On top of the world

See that road snaking off below us? That's the road where the cop clocked me going 59 in a 30. Oops. It's just that it took so dang long to get up to this pass that whenever it got anywhere near straight on the way down, I stepped on it. Luckily, she had pity on me and only wrote the ticket for 39 in a 30. I owe her. About $2oo.

While staying in Estes Park, which is at about 9,000 feet, we let the boys try the bungee trampoline to see if they could bounce even higher toward the heavens. Too bad you can't really see Eli's face in this pic, because fear was etched in nicely. Theo, on the other hand, was trying to play it cool. He did not fool me.

Theo tended to take his wand everywhere. Nothing was safe from his spells and charms. But it did the trick in keeping his mind off of putting one foot in front of the other. The boys proved to be tireless hikers. Most of the time.

Overall, the trip out west exceeded my expectations. The kids were better car travellers than I was, certainly, and the miles did fall away as we read Harry Potter. The one thing I would want to change next time is that on our way back to MN we will NOT stop to camp for a night in the black hills during the climax of the Sturgis bike week. No we will not. We should have known something was up when the road to Deadwood featured over 30 motorcycles roaring by every five minutes. We counted. I think our boys were the only kids in the tri-county area. The rest of the families were smart enough to get the hell out of Dodge. But that was just one night- and the bad memories of that evening were erased the next when we pulled into the peaceful little town of Fairmont, Minnesota, and sat down to a gourmet dinner cooked by our pal Wally in their beautiful back yard. The boys also enjoyed getting their hands on Peter's nerf arsenal- they had just gone 2 full weeks without access to their own weaponry afterall.

I can't believe it's time to wrap up all the summer time trips and memories and start preparing for the next school year. Theo is hitting the big time and entering the 'real' grades. Eli is moving on up to third. He's nine and seems about two inches taller each day. But they're still both willing to hold my hand as we walk down a path, chatting about Dumbledore, and going 'agog' at the scenery.