Sunday morning we headed up into the mountains to see longtime friends Dick and Eleanor. The drive was exceptionally pretty.

This beautiful couple is one of the first we met in Denver, when we moved here in the late 80’s. It’s always good to catch up with them, and an added perk is that they feed us well!

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Monday morning was time to catch up with another longtime friend, and get our hair cut at the same time. Dave was the only one to cut my hair from the time we moved to Denver till we retired and moved onto the boat. We still try to have him restore our cuts when we go through town. Dave has had quite a scary bout with cancer… some treatment was working, then quit, and now he doing an interesting protocol that leaves him radioactive for a weekend occasionally. So he hides that weekend, away from people. The radioactive particles are supposed to go everywhere in his body, and kill cancer cells.

He says he is doing really well, and he sure looks like it!

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Just down the street from Dave’s is this glass high-rise full of cars. I’ve seen it many times before, but I don’t ever recall seeing cars in it. I figured it was time to check it out. It’s CarVana, an online car dealership. When you buy your car online, you can have them deliver it to your home, or come pick it up at this huge “Car Vending Machine.” It even has a place to insert a coin to get it going! I thought it was pretty interesting to see the elevator in the center slide cars up and down and over to a position where you can drive out. I took a little video of the elevator moving – you can see the blue tray where a car has just been removed, and the computer now puts the tray in an empty spot above. The video runs at 5x speed, as you can tell by cars driving by.

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Monday evening we got to pick Karen and Bryan up from the airport. (Our daughter and grandson.)

Bryan is awesome on the Ukulele, and he will play in the Rocky Mountain Ukulele Orchestra concert the next day. We head straight from the airport to the rehearsal.

There are 60 some Uke players at the rehearsal. Gary Jugert, the director, introduces Bryan and gives him some pointers.

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Tuesday we drive past Dinosaur Ridge, and decide to check it out. There is a small museum at the base of Rooney Road, with exhibits inside and huge pained dinosaurs outside.

I had never realized that dinosaurs were so patriotic, or favored black flower-power boots.

Up Rooney Road are the fossilized prints of tons of dinosaurs. Literally. There is also this stylized dino that I figured Bryan could twist into shape in a heartbeat. (He is AMAZING with a Rubik’s cube – can solve any of them in less than a minute.)

The prints are interesting, and there are so many layers of rock in this area it makes you wonder how much is buried where we can’t see it!

It’s a bit of an uphill walk to see the dino prints, but you are also rewarded with a nice view of the adjacent 470 highway.

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Time for the concert!

Gary and Bryan backstage before the concert started:

Bryan is in the front row. He had to learn all the numbers the orchestra was doing so he could play with them.

Here’s his solo! Amazing! Rolling In The Deep, arranged by Jake Shimabakuro:

After the concert, and standing ovations from both audience and orchestra alike, Bryan will still pose for a picture with us!

The next morning we get to have breakfast with Gary and his wife, Donna. A great time!

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After driving Karen and Bryan back to the airport, we head again for Lincoln. We arrive in Lincoln just as the sun was setting. We will stay in the newly renamed Sandhills Global Event Center (formerly Lancaster Event Center) and find that it is very crowded! The Cowboy Mounted Shooting Association national championship is going on! I never knew that was a thing! Melissa is parked across from us, and she invites us to come watch the fun. Not sure when I’ll be able to…

One night we have a HUGE storm! I was wakened at 2 am like someone was shaking me – but it was the motorhome moving! Admittedly, I didn’t have the jacks down, but this rig is heavy enough it never moves when you walk in it, let alone when the wind blows! For about a half hour the rain pelted down hard, the lightening flashed and thunder boomed so loudly you could feel the walls (and my chest) vibrate! It didn’t add to my comfort knowing that last week a tornado touched down a little ways from here and destroyed a bunch of houses. I tried to take pictures of the lightening, but all I got was either black or foggy white shots. We suffered no damage, other than a short night’s sleep.

There are many styles of horse trailers here. Most have living quarters for people as well as horses, and some pretty heavy trucks are here to tote them.

I did make it to a few minutes of the Championship. Great fun! It’s like an elongated barrel race, but in place of barrels are little pylons holding balloons. The goal is obviously to run the course and shoot out all the balloons. I was relieved to find out the guns are just loaded with powder – no bullets. The shot can get the balloon maybe 20 feet away. It is definitely possible to miss – as several of the riders proved. Below is a couple of minutes of Ride’n and Shoot’n!

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Just down the street from the assisted living place that Cherryl’s mother, Joanne, is staying, is this nice pond. A nice evening walk.

When we were here a couple of weeks ago, Joanne was doing pretty badly. Memory lapses, hallucinations, and not enough energy to move. Now she is totally non-responsive. It looks like she does not have long to live…

On Monday, May 27, 2024, Joanne passed away… She is no longer in pain.