Cousins, and children, and grandchildren. Oh, my!
Talk about silver linings--when my aunt Emily passed away nearly a year ago, I assumed responsibility for administering her estate. Her husband, Doug, predeceased her and they had no children. That meant I needed to contact Emily's next of kin, her nieces and nephews. There are 17 of us. Through emails, we decided to try and get together this summer. The Bruski women [Karen, Marcy, Wendy, and Cami] lived in Beach, North Dakota with Grandpa Emil Vukelic but moved to Colorado Springs in the mid-60s. All but Marcy, still live there. One of the eight Bogers children, Julie, lives there as well so Colorado Springs seemed a good pick for a reunion.
Pam and I flew to Denver. Once in the airport, I quickly discovered I had forgotten to write down the name of the company with which I had reserved a rental car. Several calls later, and with the assistance of Meredith, we tracked down my reservation. It was with Fox car rentals. Now, how could I forget the name of my favorite media outlet (Fox News -- "We distort, you decide." Any news organization that has to tell you it is "fair and balanced" isn't.) But I digress. Happily in our rental car, we promptly got lost and took the long way around to an International Street Fair near Coors Field in Denver.
It took me about seven minutes to walk by and glance at the various tents with proprietors selling their goods. On the east end of the market was a street that had three pianos stationed on the sidewalk about 1/2 block apart. A sign on the side of the piano invites anyone to sit and play.
Since I had nearly an hour to kill while my better half did more than glance at the vendors, I sat down at this upright. Later, we bedded in Denver, got up fairly early the next day and headed south to Colorado Springs.
We had lunch at Noodles Company which was quite good. I wanted to see the Garden of the Gods again. The last time I saw it was 40 years ago when my cousin Marcy took me to the park underneath a full moon. It was positively eerie at night. During the day, it's just beautiful.
This pic shows the park looking west from the visitors center.
Posing along the only paved trail in the park
Looking south
There is always a comedian...
But the real reason we came to town was to see family.