Fruit of my labors

I recently picked up some peaches from the area YFC fundraiser. They are so, so yummy. I've gotten them for the past several years and have never been disappointed. However, this year I had bought some peaches from Cub Foods in the hopes I could save a little money. Ick. They were horrible. So I wasted that money and ended up buying them from YFC anyway. From now on, I'll just stick to the YFC peaches since I know that they will be excellent. I bought 3 boxes--we'll eat 1 box fresh and I canned/froze the rest. Here is my bounty (8 quart frozen, 7 quart canned, 8 1/2 pint jam) :

State Fair

Saturday we went to the state fair. We've never been. Even Dan, who has lived in Minnesota most of his life, hasn't ever been. So when we found out that Dan's dad would be singing Saturday afternoon, we decided we'd go. We've always wanted to go--just never got around to it.
This year is Minnesota's 150th birthday so someone decided that a choral group from each of the state's regions should sing at the state fair. They commissioned new pieces of work from Minnesota composers. Each group (about 6 total) sang 2 songs and then they all sang a song together at the end. It was pretty good although a few of the groups sang some rather boring songs. The song that Dan's dad's group sang was good-lively and funny.

We spent the whole day at the fair. We left town at 7:30 and parked at a Park and Ride which was pretty close to the fair. We didn't have any problems finding a parking space and took the shuttle over to the fair. We even took the double jogger along and fit that on the bus without any problems. I'm so glad that we parked there instead of at the fair because the line to park at the fair was incredibly long. Plus then we'd have had to pay for parking. This way we parked for free and those shuttle buses just cut in front of everyone so the ride and wait was quite short.

When we first got to the fair we went over to the Little Farm Hands building. Here is where kids get to pretend that they are farmers. They get an apron and a bucket and work their way through the path. They get to milk a pretend cow (water comes out, not milk), plant crops, harvest crops, take their crops to the farmer's market, sell it and then buy a snack with their profits (apples or boxes of cereal).





After that we met up with Dan's mom (his dad was at a church somewhere practicing for their afternoon concert) and we picked up some lunch. I picked up a bucket of cookies (freshly baked) from Sweet Martha's and we got a roast sandwich--both yummy. And of course, the fair wouldn't be the fair without an order of cheese curds.

We also went to the Miracle of Birth building and got to watch a calf being born. We couldn't actually get close enough to see the cow but watched it on one of the many TVs they have hanging from the ceiling. The building was packed, but we also managed to see some little piggies that had been born the day before. They were in the farrowing pen with their mother and they were all suckling away.

Next we went to the horse barn and looked at the several different kinds of horses they had there. The kids even got to pet a few. Some of those horses are absolutely huge and I definitely wouldn't want to get in their way. They were such beautiful animals and it was cool to see all the different varieties, colors, etc.

We also went to the Creative Activities building. There they have all sorts of different displays including quilting, jewelry making and miniatures. The older three were fascinated with the miniatures. There was a group of ladies working on some miniatures and the kids spent a great deal of time there. Darin even got to help one lady make some plants. They learned a few tricks about making miniatures such as drying green pepper seeds for potato chips and using the bottom of individual creamers for a waste basket. Also on display was this beautiful canoe that someone had made. They had put together different types/colors of wood (kind of like a butcher block) and made this gorgeous canoe. I'm not sure I'd want to put it in the water since it was so beautiful.

The canning and baking items were also in the CA building. The kids thought I should enter several things next year. And I might. I wasn't all that impressed with some of the entries (I realize they were about a week old by the time we saw them, but still). It'd be fun to do I think but I'll have to check out the rules.

In the education building the kids got a bunch of freebies--bags, pencils, etc. They also had on display artwork from kids. There are some really talented kids out there. There was one painting that I saw that I wish I could buy. It was done by an 11th grader and was just ethereal. It was two little girls sitting on a blanket on the beach. The colors and the technique were superb. I just stood there looking at that one painting for quite awhile.

Later in the day I took the younger two with me to the Fine Arts Building because I wanted to see the photography and paintings by adults. There were a few cool things but I'd have to say I enjoyed the ones in the education building better. Some of the things done by adults were really weird and others I could have done (and I wouldn't have called it art). There was one very large picture that someone did completely in pencil (though you'd never guess). That was really amazing. There were also some others done with colored pencil--although I had no idea that was the medium until I read the placard beside it.

After the Fine Arts building Darin, Natalie and I went over to the Eco building and had our pictures taken at the reusable bag booth. Then we each got a free bag. They are nice and large and I'll definitely use them, especially on my big grocery shopping days since I never seem to have enough of the green ones I usually use.

While we were at the Fine Arts building, Dan was with Ellie and Kara at the WCCO building. Ellie and Dan both rode bikes to generate power for the broadcasts. Once they got to a certain amount they got to pick a prize--Dan chose a t-shirt and Ellie got a really nice bag. Here is Ellie riding the bike:


While we were at the fair we actually ran into my brother and his family. They live in St. Paul and I hadn't bothered to tell them we'd be in town because I didn't really figure we'd see them and I knew we'd be seeing them in a few days for our annual camping trip. It was kind of funny to actually run into them considering how many people were at the fair that day (171,000 that day).

After Dan and I met up again we went over to the Drink-all-the-milk-you-want-for-$1 stand and dipped our leftover cookies into our milk. Then we headed home. We picked up the shuttle again and went back to the Park and Ride. The shuttle we rode back was a charter bus and Darin got the biggest kick out of it. He was giddy and loved that he was in a charter bus. All the kids thought it was pretty cool that a bus could have a bathroom!! It was hilarious to watch their excitement over something that we find so commonplace. It wasn't funny, however, to listen to the guy in front of us swear every third word. Thankfully, the kids didn't really pay attention to what he was saying and since they've never heard most of the words he wasn't saying, it didn't really register with them that he was saying bad words.

We got home safely around 11:30, much later than we had planned, but we had a great time and plan to go back next year.

School has started!!!

After taking part of the summer off we have started school again. It surely is nice to be back into a routine again. Towards the end of the last school year I bought the Managers of Their Homes book and implemented a schedule that worked wonderfully. I still need to tweak a few things on it for this year's schedule since we've changed our history curriculum and added a few things. I hope to get that done soon-hopefully within the next week or so.

So this past week we did a decent amount of work but didn't hit it too hard. I worked Sunday and Thursday night so the days after weren't as productive.

Here is what we did:

History: We've switched to Tapestry of Grace this year and love it so far. It is a classical history curriculum that integrates history, church history, writing, literature, geography and art history. In high school it also adds philosophy and worldview. I made each of the girls their own notebooks for the first unit--it has all of their assignments and they are responsible for getting them done. The kids have been loving it so far. Ellie even asked if she could work ahead in her history reading because she loved the book so far (a book about King Arthur). For our read aloud, we've been reading about the visigoths and others who contributed to the fall of Rome. We also read the story about Saint Valentine--his work and how his faith got him killed. We had planned on starting our salt map one day this week but 4 very tired children required naps so we didn't get it started. Instead we just reviewed some of the geographical terms that we had planned to put on our map.

English: We didn't completely finish Ellie's text from last year so we are just highlighting the grammar parts and skipping the writing since she's doing writing with Tapestry this year. With Kara we reviewed nouns, pronouns and action verbs. She's also memorizing the poem Mr. Nobody. She's got 2 of the 3 stanzas memorized.

Math: Ellie took a few tests in Saxon 65 and she started with lesson 15. She also did some math fact review using Quarter Mile Math (a computer program). Kara did a couple of lessons in Saxon 2 and a few lessons in her Singapore Math workbooks.

Science: We started a unit on ponds. We had planned on going to Quarry Hill to look at the pond and do some drawings but it didn't work out. I had worked the night before so was really tired, we had a picnic that we were going to that night so I needed to do some baking, and there were 40mph winds. So we just started reading about them and learning about muskrats.

Latin: Ellie is still working her way through Latina Christiana I and did lesson 23 this week. She'll move onto LC II when she is done with LC I.

Typing: Ellie started typing this week which she has been really excited about. She's been doing it in the evenings after Darin and Natalie go to bed and has been asking every day if she can work on it.

Logic: Ellie has started working her way through MindBenders A2. She uses grids to find out the answers to the puzzles--such as who lives where, etc--based on the clues given. We aren't doing any formal study of logic till 7th grade, but she loves working on these and does them in her spare time.

New furniture, earrings, etc.

Wednesday we had some new furniture delivered so we spent most of the day rearranging. We had gone shopping before vacation and bought a new couch, 2 new chairs and a new bed. We needed the bunk beds that Ellie and Kara have been using for Darin and Natalie's room so we put our bed in Ellie and Kara's room and the new bed in ours. The new furniture in our living room is extremely comfortable but we haven't used it much since we've been busy and the old couch is still in the middle of the room. We had been thinking about buying a leather chair for the living room but couldn't find what we wanted in the price range we were looking. My sister recently got 2 leather chairs for a decent price and we really like them so we were hoping to find something similar. Instead we decided to go with microfiber. And we bought 2 chairs and couch--not the one or two chairs we planned on. But we love the set. Friends of ours have the same set in a different color so I guess you could say we test drove the set before we bought it.

Also on Wednesday Ellie and Kara went over to a friends house to play and spend the night. While they were there they conspired that they should get their ears pierced. They called me Thursday morning to see if I'd say yes and in a moment of weakness (or something), I said yes. I met them at WalMart (parental permission is required) and then stopped at Sekapp on the way home and bought a box of tomatoes to can and 10 dozen corn. We ate a dozen for supper and it was so, so good. I'm going to have to get some more to eat on the cob before it is all gone. I froze 19 bags with 1 1/2 pints in each. I would have had a few more bags but I had to throw out one of the batches because I had put the shucked corn in a box that apparently had previously held part of a pressure washer and it reeked like tires. I did notice a bit of a smell when I was putting the corn in the box but it was sitting next to Darin's bike and being that his bike is quite new, I assumed it was his tire that I was smelling.

I also bought a lug of peaches and 3 lugs of nectarines from Cub Foods. The peaches aren't that great and aren't freestone. I'm hoping the nectarines will be good. They aren't ripe yet so the verdict is out. Since the peaches aren't that great, I ordered 3 boxes from the local Youth for Christ fundraiser and 2 boxes of pears. I've ordered the peaches from them (they get them from Colorado) for several years and they are always wonderful. They come away from the pit nicely and are the best peaches I've ever eaten. I hadn't ordered any previously because when they sent the info out earlier in the summer they anticipated that they would be delivered early to mid August--right when we were in Colorado. But after I got the peaches from Cub I looked at their website in the hope that they hadn't been delivered yet and I was in luck. They'll be delivered between the 23rd and the 25th so I'll have 2 days to can them before we go camping.

On our way home

Sunday night we packed the van, and I had the kids sleep in their clothes so we could get up early on Monday and just get in the van and go. We stopped overnight Monday at some friends' in Nebraska City and it was great to see them again. They were our close friends in Lincoln when we lived there and we saw them last year on our way out to California. Tammy made a great supper and then we took a walk to the Arbor Lodge State Park. The park was beautiful and they also had a whispering bench where you sit on one end and whisper to the person on the other end and you can hear each other like you were right next to one another. The bench is in a semi-circle and is about 15 feet across.

After our walk we chilled out and watched the Olympics for awhile. Tuesday morning we drove to Omaha and stopped at Nebraska Furniture Mart--a great store that we miss. We bought some new lamps to go with our new couch and then headed to Des Moines. We met my dad at Cracker Barrel and then left for home.

It is so good to be home. Darin and Natalie were so out of their routine that they were not behaving. We had to stop twice on the way home to discipline them. Now that we've been home and they are catching up on sleep they aren't the little evil devils I was convinced they were on the way home.

Family reunion

We had a great time at the family reunion. It was great to reconnect with Dan's cousins and get to know them better and their spouses. Almost all of Dan's family was there--just a few were missing.

We all settled in on Thursday night and had our first meal together. Dan's Aunt Elaine volunteered to be in charge of the food so she planned all the meals for our time together and made a huge Costco run. Then at the end we all pitched in to cover the cost of all the food.

Friday morning we had group games and had a great time. It was great to see everyone participate and try to win. Of course, no J***** family reunion would be complete without cheating. If something was not specifically prohibited, it was fair game. So while there was a winner, the team didn't win fair and square. I guess you could say that they were better cheaters than the other teams. And it was all done in good fun. We did a plate skate (and the plates tore much sooner than I had anticipated), a marshmallow toss, a clothespin drop, balloon popping and a creative activity where each team had to use nature and themselves to create something. The ideas they came up with were great and hilarious.

On Saturday we went hiking in the Rocky Mountain National Park with Dan's dad and his brother-in-law and kids. We did a six mile hike and the kids did pretty well. We had Natalie in the Kelty and the rest of our kids walked most of the way. I bit the dust twice while hiking and am still bruised from that. Once I landed on my bum while going down an embankment and another time I tripped and landed on a rock right under my kneecap.

The hike we took went out to Mills Lake which was absolutely beautiful. The whole trail was gorgeous. When we got to Mills Lake it started to rain and since it was quite cool, we didn't really want to get wet. We were going to stake out under the trees for awhile but then Dan spotted a large rock leaning against another and we took shelter there. It was great and the kids thought it was really cool. We had a snack while we waited.

Here we are on the shuttle on the way to the trailhead:


Taking a snack break:


A view on the way:


Here we are under the rock waiting out the rain and having a snack:


Mills Lake:

After the rain stopped we headed back allthewhile watching the sky since it looked like it would start pouring any minute and it was thundering quite a bit. The hike back went much faster--of course, it was all downhill--and we did beat the rain.

Darin and Jacob playing hillbilly golf:

The kids are spoiled

Just a side now about the kids in the middle of my vacation posts. Our kids are definitely spoiled when it comes to travel accommodations. I remember as kids staying at some very basic cabins when we went on vacation.

When we walked into our hotel room in Lincoln on our way out to Colorado, Ellie asked, "Where's the kitchen?" We usually stay in a suite that has a kitchenette in it because then we can put the kids to bed and still be able to be up. I don't think she's ever seen a regular hotel room (at least not one she remembers).

Then in Divide, she decided that the cabin was too old because there were too many bugs inside. The cabin really wasn't old but it wasn't built in the last 5 years either. And Ellie is deathly afraid of spiders.

Colorado vacation post #6

Wed afternoon the girls sat in the prince and princess chair and worked on writing some postcards to their friends (which, incidentally, I still can't find--the postcards, not the friends).

Thursday morning we packed up and left thinking we would stop by Great Harvest in Colorado Springs for scones for breakfast. After all, they had lemon poppy seed scones that day and they would be delicious. Plus we could eat them in the van (I had brought along some Tupperware containers that the kids used as trays) and there wouldn't be any breakfast dishes to do before we left the cabin in Divide.

No such luck!! The Great Harvests (there are 2) in Colorado Springs are horrible. We had stopped there the first day on the way to Divide to pick up a few loaves of bread for the week. Well, they were out. That day their mixer had broken and they only had a few loaves left. So the next day we were back in Colorado Springs and we stopped by again thinking that since the mixer was now fixed, they should have plenty of bread. Nope. It was 4:30 and they were out of bread. I told the guy I thought it was pathetic that they were out of bread and he disagreed saying he thought it was good because that meant they had good business.

So on the way out of town we called Great Harvest to reserve 6 scones for our family. It was a little before 8:30 and already they only had 3 scones left!!! Don't these people plan? Do they really like to be empty so soon? It made me very thankful for our Great Harvest here as they always have bread and don't run out of scones until mid-afternoon. I intend to send them a note thanking them for all the bread they make.

After we left Colorado Springs we drove to Denver and went to Colorado Mills, a large shopping center with a Children's Place Outlet. We try to hit this store any time we are near one since they always have great deals and our children are mostly clothed from there. They are, after all, one of the few stores anymore that have modest clothing. We scored big there and came home with 2 large bags filled for a fraction of the original price. After shopping there we stopped at Johnny Rockets for lunch and received terrible service for an overpriced meal which didn't even come all at once since the waitress forgot about part of our order. It didn't help that Darin and Natalie weren't exactly model children.

Once we were done there we drove onto Estes Park where we were having a family reunion. We checked into our cabin there and wished that we had one as large as our previous cabin. The one in Estes Park had 1 bedroom with a loft. That doesn't sound so bad but the loft is quite small. It holds 4 twin mattresses on the floor and you can't stand up. I think every one of us hit our heads on the ceiling at least once. But it was better than the studio cabins.

The Bug Museum (also in Colorado)

Wednesday morning we drove into Woodland Park for breakfast at The Donut Mill. Afterwards we drove into Colorado Springs to go to the bug museum at the John May Museum. The museum is housed at an RV park and isn't exactly a technologically advanced museum. Nor is it all that nice. But it was fascinating (and cheap!!!!--only $10 for me, Ellie and Kara). John May (the guy whom the museum was named after) was a bug catcher (is that what you call them?) for many, many years and quite a few of the bugs were caught in the 1930s. There were so many different and fascinating kinds of bugs. Even Ellie (who abhors spiders) thought that the exhibit was really cool. I took a few pics of some of the bugs. They turned out okay despite the bad lighting and my not-so-steady hand.

There were lots of iridescent butterflies on display. Many of these are found flying at the treetops in the Amazon. When pilots are flying over the Amazon, they will frequently see flashes of light which are these butterflies reflecting the sunlight. They were beautiful.
There were also lots of iridescent beetles. They were just fascinating to see. It was so amazing to see the detail and variety of colors in these bugs that God created. It was awe-inspiring just to think about God making even bugs beautiful.
This was a variety of locust found in Columbia. Don't you love the pink wings? The wing span was about 8 inches.
This was a very rare African giant beetle. There have only ever been a few captured and the fly quite high in the air. The back of the beetle was velvety soft, not hard. This beetle was about 6 inches long.

Here is another locust that measured about 8 inches.
This was a stick bug that measured 15-18 inches long. This sucker was huge (as far as bugs go)!!

Colorado vacation post #5

Tuesday we stayed back at the cabin and the kids just played. It had rained the day before so the kids mostly played inside.

Here are the girls playing in the bunk beds where Ellie and Kara slept.
Here is Darin resting in the closet while listening to an Adventures in Odyssey CD.
In the afternoon, the kids all had a good time playing on the tire swing.

Colorado vacation post #4

Monday morning we headed back into Colorado Springs to the Air Force Academy. When we first got there we watched a short movie in the visitors' center about life in the academy and the things that they do to promote leadership. One of the interesting things that the cadets do is to teach each other to fly. Now this isn't flying fighter jets or anything of the sort. Rather, they have some smaller plane (I don't really have any idea what it is) that they use and 95% of the instruction is done by the upper classmen. These planes are yellow and we saw several of them flying while we were there. After the movie we walked around the visitors' center and looked at pictures that chronicle cadet life. After viewing them I decided that they definitely need to do some updating. Most of the pictures look like they were from the 80's--you know, wispy hair for the girls, really bad glasses on the boys (military haircuts for boys haven't changed much in the last 20 years so that wasn't a distinguishing characteristic).

After the visitors' center we walked over to the chapel. This is the chapel that houses four different worship areas--Protestant (the largest chapel and most beautiful), Catholic, Jewish and Buddhist. The Buddhist temple area has only been open for about a year. In the movie that we watched they stated that they really wanted the cadets to be spiritually healthy and promoted this. I'm not sure what they do (or if it really happens), but I found it very interesting that the military, a government branch, would actually promote spiritual health. Now I realize that the military isn't promoting just Christianity, but in today's world when Christians are discriminated against and the government seems to be anti-Christian, having a branch of the government promote this was intriguing. And the Protestant worship area is the largest part of the chapel. Doesn't it seem in our litigious society that there should be a lawsuit coming saying that since the Protestant worship center is the largest they are discriminating against others or promoting Protestantism over other religious beliefs?

When you enter the top floor of the chapel you are entering the Protestant worship area and it is gorgeous. There are stained glass windows that run floor to ceiling between the peaks of the chapel and when the sun shines, there is a blue hue to the whole room.

Here is a pic I took of the ceiling. It doesn't really show the blue hue but you get the idea.

After we were done at the chapel we stopped at a B-52 display that they have near the entrance, and then drove over to Focus on the Family (FOTF). When we arrived at the welcome center at FOTF they had just started a Last Chance Detectives movie in their theatre so we sat in on the rest of that. Then we toured the main floor of the visitors center where they have an Adventures in Odyssey (AIO) movie playing and displays about all of their ministries. They also have a gallery of paintings that Dr. Dobson's father did. Apparently he went to art school and was first in his class but gave it all up to go into the ministry.

Downstairs was where the fun stuff for the kids was. They have several different rooms down there in which kids can explore. They have a room for toddlers (kind of like the ones you see in some malls), a Narnia room (you walk through a wardrobe into Narnia and try to find a list of 20 things), a room with a stage/puppets/dress-up clothes, various other things and a 3-story slide. Ellie and Kara loved the slide and went down it several times. Darin got to the top of the slide but refused to go down.

Here are Ellie and Kara in the dress-up room pretending to be characters from AIO.

After we were done at the visitors center we walked over to the administration building for a tour of those facilities. The tour took about 30 minutes and we saw where they tape the broadcasts, where they have the capabilities for national television broadcasts and where the constituent response area was. The tour guide (a young lady from Georgia) also talked about the various programs that Focus has and about Dr. Dobson. They joke that he has been a volunteer for the longest amount of time (he doesn't take a salary) and the biggest supporter (all royalties from his books sold through their resource center get put back in the ministry). Focus doesn't publish Dr. Dobson's books so he makes his living from the royalties he gets from the books he's written that are sold elsewhere.

After the tour when all of the other tour participants had left, the tour guide gave us some CDs to listen to on our drive back to MN. She gave us an audio copy of Dr. Dobson's Family Man, a radio drama of Anne of Green Gables, an AIO CD and a radio drama of on of the Narnia books. After the tour we walked over to the bookstore and the kids all got to pick something out. We had two 50% off coupons so that helped with the total cost. Ellie picked out a book that she's been wanting to read, Kara got a hat, Darin got a Veggie Tales movie and Natalie picked out a stuffed animal that opens up to a pillow. Dan and I got a few books as well.

After our visit there we went out for an early supper to the Cracker Barrel which was absolutely delicious!! And it wasn't even that expensive. I really wish we had one closer cuz the food there is so good.

After supper we went to the Garden of the Gods in south Colorado Springs. We purposefully went there in the early evening because we had heard that the sun setting over the rocks was just gorgeous and we weren't disappointed. Thankfully the person who used to own the land where the Garden of the Gods is located it donated it to the city so that it would remain free to all. Otherwise I'm sure they'd charge for it.

While we were there we saw several rock climbers and the kids had fun climbing on a few of the rocks too.

Colorado vacation post #3

After being gone all day on Friday, we decided to spend Saturday and Sunday just hanging out at the cabin. It was wonderful. I read quite a bit while the kids played. The cabin we stayed at was at around 9000 feet so it took us a couple of days to get adjusted to the altitude. We had hoped to get more hiking in than we did but aside from adjusting to the altitude, we all got a cold. By Saturday night Ellie had a fever and wasn't feeling so great. But we still had a good time--thanks to the Tylenol I brought along. Dan did have to run into town to pick up some DayQuil and NyQuil but the rest that I needed I had brought along.


Our cabin was on 5 acres so the kids had plenty of room to roam. I took the kids around the property so they would know where to play (they were unsure initially where to go and so stayed close to the house) and then they had fun playing house. They took some blankets down into the wooded area and set up house there, complete with pretend fire (made of pine cones) and kitchen. We also had a very large deck which was partly covered so the kids had fun playing there, especially when it was hot.

About a 3 minute drive from the cabin was an old quartz quarry. We took the kids there and they had fun climbing and picking the wild raspberries that grew there (who knew raspberries would grow in the middle of a quarry?).

Here is the view of Pike's Peak from the quarry.

Colorado vacation post #2

We arrived in Divide Thursday afternoon and quickly settled into the cabin. It was a bit smaller than I had anticipated but was still large enough to suit our needs. There was a grill there and I had planned on grilled brats for supper so I went to work on getting things ready. I knew it was a charcoal grill but I thought that one bag of charcoal was provided. I was wrong. I searched high and low but couldn't find one anywhere. Thankfully, the previous occupants had left some partially used coals in a bucket out on the porch. I scooped them out and started the grill with those. After supper, I removed all breakable items from Natalie's room and tucked the kids into bed. They were tired and definitely ready for bed.

On Friday, we did some sightseeing. First we went to the Royal Gorge. We were only going to go to one expensive attraction and we decided that the Royal Gorge would be it. At least with the admission price came all of the attractions within the park except for the bungee-jumping which we weren't interested in anyway. The first thing we did when we got to the park was to ride the incline railway. It takes you down to the bottom of the canyon and you can see the Arkansas River.

Here is Natalie in the incline railway car:
Here I am giving Dan a "look:"
Here we are at the bottom of the gorge:

After we were done with the railway we rode the tram across the gorge. It is basically a car that fits about 25 people and goes across the gorge kind of like a ski lift. They joked that it takes 5 minutes to cross the gorge but only 8 seconds to get to the bottom.

After the tram we walked through the wildlife area where they had buffalo and elk. Then we went over to the petting zoo and the burro rides. Darin and Natalie were the only ones who could ride the burros since there was a height limit.

Here we are in the middle of the walking/driving bridge that goes across the gorge. Kara was terrified to walk across it since the planks were made of wood and there were spaces between the planks.
After we were done at the Royal Gorge we drove into Colorado Springs for a late lunch. Then we drove to Pike's Peak. Believe it or not, there is a fee to drive to the top of Pike's Peak. So we paid and started on our way. The sign at the entrance said that you should have at least a half a tank of gas or enough to go 80 miles. Our gas tank said we had a little less than half but our estimated mileage to empty was 140 miles so Dan figured we were good. The girls were a bit less sure. But we started out anyway. The first half of the drive wasn't so bad. The curves were mild and the road wasn't too steep. When we got half way things started to get a little bit more interesting. There were several hairpin turns and the grade was much steeper. Plus, at many of the turns there are no guardrails--just the side of the mountain. Thankfully there wasn't much traffic because there is absolutely no way two vehicles could be in a turn at once--and we even have a really good turning radius with our van. There were several places where I was white-knuckled--Dan would be looking down the mountain (i.e. not paying attention to the road) and we'd be coming up on a hairpin turn. Thankfully on the way back down we were mostly on the inside of the road and I was able to better appreciate the views.

Here is a view from the top of Pike's Peak. On really clear days you are supposed to be able to see up to 4 states. It was partly cloudy the day we were there. When we started at the bottom of the mountain it was about 85 degrees. It was 53 at the top. Thankfully we had remembered to bring sweatshirts along.

Here is a pic I took out the window on our way down. It had begun to get a bit cloudy and the sun was streaking through the clouds. The sun reflected on a lake far away and it was a really cool thing to see. Unfortunately this picture doesn't do the scene any justice.
Remember when I said Dan thought we had enough gas even though we had just under a half a tank? Well, a few miles back down the mountain the gaslight came on. The girls heard Dan say this and they were convinced that we were going to run out of gas. We had not anticipated how much gas we would use driving in low gear. So Dan switched to driving in a higher gear and using the break more. About half way down there was a park so we stopped there to eat supper and let the brakes cool off.

The park where we ate supper was absolutely beautiful and had the cleanest pit toilets I've ever seen. They even smelled good. Here is the sunset we watched as we ate supper.

We did make it all the way down the mountain without running out of gas. We did, however, stop at the first gas station we found.