I’m on vacation! I’ve got a connection to the Internet! The weather is delightful! I’m lounging in the shade! At least for today, I’m not sure how life could get much better.

We’re at Mueller State Park, altitude 9,500 feet. We’re in the furthest camping spot from the entrance in the park. There is a wild turkey a little ways off calling for a mate, there are several birds in the trees, and it’s perhaps as quiet as nature can get, me thinks. We got here a little after noon yesterday and found that we’ve made a very good choice for a campsite. It’s a pull-through site with electricity. Water is a community spout on the other side of the road but within hose distance, so we could fill up the water tank in the trailer. We’ve got trees on all sides so there is a lot of shade. With the awning out on the trailer, we’re in a very nice spot.

Jared came up on Sunday and spent the evening. He came up here to the park and left about 7 p.m. last night to drive back to Denver. He and Nina took a 6-mile bike ride which, at this altitude, is a pretty strenuous ride. Nina and I will take a much less strenuous ride this afternoon. We’ve been out with the cameras taking a lot of pictures and are now back at the campsite taking life pretty easy for a while.

I discovered last night that my Sprint PCS Wireless Card had signal up here. It isn’t a very strong signal, but enough to make an internet connection fairly reliably. I was able to log into work and dispose of all the weekend Spam that came through. The connection is good enough that I could get some work done here if needed. I left my cell phone at home, so this won’t be the trip. But, we may come up here over Labor Day weekend and this would give me the ability to spend an extra day here without having to take vacation.

The Ward breakfast went well. The day dawned bright and sunny with no wind, so the turnout was more than I had expected. We had enough pancakes and eggs for everyone, but ran out of sausage and bacon. No one seemed to be complaining. It did cloud over yesterday afternoon after we got to the park and we had a couple of thunderstorms. It didn’t stay clouded up very long and the sun came back out after each storm.

We’re here today and tomorrow morning. Checkout time is noon. We’ll take the trailer home, unload it, and go to The Lord of the Dance downtown tomorrow night. I’ve got an assignment at the Bishop’s Storehouse on Thursday morning, but that is turning out to be a possible problem. I may have to cut that assignment short because of a work meeting. We’ll see. But, by Thursday we’re back into the real world once again, so I’m really enjoying life right now.