Family Ties

We are so lucky! Moab Utah only gets ''9 of precipitation per year. Very few travelers get to experience archways natl park shrouded in fog and rain.  But we were one of the lucky ones. The rain cloud that met us in Moab followed us through the foothills and across the continental divide, and hung out with us through Steamboat Springs (where we watched the USA tie England and I bought my first pair of cowboy boots) into Ft Collins for two days before (kind of) clearing up today.

Fortunately this was not a nature oriented leg of our trip.  We got to meet for the first time, my great Aunt Gloria and Uncle Bill, our second cousins Jim and Betsy and their families (their kids are our 2nd cousins once removed). We arrived in Ft Collins on Sat evening and met Aunt Glor and Uncle Bill at Mulligans - the pub they visit each week in hopes of winning the trip to Ireland that is raffled off each year.  On Sunday Jim, his wife Frona and their family stopped by.  Jim and Frona took us into town for lunch and beers and Cooper Smith and a quick tour of Ft Collins.  When we arrived back home, Betsy, her husband Steve and her kids we at the house.  We made introductions over the penne, meatballs, and sauce that Aunt Glor had been working on since early in the AM.

On Monday we emptied out the car, cleaned it, Febreezed it, and repacked it so that we'll start out the 2nd half of our trip like the first: everything in its place. We spent the day playing chess (more losses for me) and watching TV with Glor and Torie (Jim and Frona's 17 yr old daughter).  Frona arrived at Aunt Glor's house around 5 and Joe, Joe (her son), and I tossed frisbee while we waited for Aunt Glor and Torie to return from a trip to her cousin Maddy's and the Store.

When Torie arrived back at Aunt Glor's, we got int he car and  followed Frona back to Boulder where we're spending the ngiht tonight. There, we made BBQ chicken pizza (Frona's is a fun kitchen to cook in) and chatted over three bottles of wine before everyone retired for the night.

And that pretty much brings us up to the present.  We'll be taking the next 2-3days to get to Austin via Taos

Here are the pics from our trip from Moab to Ft Collins, and our visit with the family here (click just below the image to bring up the nav bar to view the slide show.