Fleming's Happy Hour--a deal!

Thanks to Steve and Cindy they found a great deal at Fleming's Steak House for happy hour. Drinks--quality wine, martinis, cosmos and a great Angus burger for 6 bucks each. Booths are kinda small when you try to get 6 people in them--Bill and Nikki (Cindy's sister and husband) joined us as we were closing down the happy hour--7pm. Time for the old folks to go home!!

Grand Junction & Arches NP

We took some good long hikes with the dogs--Sadie and Larry/Darrell's dog Jager. There is some really great open space between Larry's house and the Colorado National Monument. Snow, cold 25 but nobody out on the trail.
We drove over to Arches National Park, less than 2 hours from Uncle Larry's house. Snow, cold 25 but no crowds. Landscape Arch--the longest arch and a piece fell off in 1991--not this day.

Seattle for Thanksgiving!

What a beautiful day in Seattle. Thanks to Kortney and her talent with cutting and pasting. Paul was the photographer for this picture--Kortney added him him. You notice no one was off the ground--too much turkey. More pictures later. Check out my new favorite quote at the right.
WOW, Paul can really sky in Seattle! Keep your heads down.

Wicked!

I apologize for including this picture! We got caught up in talking, eating and drinking!!!!!!! It was supposed to be a picture of our dinner at Parisi, north of the Highlands Park area. Very good Italian place, Kortney had a big piece of pork in a pastry shell, I had a noodle cups filled with lobster, shrimp and scallops with a cream sauce, Jan had Boar stew--more like a stew over noodles---I liked mine the best! The Chianti was from Florence--so we reminisced about our Italy trip. Sorry Paul--no margarita pizza, but, they had sardines.
Of course, refreshments are in order before the play. The Stone Cellar Cab was pretty good and not that pricey.
Our family tradition of seeing some sort of play, musical during the Thanksgiving to Christmas season is missing some people--Amanda, Kevin we missed you! Thanks to Kortney she brought me up to speed on the story line for "Wicked". It was funny (which I didn't expect) and of course the music was great. The stage props were amazing--I still haven't figured out how they made it look like it was raining. Sorry no pictures inside the Beull!

We hope to catch our friends that sing in the Cherry Creek Chorale and the Denver Alcapello Project--in December for some Christmas music.

How did this happen?

Snow fell everywhere except on the green--WOW. When we got up this morning, we saw this. The shoveling crew must have been up very early. I'm not sure why they did this--it is supposed to snow for a couple of days. I guess the 60+ weather has affected their thinking.

Colorado living!

I'm not sure what the official temperature was yesterday, but we reached almost 80 on the sunny side of the house. I guess the cycling season is not over, but I choose the running shoes instead of the bike--Sadie was pleased to drag me around. Today is in the low 70's--car wash day!
This is in a new neighborhood that does not have very big trees, so the squirrel has to take to the screens. I wonder what the people inside think about this.
An appropriate full moon for Halloween!
Sadie found some drifts to jump in even though it was melting on the hill sides.
This was taken last Saturday after the 2 feet of snow. It had warmed to 63 so we found this green spot on the golf course.

The Winning of America series--Allan Eckert

Thanks to a friend who first read these books and has loaned them to me. He found that my Indian tribe (Sac and Fox) was often mentioned. Perhaps my dad's tribe (Caddo) will be mentioned as the books move west.

Eckert writes that the principle theme of the 6 book series is precisely how the white man took North America from the Indians. These books are non-fiction, a living history of actual characters, dates taken from original documents, including notes, military records/correspondence, notes, personal letters, diaries, journals, deeds, logbooks, newspapers depositions and tribal records. He writes narrative and then includes the actual documents that relate to the event.

As the author says, "This series moves across the continent, showing clearly and in the most fundamentally human terms how the land was won----through encroachment, trickery, warfare, grant, treachery, purchase, alliance, deceit, theft and broken treaty."

I think it highlights our human sins of pride, ego and greed. Which continues today!

Wilderness Empire--early 1700's to 1755. The French/English War
The Conquerors--1758 to1765 The Indian wars with the English.
The Wilderness War--1765 to 1780 I have just started this one.