August is winding down and once again I find myself wondering Where did the summer go? Time just seems to fly by these days. Oh…and there was one other positive thing from the Rio Chama Adventure…I got a really good start on a beard and decided to let it grow. It’s been well over 25 years since I had a fuzzy face. Most everyone seems to like it too. 😉
Kristie and Noelle Swanson came out in early June for a weekend visit. Noelle spent the weekend at an Art Conference/Workshop while we showed Kristie around the local area and went hiking in North Cheyenne Canyon. We also got to see some of Noelle’s work and can confirm that she is one talented young lady.
We’ve only gotten one camping trip in since the big Memorial Day trip. That was back in mid-June. We went over near LaSalle Pass which is located north of Wilkerson Pass. It leads through the Puma Hills immediately north of Badger Mountain. We found a really nice campsite with a view back to the east of Pikes Peak. The weather was a welcome relief from the previous trip. It remained sunny and warm for our entire stay and we had a very relaxing time.
In early July we went to see America in concert. They were playing here in town at the Pikes Peak Center and put on quite a show. It was quite interesting looking around at the crowd and comparing to the “old days”. Needless to say, there was a lot of gray or balding heads in the crowd. Everyone had an awesome time and it was well worth the money spent.
The 4th of July weekend saw us headed to Iowa for the big family reunion. This was probably the last time that the whole crew will get together. I’m not sure how many were there this year but it was good to see everyone and catch up on family news and events. We spent some time with friends and family and got reacquainted with the heat and humidity of an Iowa summer.
July and August have been filled mostly with house projects, fellowship with our church small group, building Rhonda’s business, and helping people move. Kristina is living in Denver now and working for an energy company. Hopefully she will write an article for the website one of these days. A lot of my time has been taken up building a local chapter of Engineers Without Borders – USA which I started this earlier this year. I’ve made luncheon presentations to a number of local engineering societies this summer. It has been fairly slow going but I’ve now recruited enough people to gain official recognition as an established chapter.
EWB-USA is a non-profit humanitarian organization. Our local Professional Chapter will partner with a developing community in order to improve their quality of life. This partnership involves the implementation of sustainable engineering projects, which typically focuses on providing water supply and sanitation systems. Another goal is to involve and training internationally responsible engineers and engineering students. We are planning to work with University of Colorado at Colorado Springs and the Air Force Academy students and faculty to support the student chapters. You can read a little more about it at the website I built at www.ewbcos.org if you’re interested.
Three men went camping in the Puma Hills, an area in the Pike National Forest. What made this particular camping trip unique was; they were all Grimes men. Three generations in fact. Now that may not seem like a big deal but surprisingly, this camping trip took a long time to organize. I’ve been camping at various times over the years with both my Dad and with my Son but never at the same time. It seems like a simple thing to organize but with all of us serving in the armed forces at one time or another it just never made it past the good idea stage.
