Right before they arrived, I found a house to rent in Centennial, CO, so we spent the first day at the house figuring out what worked and what didn't, and picking up enough kitchen supplies for me to get by for a while.
Not too far west of our new home is Roxborough State Park. The park is at about the same elevation as Denver, and has some easy trails for walking and a nice visitor's center. We spent one morning exploring a trail that snaked through the park's fascinating slabs of sandstone.
The next day we went north to Boulder to visit with Bob and BJ. We also made sure to get in a little riding at the Valmont Bike Park. This park is really the model community bicycle park; we've been reading about it and watching it develop from afar in Michigan, as we were building a relatively small park ourselves.
Quinn got to test out his new Santa Cruz bicycle that I had picked up in Moab this spring. It's only slightly large for him; he's about one inch shorter than the lower end of the suggested height range for this bike. Really, I think the crank length is about the only thing that's significantly large for him, and there is not much we can do about that without some significant drivetrain modifications; so here it is. And it seemed to work just fine.
On the third day of the trip, we went for a nice walk in El Dorado Canyon with BJ. Bob had planned to go along, but had come down with a terrible cold and decided he wasn't up to it. The walk was very nice; it is a very scenic canyon, with huge cliffs covered with what appear to be tiny people with ropes.
The kids still haven't learned to share. Abbey's trying to teach Quinn something here, but her approach is less than civil, although Quinn's behavior had also been rather less than civil.
She had to chase him away from the telescope.
It must have been just the next day, Sunday morning, that we went for a walk along the Indian Creek Trail, which is about 25 miles southwest of our new address. It was very different from El Dorado Canyon, lacking the sheer cliffs and climbers, but still having a few chunks or rock to scramble up.
Sunday was a busy day. Near the end of it, we went to a small park that's a couple of miles south of our house, called Regional Bluffs Park. The park has a trail that circles and tops some bluffs that overlook the south end of Denver. The trail is wide and smooth, a little sandy, and rather steep in places. Quinn had to work pretty hard to haul himself and that bike up those ten percent grades. Of course the ride down was a blast.
The view of the city from the top of the park was spectacular, although I'm not sure I'd call it beautiful. In this photo, downtown Denver is visible on the horizon towards the left, and the Denver Technical Center (DTC) where I work is on the horizon on the right. The rest is a sea of houses, and ours is floating around somewhere out there.
Cindy and the kids stayed for a couple more days, but I had to work and the weather turned cold, so we didn't do much outside after Sunday night. Then on Wednesday morning I took them to the airport, and with tears in my eyes said goodbye again. I wish they could be here now, but June will come soon.
Yesterday, a little girl from the neighborhood, along with her brother and father, came to our door to see if Quinn and Abbey wanted to come out and play a little basketball. She was disappointed to learn that they had gone back to Michigan, and wouldn't be out until mid-June. I assured her that when they arrived, they would indeed love to come out and shoot some baskets with her.
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