It's July already!

Sue has come and gone and Elske has come and
gone.

While Sue was here we were pretty lazy. We
had dinner, here, with Carl, Martha and Ariel
one night. One day Sue and on went to town
and parked at the library (it was free that
day whether or not you were in the library;
Robert called to let us know. He read that in
the paper. We walked along the creek path to
the Tea House. It is such a beautiful building.
We did not have tea, but we went in side and
looked at the carvings and the tiles.

From there we walked to the Pearl Street Mall
and window shopped along the Mall. We did make
the mandatory stops; we visited the Pepper Corn
and the Boulder Book Store. After the Pepper
corn we meandered on our way to the book store.
We'd spent about 40 minutes in the Pepper corn
and another 40 in the book store. We headed
for the Boulderado Hotel and the Corner Bar for
lunch. The Corner Bar has become my favorite
place for lunch. It is quiet and low keyed;
perfect for chatting as well as eating. Most
restaurants I find to be too noisy for an easy
conversation, especially since most of my friends
and I, to a lesser extent, are deaf.

Sue was anxious to get home and had another visit
to make before she headed east. We took her to
the airport on July 4th and off she flew to Portland,
Oregon.

The next few days were spent getting ready for our
next guest and also buying plants since we'd not
had a chance to do that in May or June. I went
to Sturtz and Copeland and bought a bag of mixed
top soil and manure to spread on the depleted
flower beds. I also bought a huge pot of geraniums
to set in the middle of the bed by the porch. In
addition I bought a couple other pots, one with
peppers and a tomato and sage in it. The flowering
Quince bushes that we planted a couple of years ago
are, finally, beginning to look like healthy bushes
and the two columbine plants that I have been nurturing
are coming along quite well. One has a couple of buds
on it!

The next day I went grocery shopping and found that
KingSoopers was selling pots of flowers (the same
size as two smaller ones I had bought at Sturtz and
paid $25.00 for each) were on sale 2/$10. They may
not be up to Sturtz quality, but they look lovely and
at $5.00 a piece I couldn't resist and bought 4 of
them.

The Salina Literary and Roasted Sweet Potato Society
met here on the 8th. The next book selection is
"Olive Kittredge."

A few days later, on the 10th, Elske arrived. She
had a HUGE suitcase so we decided to leave it in
the computer room and she could unpack as she needed
things. I had emptied a drawer and the closet for
the use of guests. That worked out pretty well and
she actually found it convenient since she was down
stairs most of the time. The first morning she was
here she twisted her knee coming down stairs so was
unable to walk; at least we tried very hard to make
it such she didn't need to walk. We cancelled all
plans for the day and just enjoyed conversing.

Fortunately after icing her knee and staying off of it
for the day, it was very much better the next day. We
set off, with a picnic lunch, for Pikes Peak. Robert
and I hadn't been there since before we were married!
We drove down through the Rampart Range which is a fun
drive, but turned out to be a mistake because the
thunder clouds rolled in and before we could get to
the top of the Peak the road was closed at, where else,
the gift shop. We did get a rain check, but that
didn't do Elske any good because she wouldn't be
back in time to use it.

The following day we followed the same route that
Sue and I had followed from library to tea house,
to Mall (and Pepper Corn and book store) and on
to lunch at the Boulderado. The Boulderado
restoration is really fantastic so it is fun to show
it off to visitors, too.

Elske left on the 15th.

We have been catching up with all sorts of things
we haven't done since April. In addition, I have
been carpet shopping for the Longmont house. I
think Teri and I have settled on something and
the new carpet should be installed by the end of
the week.

So there you have it. Up to date for the moment.

The fish pond is looking pretty good and we have
more than 40 good looking gold fish which seem
to have acclimated themselves to our cold mountain
stream water.