Baseball and Hockey

Six days before the game, our friend, another Steve, calls and asks if we’d like to go to the hockey game. Our home team, the Colorado Avalanche, were hosting the St. Louis Blues. He explained that he had the responsibility of filling a suite. (Wouldn’t you like that job! I know I would.) We knew it would be a bit of a rush since we had already made plans with family to go to the Rockies game together, but Yes! It sounded like fun. The Avs aren’t going to the playoffs this year and the Blues need just one win to clinch a playoff slot but we were sure it would be a good time.

We’d had plans to go watch the Colorado Rockies get a little revenge on the Arizona Diamond Backs for several weeks. They went something like this:

  1. Meet downtown before the game for a little lunch.
  2. Walk over to Coors Stadium.
  3. Enjoy the beautiful spring weather.
  4. Boo the Ump.
  5. Cheer our guys.
  6. Go home with a winning feeling.

Sure the D-Backs beat us last year (who didn’t?), but the Rockies are hot out of the gate this season. The scenario almost worked.

Its a party
Hapless youth
Play ball!
Cummon Rockies
We’re winning
Lets get to the game
Its slipping through our fingers

We had fun before the game. The weather was perfect. The Rockies got on the board first and stayed ahead into the ninth inning when those sneaky snakes from Arizona took the game away. We told ourselves the day was really about family and friends and headed for the Pepsi Center and the Avs. We met some new friends, reacquainted ourselves with others and watched the Avalanche serve the Blues a pretty convincing defeat. As a bonus, because the Avs had  called the day ‘Military Appreciation Day’, we got to applaud the service of some veterans and some new inductees.

The thing I keep thinking about is that who wins is never a locked down certainty. The Rockies were supposed to win (at least in my mind.) They lost. The Avs weren’t supposed to win, but they did. Its been said before, but I guess that’s why they play the game.

Before the puck drops
New friends
Swearing in the inductees

One final word. More important than being our ticket to the Avs game, our friend Steve is a lawyer who heads up a non-profit organization called the Justice and Mercy Legal Aid Clinic. If you’re intrigued, or even just curious about a lawyer who believes in Grace, click here.

Celebration Community Urban Garden

There’s a new growth area at church. There is a rectangle between the church parking lot and Iowa Avenue that is turning into a large vegetable garden. Until now it has just been dirt with a few weeds for squatters. As a Christian fellowship, the folks at church are quite hopeful about the potential for becoming better friends with residents in the community.

The idea has been around as a seed, but now we can look to a group that knows what they’re doing and wants to work with us. UrbiCulture Community Farms is working with us to make the garden grow. Their people know how to set up the raised beds, run water to ’em and generally stack the deck in favor of fresh vegetable success, Their whole existence is driven by a desire to get good, nutritious food to people who don’t have it – at the price they can afford. At Celebration, that sounds like loving our neighbor as ourselves. The seed of the idea seems to have sprouted and is starting to take root.

There are a few photos below and there are a bunch more here.

Raised Beds
Setting the beds
Clean Dirt
Moving dirt
There’s a lot of dirt moving
Enough for now.

 

Florida V – Orlando to Fort Lauderdale

“All good things have to come to and end and its the same with the wild wood weed.”

Oops, sorry, that’s in a song, but it really doesn’t have anything to do with the end of our trip

Dad At Epcot
Dad At Epcot

to Florida or, really, anything else about us. We found ourselves heading back south  to Fort Lauderdale, and from there, home. We made a point to drive down the Atlantic coastline as much as possible. We stopped a couple times to get our feet wet. Wiser people than me have noticed that there’s something about the beach that makes some people lose their minds. (Just kidding.)

One last thing: Thanks, Dad, for going with us.

Florida IV – Disney’s Animal Kingdom

At the Animal Kingdom, the first thing we did was go on an African Safari – by which Disney meant that we would be driven on a bus through a rather well designed zoo with some very well fed and healthy looking animals.

 

The park also has a tremendous gorilla area that we enjoyed.

Gorilla at Disney’s Animal Kingdom in Orlando

 

I guess its true that everybody loves a parade, because if it were just me, Disney would have parades every day at every park.  Well, they do and, get this, each park does it differently!

 

 

Florida III – Disney’s Epcot Center

19-Bucky BallWe enjoyed Epcot Center  most of the Disney parks we visited. We really enjoyed the feeling of being able to step from one country to another. There are little corners tucked into each country that just quietly say “This is us.”  It was cool riding around inside the big bucky ball that has been the signature of this park since its beginning in 1982. (OK, its not really a bucky ball because Spaceship Earth is made out of triangles, and bucky balls are made from pentagons and hexagons, but  still!) These photos show some of the other great things. 

 

Florida II – Disney’s Magic Kingdom

Jay and Kay and the Happiest Place on Earth
Jay and Kay and the Happiest Place on Earth

In Orlando, we understood that we had to visit Disney theme parks. So we did! Day Two was The Magic Kingdom. This is before we got drawn into the magic when we were still thinking of managing people and expectations,. This is getting started, what we saw in little corners and finally, how empty the entrance was in the afternoon.

Then there were a few attractions: I liked the Paddle Wheeler  and the view as we were cruising the circular lagoon. May-be I just liked sitting down.

There were a couple rides that I enjoyed like “Small, Small World” and “Pirates of the Caribbean”

And then, the parade …

 

 

Florida

We went to Ft. Lauderdale. We drove up north and found ourselves in Orlando.

What could we do in Orlando? Well, in Orlando they are glad to offer a few suggestions.  We ended up, like lots of other people, trapped – yes, trapped – in universal fantasies that movies are made of.

16-DSCN8730You might call this “Day One” or “Orlando by Universal.” Looking at the  web site, Universal  seems to have reorganized since we were there.

 

We first went to the Harry Potter area.

07-DSCN8709Then we stood in line for the slowest roller coaster in the world. Don’t think it wasn’t fun, we went through a restaurant on the roller coaster and decided to go back there for lunch. Note the Dr, Suess characters.

Dee and Kay took the log ride, Ripsaw Falls, and Steve took pictures33-DSCN8948. By then the day had gotten hot and long and the line looked too forbidding. Steve was afraid his camera would get soaked. And anyway, he didn’t want to go. From the pictures, it’s clear that the riders get wet and they don’t mind. It also looks like good fun.

 

A Blessing

Sunrise
Sunrise

Our friends at Mercy Trails Ranch (nearest town is Raymer, Colorado) were moving to Oregon and needed folks to watch their horses and cows while they were out west looking for their new home. Steve was able to spend a couple nights and had the chance to soak up the solitude of an east Colorado high plains ranch. By the end of that time Steve was glad to have the dogs to talk to. In fact, he was starting to believe that the dogs were talking back!

It was good to think about how the place had played a big part in the lives of friends and family.

 

Great Sand Dunes National Park

photo of the Great Sand Dunes
Great Sand Dune

The first person to wonder why huge piles of sand were in the mountains of Colorado didn’t get credit for the question. It’s easier to wonder about these great sand dunes now, with roads and all, but I’m not sure the answer is any more clear. I think it looks cooler when you’re standing there, because the sand all looks the same in my pictures. It was fun to dig into the river bed and find that the river was still there under the sand. It’s hard to resist walking up the dunes, and why would you?

The river under the sand
Go and see

When we had our fill of sand, we went to Zapata Falls, a couple miles south of the dunes. It’s an oasis in the desert. After walking forever in the heat (probably 15 minutes, because it’s only a half mile trail from the parking lot) you find yourself in this crack in the rock with a tiny water fall and it’s is positively chilly even on hot days. It was a treat.

Crack in the rock
Zapata Falls
The Crew