't recognize.

John almost always gets up before me, often getting out of bed before first light. Yesterday he woke me up before 5:30 (I usually get up about 6), telling me there was going to be a spectacular sunrise. Was he ever right! It was definitely worth waking up a little early.

Tomorrow we move on to Chatfield State Park in southwest Denver.

Turtle Hospital

During our time on South Padre Island, we visited the hospital for injured sea turtles.



This facility nurses injured sea turtles and attempts to return them to the wild. If that is not possible, they provide a tank for them to live in. To learn more about Sea Turtle Inc, click here.

We watched staff and/or volunteers remove this turtle from its tank. If you look closely, you can see the prostheses the turtle wears two hours a day, learning to swim with it replacing a missing flipper.



After removing the prostheses, the turtle is transported back to its tank.



This is the walkway leading to the turtle hospital.



Here is a similar turtle (or the same one), swimming in its tank.



There were a number of children there when we visited. They really enjoyed the tanks where they could see all sides of the turtle.



We were amazed at how many turtles are injured at sea, often by debris in the water or fishing nets.

The next morning, before leaving the island, we went out for our run. We saw the sun rising through these palm trees.



And over the water. These two photos show the same sun from essentially the same viewpoint, ll minutes apart. I just changed the camera settings.






On our first trip to the beach a day earlier, we saw this line of some kind of ducks fly over. Amazing.