Hugs all around

 Do not worry for anyone who may have gotten used to nearly daily updates, we are alive and well. 

We arrived in Schenectady safe and sound.

We picked up our rental car for the evening and arrived at the folks at around 10:30 pm. Not only did I get to give my dad a hug, but my momma was awake and I got to give her a great big hug too!!

On Tuesday, we all slept in late, and surprisingly my parents were awake before me.

I had the pleasure of meeting one of the CareTakers who helps my dad, and we ran some errands. Danny reacquainted himself with some old toys and we settled into the routine of the house.

The Olympics have provided some entertainment. 

Wednesday James and Danny went to see Space Jam at Bow Tie Cinema and Danny really liked it.

It has been wonderful to be home and be with my family again. 

James and Danny will be going to Sacandaga Lake tomorrow for white water rafting, and I will be helping my parents :) 

TTFN!

I’m goin HOME

 We are on the freeway in Sac as I type this but we are on our way to the airport (again).  

We are flying to Albany today and tomorrow morning I will be able to give my mama a hug !!!

Will keep you all posted 🥰

Home

So we are home again for a few days before we take off to finally see my parents !!!

Today was low key. We worked on chores, ran errands, and watched the opening of the Olympics. 

Heading home

Today we kept it simple as we packed up our adventure in Pagosa Springs. The drive to the airport was uneventful. We had a flash flood alert but I was glad for once not to see a storm. 

We returned our car and went through security in record time and then our wait began for our plane. 

It arrived a few minutes late but we all boarded without issue and just as we pulled onto the tarmac the pilot came on and announced we would have to wait for 50 minutes. 

We could either go back to the terminal or just wait on the plane. We all voted to wait on the plane. I read my book so the time passed quickly. Danny busied himself in his tablet relishing in the opportunity to play MineCraft.

We finally took off and headed for Denver. It turns out the reason for our delay was twofold. 

The first was that the fires in Oregon and CA had caused smoke visibility issues AND there were some terrible weather storms that had caused delays leading to a backlog of flights at Denver. 

We landed and discovered our flight home was also delayed by two hours. 

Denver Airport is like a small city it is so huge. We finally found our gate and a nearby restaurant to have dinner. 

We boarded and flew home. 

We were supposed to land at 5:30 pm

We landed at 8:30 pm. 

I am very grateful to be home. I really missed our girls who were also happy to have us back. 

hot air balloons, Chimney Rock, Treasure Water Fall

Today was super busy !!

This morning I discovered we were out of coffee filters and along the way I discovered a hot air balloon being prepared for a morning adventure.

I also felt it important to finally document our permanent neighbors, the awesome geese.

We then took off for Chimney Rock thinking we would need to explore it before our tour. But we learned that our evening tour would cover the whole park!

So instead we headed into town to check out a few shops and I learned about a water fall that needed to be seen.

We then found a food truck for lunch back in Pagosa Springs, sprinted back to our hotel room so that James and Danny could change so they could go tubing. (I didn't feel like it).

Danny and James had a blast, mean while, I had gone to the store to get ingredients to make sandwiches for dinner, made the sandwiches, and then picked them up at the end, just as a major thunder and lightning storm showed up.

We returned to our hotel room to change clothes and then head back out to Chimney Rock, which proved to be a true highlight of our trip.

Horse Back Riding to the Ice Cave

Pretty drive up to the trail head for our horse back riding adventure

Alas more photos from this day will have to wait as James has them on the "real" camera.

Here are the ones I was able to capture

This crevice is the "ice" cave. Water would collect, freeze and then make the perfect refrigerator/freezer 

Our awesome guide Tony, entertains Danny's endless "would you rather" questions

Danny rode Cocoa, and I road Amigo

On the recommendation of our guide we then drove to the trail head of Piedra Falls

Did I mention it was an old fashioned dirt road?

Danny was feeling silly at the trail head parking lot

These fallen down cabins are the original pioneer cabins

National Historic Site

Debs School 1909 to 1959

Students attended during Summer for Grades 1-8

Current building was constructed in 1930

The owner of the store where we picked up the trail head for horse back riding, attended this school as a kid. Apparently it was left as is in 1959 and it has not changed at all. 

This was the ridge that our horse back riding tour followed

(See the beige line of rocks in the upper left corner, that ridge)

This is an artist colony and I thought this was the coolest building

Rest of the day was very low key as we were all feeling the need to just relax and put our feet up.