Littleton Grandchildren

When we come to the Denver area, we always spend a lot of time with our son Eric and his family, wife Liz and children Kylie and John. Friday we had dinner with them, eating at the side of the swimming pool in their community.  Kylie was on duty as the pool lifeguard.

Part of her responsibility is to keep the pool water clean of debris.

We ate on the club house balcony, where we could see Kylie.

On Saturday, we watched John take part in a swim meet at a different pool. He swam several events, including 50 yard back stroke and 100 year free style. That is his best event.

He was in the water to start the backstroke race.

For the 100 free, he dove in from the block.

Here he is, moving through the water.

Nearing the finish, he is slightly behind the boy in lane 1.

He really poured on the steam.  Look how far he was by the time he reached the end of the pool!  The other boy is nowhere near touching the end.

It is so fun to spend time with our family and get to watch our grandchildren grow up.

More flooding

Colorado has had lots of rain and when we arrived at Chatfield State Park a week ago, the campground was accessible only from the east entrance to the park. But after the recent rains ended, the entire road through the park was open and we were able to drive to and from the west entrance yesterday, even though the water did encroach on the pavement.

This morning, however, when we drove toward that entrance, the road was flooded and closed. So this afternoon, we walked down to the flooded area to see what was going on.

Fences were under water and walking paths had become wading paths.









I don't think this sign means much today. Maybe near the end of the summer.

It wouldn't be a good idea to park here right now.

The Platte River was flowing across the road. It was probably about 24 inches deep where the road is at its lowest point. This bicyclist had ridden through the flowing water and said it was up to the top of his tires. He rested awhile on our side of the river, then turned around and rode to the other side. Another cyclist came up behind us, watched for a while and turned back the way he had come.

These people and dogs were having a good time in the water. It's amazing what some young and stupid people will do to have fun.  Even some who aren't that young, just stupid.  There was a current as the water crossed the road.  If someone had fallen off the roadway, they could have been washed quite a ways into the lake.  I hope they were good swimmers.

Catching Up

Before coming to the Denver area, we spent five days in the NRA Whittington Center campground in northern New Mexico. I don't think they had as much rain as there has been here in Littleton, but we did see lots of wild flowers there.





























It rained one night and some of the flowers had blooms knocked off or damaged. I still took this picture. They almost look like blue bonnets to me, which I though grew only or mainly in Texas.

There was something else we noticed there. Despite the fact there were guns being fired every day, there were still pronghorn and mule deer browsing on the grounds.

Don't they know those guns are often aimed at them? I really think animals like that quickly learn when they are safe and when they are not. When we lived in the mountains of Colorado, the deer and elk roamed the forests all year, except during hunting season. They they moved into Rocky Mountain National Park where hunting is not allowed.

Back to Whittington, we even saw a hawk soaring over one of the shooting ranges. And look at this meadowlark, just sitting and singing while the shooting took place.

A Wet Colorado Spring

We are impressed at how green and beautiful the Eastern Slope of Colorado is this year. The average rainfall in Denver is 15.7 inches. So far this year in Littleton (where we are parked) there has been 20.56 inches--and it's only early June.

That is why everything is so pretty. Here are two photos taken from Chatfield Lake State Park in the SW Denver suburbs.












All that rain is also the reason Chatfield Lake is so full. These trees are supposed to be growing on dry land. In places, picnic tables are in water almost to the table top. The swim beach is closed and the restrooms there are halfway under water. One of the two boat ramps is closed.










But there are advantages. In addition to everything being green, the wild flowers are blooming all over the park.

It is supposed to rain even more in the next couple of days and there are flash-flood warnings all over the eastern part of the state. I don't think we have anything to worry about, though. The lake is down a few feet from the highest this spring. There is certainly room for a lot more water in the lake basin.

Interesting Competition

When our sons were growing up, they both were on the local swim team. Today, two of our grandchildren are in competitive swimming and have also played basketball and lacrosse. Last weekend while we were parked in the NRA Whittington Center campground in Raton, NM, we were surrounded by young people participating in the 2015 New Mexico YHEC (Youth Hunting Education Challenge). There were 600 youth participating in the event.

The National Rifle Association hosts the events across the country for youth who have completed hunter education. Approximately 10,000 young people take part in the challenge each year. Although we had never observed this type of event, we could see the young shooters are every bit as focused and have obviously practiced as seriously as we see our grandchildren do in swimming.

The day before the challenge began, many of the youth spent the day practicing. We could watch a few of them practicing for the orienteering event on the grassy area behind our RV. Remember, you can click on any photo to see a larger image.



Saturday, we watched some of the events. They compete in muzzleloading (black powder), rifle, shotgun and archery shooting. The first event we watched was with black powder guns. Each participant shot from several positions and an official with binoculars watched to see if they hit the target. Both boys and girls took part and some very young people were there.





















The black powder guns were cleaned and loaded by fathers.



These are the targets they shoot at. You can see as well as hear it when the target is hit. Notice the targets are at different distances. The second photo shows where one shooter knocked the target clear off the stand.















There were several methods of shooting, from the shoulder, prone, and seated, all illustrated above. Sometimes they used a support for the barrel.



In the rifle event, the targets were in a more natural setting.

For archery, the targets were mock animals, rather than metal targets. After each arrow was shot, they walked out to the target to see if it was hit and where.















Each shooting range flies a red flag when shooting is taking place. The flag is stored in a metal tube on the flag pole.





Even in the world of archery and hunting, cowboys can still be seen texting.