Belated Father's Day Getaway

I had planned a special Father's Day for Mikey, but he was so dead after staying awake for 24 hours to DJ the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life, followed by DJ'ing a wedding with no sleep, that we postponed it until yesterday. I took him to a great place to fly fish that I had heard about from a local old-timer. We went along Weminuche Creek, near a wilderness area. We hiked in a little more than 2 miles and I took this picture of Mikey & Dude along the way....While Mikey was fishing, Dude and I took a long exploratory hike along the Creek. During the hike, I stopped to look around and Dude came back to check on me when I snapped this picture of him looking cute...

After our hike, Dude and I rejoined Mikey, who was having a great time and had caught and released over a dozen fish in a couple of hours with his fly rod...

On our way back out to the truck, I was awestruck by the beautiful view and took this picture of Mikey hiking out with the mountains in the background...

We both had a great day, as you can tell from Mikey's expression of his "appreciation" below...

Hike to Poison Park & Elk Park

Muriel joined a group of local outdoor enthusiasts for those age 50 and older called the Gray Wolves. During the summer, they go on a weekly hike, led by one of the members. A few of the members were born and raised here and know a lot of the local history and landmarks, so they provide interesting insights and stories during the hikes. This week, we went on a 9 mile out-and-back hike in the Weminuche Wilderness to Poison Park and beyond to Elk Park where we had lunch and enjoyed the view. There were lush, green meadows surrounded by the Weminuche Cliffs towering above. Here's a couple of pictures from Poison Park... Here's a picture of the rest of the Gray Wolf Hikers quickly leaving me in the dust... ;-)

Below are a couple of pictures I took from Elk Park, where we stopped for lunch on a ridge overlooking the Weminuche River Ranch far below, dwarfed beneath the cliffs above.

First Hike of 2009

For the first hike of the season, we went with Dee & Steve to a place none of us had been before: Fish Creek Trail to Leche Lake. It was a beautiful day and we took the dogs and lunch along. We sidetracked along the way to Opal Lake then continued our hike. Everything was so green from all the spring rains and the meadows and forest were surrounded with mountains and rocky cliffs. We walked through scenic meadows, saw a cow elk in one, crossed a few creeks along the way.

We stepped off the trail on a ridge and were rewarded with some spectacular views...

Before arriving at our destination and enjoying lunch by Leche Lake, named for it's milky appearance.

Hopefully, this is the first of many hikes we will enjoy this summer!

May and June Page From Calendar

As we mentioned in prior posts, our daughter, Tiffany, coordinated with Tony & Shea and Shannon & Ray to collect pictures to use to craft a beautiful calendar. It was such a great gift with photos of our loved ones that we will treasure for many years to come! We decided to publish a picture of the page for each month of the year this year. We missed posting May's, so here is both May and June. Enjoy!