Pretty Flowers

Our rosebushes outdid themselves this year. Here are a few pictures.



The pink ones always come out first. They are about halfway opened up when the yellow ones start coming out.



I got a pretty good up-close view of a pink one.



The wine-colored ones, dark red, start coming out after the pink and yellow pretty much expend themselves. So we get twice as long to enjoy them!



Here is a late evening photo. I love these bushes! It is sad that they only hang around for three or four weeks before going away. We will prune them to see if we can get another showing this year.

Space Age

So for work, I got to go to an Atlas V rocket launch. We were actually supposed to see the Shuttle launch also, but it was scrubbed until July 11. So we had to "settle" for the Atlas.

Before the launch day, we got to tour Kennedy Space Center (KSC) and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS). These facilities do a lot of work behind the scenes.



The first places we got to go were the old sites for the Mercury and Apollo launches. This is the place where the Apollo I explosion occurred. It doesn't look like much but it holds a place of honor.



These small plaques appear on the concrete pillars holding up the structure in the picture above. The second one is pithier and perhaps captures the "spirit" better, but the first provides more details.



We were fortunate enough to be there while they were replacing tiles on one of the Shuttles. I kind of assumed that the Shuttle was painted black on the underside. It isn't paint at all. It's heat-resistant tile. They inspect and replace tiles that need it after every flight. You can see the markers where they expect to make a replacement. Each tile has a serial number.



Here are some people working on the Shuttle. While the Shuttle isn't in a clean room, they try to prevent as much FOD as possible from entering into the workspace.



Reminders of these three missions are everywhere. People have special reverence for these and the astronauts on them. It is also a motivator to do the job right, so we can minimize future risks. The monuments in Arlington National Cemetery aren't the only ones.



Here it is! YES! I really got that close!

(OK. I'm shooting the picture through a fence with a guard shack and barbed wire nearby. But it looks pretty good, doesn't it? No zoom!)



Here is the Atlas, from an ignominious little dirt road. Who knew you could get that great of a view? The Atlas V was carrying the LRO/LCROSS mission, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite. NASA wants to go back to the Moon. Here's the first step. Everyone made fun of George W. Bush when he proposed it, yet here we are, quietly developing the plans!



KSC had a visitor center with a big pavilion that had some history and rockets on display. Here is a fun sign.

I had so much fun. It was really an excellent trip and I know I'm fortunate to have gone.

Great Sand Dunes and Monte Vista

Our first part of the trip was from our house to Monte Vista. On the way, we stopped at the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve.



We passed by the YMCA of Boulder Valley Santa Maria Camp. The statue of Jesus is visible from the road, as is the lettering on the mountain. The statue's base contains a replica of Jesus's tomb.



The Great Sand Dunes National Park is home to the tallest sand dunes in North America. They are over 750 feet tall. The dunes are directly west of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, and the whole area is really geographically diverse.



These pictures are visible from the visitor's center. Once you get there, you can't do a whole lot more driving past it. There are plenty of hiking trails. The weather was rather poor, otherwise we might have climbed the dunes--just to see what it was like.



We stayed at the Best Western Movie Manor in Monte Vista. What a fun place! It was built next to a drive-in movie theater.



The owner of the drive-in built the place, thinking that it would be a great idea if his hotel guests could watch the movie, if they wanted to, in the comfort of their own rooms. The sound is piped directly in, and the rooms have large picture windows that look out onto the screen. Each room is named for an actor or actress. You can see whose room we had the good fortune to stay in...



The screen is pretty big but looks small from the rooms in the daytime. We watched Star Trek the night we were there, and the screen didn't look small with the picture and sound going. We had a great time watching it!

Lamar Trip

Before we got started on our big Colorado vacation, my parents and I went to visit my Grandma in the nursing home. Grandma looks exactly the same as she ever did... and she still refuses to wear her teeth.



Here is what was on the wall of the hotel room where we stayed. The Country Acres and RV Park in Lamar has eight themed rooms and a lot for RVs. It is far and away the best place in Lamar to stay, in my opinion. We stayed in the Space Room.



Here's more of the room. The shelves holding up such things as the alarm clock, the TV and the microwave, as well as the headboards, were all cut from an old satellite dish. Very cool. Now that is "retro."



Here I am with my Grandma. She is such a ham. She was blowing kisses at the camera.



We also found some time to visit my dear departed Grandpa. He would have been 95 this year. I think he could have lived that long, too. Getting sick when you're old just isn't easy, I guess. I miss Grandpa.

Nuggets Beat Mavs!

We got some tickets to Game 5 of the series between the Nuggets and the Dallas Mavericks. The tickets were on the club level, which was pretty nice. We got to see a little bit of how the other half lives! A waitress bringing food? I could get used to that.



Here's Dallas superstar Dirk Nowitzki taking a free throw. He never seems to miss!



The Nuggets are over on their side of the court. The Pepsi Center was totally packed. There were no seats available... not even single seats. I think there were 20,000 people there.



The Nuggets mascot, Rocky, had his hair done just like Birdman! Chris "Birdman" Andersen is not exactly a huge scorer, but he has a cult-like following here in Denver. He is called Birdman because he flaps his arms to celebrate when he makes one of his trademark stylistic dunks... and he has feathers tattooed on his arms. Anyway, Rocky put his hair in the mohawk-style hairdo that Birdman has become known for lately. He's shown here with a t-shirt gun to launch t-shirts out at whoever can catch them in the crowd. That thing has some range!



Nuggets win! The final score is at the top of the picture. "NUGGETS ADVANCE" was in lights all across the arena. The media is on the court to interview everyone they can get a hold on. The towel on the right belongs to the guy in front of me. He could not stay sitting down, and waved his towel all over the place. You can see that since the towels were a game freebie, almost everyone else had one too.



Confetti is fun! We were so excited that the NUGGETS WON!!

Blanket for Baby Higgins

So I spent forever on a blanket for another colleague who had a baby. The basketweave stitch doesn't add much height per row, so it itakes a long time. On the bright side, it crochets up into a nice, substantial fabric that is quite stretchy.

I broke my own rule and used acrylic, but the Bernat baby stuff seems like it's better than Red Heart, plus I had a bunch of it that I needed to use. I used a bit of pink Polarspun on the outside border. Too bad that stuff was discontinued... I like it.

Our Nation's Most Sacred Shrine

We went to Arlington National Cemetery on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. There were a lot of people, but there was also a lot of ground to cover.



It is hard to imagine that each of these headstones represents a fallen hero or a family member.



I was fortunate enough to catch a Tomb of the Unknowns changing of the guard. Here is the sentinel by himself, right before the change. Continuous patrolling since the 1930s has caused discoloration on the ground where they walk.



This is in the middle of the guard change. It is a very elaborate ceremony. The guard asks that everyone stand up and remain standing during the ceremony. They say so at the beginning. So imagine this woman's embarassment when they stopped the ceremony to call her out for sitting back down!

The face of the Tomb has lettering, carved into White Yule marble entirely from Colorado. The inscription is almost impossible to see in this photo. It says

HERE RESTS IN
HONORED GLORY
AN AMERICAN
SOLDIER
KNOWN BUT TO GOD

Check out the FAQ page at the Society of the Honor Guard website. It answers many questions about the Tomb guard and the rituals. There have only been three female sentinels, because they have to be between 5'11" and 6'4". Wow!



Here is the Memorial Amphitheater. My Dad is in the picture... see if you can spot where.



Audie Murphy, the American legend, is so famous that his grave is on the map as a point of interest.



Here are the Space Shuttle disaster memorials.



This is the memorial for the rescue attempt to save the Iranian hostages. I did a paper on the attempt for a military history class. Those poor people were doomed from the beginning, thanks to a few crucial mistakes.



Theodore Roosevelt commanded the Rough Riders in the Cuba campaign. In case you hadn't guessed it... Theodore Roosevelt is my favorite president!



The brightness makes it hard to see, but this is Robert F. Kennedy's grave. It is on a small hill all by itself. I wonder if they will bury Ted next to him.



Here are the graves of President Kennedy and Jackie O, in front of the eternal flame. They also had a couple of infants who died, and are buried with them. Another thing I did not know!



Last but not least... the view from the Kennedys' gravesite. It is quite lovely.