The Visiting Continues

The days are rolling by, somewhat like the traffic on I-25 just a hop, skip and jump behind where we're parked. Or the 30-some trains that clatter along just across the creek that runs by the campground.


Saturday morning I got up early to attend the Weight Watchers meeting. It turned out to be a milestone for me, as I achieved a 50- pound loss. After the meeting, Jim and I decided to get some breakfast and head to Castle Rock for some shopping. We went to our favorite 50's style diner, Gunther Toody's. Even though most of the staff has changed since our visit last year, the atmosphere is still as noisy and busy as ever. We then headed up I-25 about 40 miles to the Outlets at Castle Rock:





And started at the central location:




There were lots of bargains to be found, and we both came home with a few more clothes. Yes, I've gone through my closet again and weeded out some things that no longer fit. A fun dinner out with friends completed our Saturday. On Sunday, we got some grocery shopping done and prepared for a visit from our good friend, Angie, who was also our real estate agent. We first met Angie at church and got to be friends. She acted as our agent when we bought our last house and was just great to work with. When it came time to sell, there was really no question about asking Angie to help us. We didn't follow her advice exactly about how to prepare the house for selling, but we believe it was her skill and reputation that contributed to our quick sale. She's retired now, and enjoying her much-simplified lifestyle.

Jim had a dental appointment Monday morning, followed by a lunch with a friend. I invited my friend, Karen over to play guitar hero and go for a walk here at the campground. We also added in a lunch at a nearby Chinese restaurant. We needed to use up some of those calories, so we tried out the new Wii Sports Active game that I got recently. It has an option to work out with a friend - that turned out to be pretty interesting here in the Castle! It was pretty challenging, but we got through a 30 minute workout without any mishaps to us or the Castle. This game uses a stretchy-band along with the Wii controller and nunchuck. There are lunges, jumps, running, tennis, baseball and several other activities included. It also provides a "trainer" who is pretty strict about doing things correctly! We had a good day and enjoyed all the activity.

The weather today has turned chilly and wet. Our plan is to have lunch with my former boss and his wife. We found out recently that they also bought a 2008 Phaeton, at about the same time we did. We haven't seen them for some time, so it will be fun to catch up.

I haven't been taking a lot of pictures, but I can share a few more from the past week or so:

Another view of the mountains, easy to see why they are called the Rocky Mountains:

A beautiful hawk watching for lunch to come by:



And to brighten the day, poppies in Bob's garden:

We're having a good visit, but we're starting to look down the road -- thinking about the next part of the journey. After all, we've been here more than 3 weeks!