| Colorado Dreaming - Work trip to Colorado |
In July of last year, our family took a trip into the high mountains above Fort Garland, Colorado to help a friend build several things around his house and another mountain chalet cedar house he owns right next to his. My wife, Cheryl, son-in-law Steve, daughter Michelle, and two grandsons Shilo and Dakota all pitched in with Gene and his wife Barb to get a major part of a porch around the second house finished. Gene was the boss; Barb was the master chef; I was the master carpenter, and Steve and Michelle, Cheryl and the boys were the labor force. I took it easy much of the time because I was only a few weeks out of major cancer surgery when we went. We kept a chair handy for me. We were working at an altitude of 9,500 feet so we had to watch ourselves, to not overdo for the first several days. Oxygen is not plentiful at that altitude!
In addition to the decking, we also put a new front and rear door on the house and added a double door on Gene's storage shed next to the main house. We took all our own tools and even our own air compressor in the back of my one ton dually truck.
Michelle and Steve took my chain saw and put it to work on a ton of downed wood, cut it up the right length for firewood, and split and stacked all of it for Gene in his wood storage shed. Gene has the splitter that they used. Steve even cut down some standing wood, trees that were in the way or were about to fall. Then he and Michelle cut them all up. They really worked very hard on this task they were assigned. They cut enough wood to last Gene and Barb much of the winter.
Gene is a retired Command Sergeant Major, Special Forces. He has almost 900 jumps to his credit. Also helping and staying in his trailer on an adjacent piece of land was his former CO, a full Colonel in Special Forces, Norm and his wife Marcia. We all had a great time together, enjoying the work, food and fantastic fellowship. Barb, Gene's wife did all the preparation of the food and cooking with our crew chipping in to clean up afterwards.
Gene and Barb we met on a cruise and this friendship has developed over several years. What a gift! We had a minor bear problem on several occasions; we were visited one evening when a bear came on the porch of Gene's house while we were all eating dinner, looked through the window at us, and went on his way. He wasn't more than a few feet away from the dinner table. We were amazed he didn't cause us any problem. He could have easily busted the window and invited himself to our dinner table. The boys called him Yogi the Bear after the TV comic bear. He really had a cute face. He visited with us on at least another occason when all he did was walk by the house and look at us. I yelled at him and all he did was get a silly grin on his face as if to say, what's wrong with you, yelling at me like that?
Later he or a larger bear came back and destroyed Gene's cover on his pickup truck. Lots of damage! Gene had been carrying all the garbage in the back of his truck when he made his trips down to the garbage dumpster located at entrance to the development. The bear thought there were goodies inside the bed of the truck from the smell inside the bed.
While we were there, a lady was emptying garbage into the aforementioned dumpster when a bear who had somehow crawled inside the dumpster and was locked inside looked out at her when she opened the door of the dumpster. She was ready to empty her garbage into the dumpster and never suspected that a bear was inside. Scared her a little bit!! Surprised she didn't have a heart attack! I might have under the same circumstances. ((-:
The bear(s) problems got worse after we left the mountain and headed home. Bears broke into three homes while the people were in the houses. Two bears have been shot and killed because they became dangerous to the residents.
Hope you enjoy the photos. They are thumbnail size except the last one, so click on them to get a larger view.
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| My 1996 GMC dually at the continental divide on the way to Gene's house. Truck carried all our tools, saws, air compressor, etc. for the job. |
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| This is Gene, our boss for the job. Now, doesn't he look tough? He was a very tough SF guy. The axe just makes him look tougher! |
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| Morning coffee time - Steve, Dick, Gene and Michelle getting ready to start work. |
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| Gene's boss, Norm on the left was a Special Forces commander for many years. Quite a guy and wonderful to have around. He and his wife camped in their trailer just down the road on a piece of property they own in the same development. |
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| This is one terrific gentleman. He is a delight for all of us to be around. His wife, Barb, is also gracious and loving and a joy to us all. What great people to have as friends. |
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| Can you tell it was a little cool? On this very porch where we sat every morning and evening before and after work, we had a visit from a bear who sauntered onto the porch, looking into the house. But he never caused us any harm, thank goodness! |
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| Our grandsons, Dakota (L) and Shilo (R) join us for coffee time before taking off for work. The boys worked right along with us, doing many of the chores that were tough for we older citizens to do. |
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| Gene wanted double doors hung on this shed where he stores a lot of his tools. He had two interior doors that I remodeled to fit the opening. Worked great and he was very satisfied! |
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| I had my chop saw set up in the garage of his apartment/garage next door to the main house. Worked like a charm. We then took this saw down to the other house, to the actual work site to cut all the floor joists for the porch. |
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| Dinner that Barb prepared for all of us. Wonderful food for the entire job. The windows just to our left is where the bear came to peer inside at us. |
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| Cheryl and Steve laying out the piers and joist hangers for the side porch that leads to the front door of the house. |
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| The side porch with some of the piers poured and the uprights in place. Next comes the hangers and then the floor joists. |
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| The piers for the porch are poured and the uprights are installed ready for the floor joists to be added. The porch is 40 feet long. Two years ago we tore the old porch off that had rotted and this one is to replace the former. |
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| A view of the back door set back in the back wall of the house. Dick did the replacement of both the back door and the front with new doors. The hangers are already hung in this photo ready for the floor joists. |
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| The long back porch with all the floor joists in place. |
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| Our grandson Shilo helping Cheryl remove parts of the old door getting it ready for me to install the new door which is the green thing laying on the floor joists. The frame is already in place. |
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| Shilo showing granddad how agile he is. All I could think of was him falling off the platform and breaking a leg or arm, or worse, but he is agile. |
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| Now we are going to show just how fast we can move from one end of the porch to the other. He never fell, and the frame held up under his running the boards. |
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| Cheryl on the right and Gene laying out the foundations for the piers and posts on the side of the house. We mixed all the concrete, cut all the wood and set everything in place. |
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| My favorite place to hide - a chair for granddad with one of my grandsons, Dakota, ready to go off and do another chore for me. |
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| The floor framing is done all around the house and the new front door is installed. Quite a bit of work for this little team of ours, but they all worked hard and we got the job done. |
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| The front entry door in place and the front porch frame all done. |
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| New front door all installed and working. I have done this quite a few times, so it didn't require too much effort to finish this job. |
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| View of the back porch deck . The new door has been installed and being used but the decking still needs to be put on the porch. We didn't get time to do this, so this is something that Gene is going to do by himself. It is a job that can be done by one man. We left him my big framing nailer to anchor the boards down to the frames. |
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| The road between the two houses that we walked a lot of time during the two weeks of work. We kept the boys close to us in case of visiting bears showing up. We also had mountain lions in the area. Cheryl was the only one that saw one of these. Lots of elk and deer though. |
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| These guys are the love of my life - my two grandsons, Shilo and Dakota. Two great kids that know how to work. |
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| Michelle on the porch of the main house. This kid knows how to work as well as does her husband Steve. We got a lot done in just a few days. |
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| Finally, here is the bear that visited the house and walked the porches. This guy didn't bother us at all. I yelled at him from the porch and he just stood there and looked at me, wondering why I was making so much noise, I guess! Since we left Gene's house, bears have broken into three houses with the people inside the house. Two bears had to be shot because they became dangerous. You can never tell what they are going to do. |
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| The crew on break in town getting ready to take a train ride from Allamosa to La Vida, a beautiful train ride through the mountains. We all thoroughly enjoyed this viewing many wild animals on the trip. |
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| I have to include this final photo in this account. This is our entire family group at the Rockies Stadium in Denver at the very end of our stay in Colorado. We each drove our respective vehicles from Gene and Barb's house to Denver. We stayed at the Radisson Inn near Rockies Stadium, and Gene and Barb just drove up for the game and then returned to Colorado Springs to stay the rest of the night so that they could go shopping for their groceries in the Army commissary at Fort Carson nearby. What a great time we had. A wonderful conclusion to a fantastic trip. From there we all headed home, Cheryl and I in my truck and the kids in their suburban truck as well. Great trip!! And by the way, the Colorado Rockies won the game that night and went on to be champions of their league. |
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