Spring                                                                                           Bee Hiving Moon

Mile high. On the high plains on the Front Range. The Rockies themselves are not far from here, a drive west, then up, up, up wending between 13ers and 14ers, past Rocky Mountain National Park. They serve residents of Denver as a handy directional system.  See the mountains? That’s west. Makes it easy to navigate.

But, a tricky matter. Having gone to the wrong Doubletree on the online reservation I was careful to reserve a room at the Doubletree on Quebec. So I went to the Doubletree on Quebec closest to Jon and Jen’s home. I wasn’t in the reservation system. Hmm. So I looked on my phone where I always hold reservation confirmations. But, I couldn’t find it.

The clerk made a call, gave my name. Yes, I was registered there.  Another Doubletree. Where is it? On Quebec. Only four blocks from where I stood at the Doubletree reservation counter. For some reason Doubletree has two large hotels within four blocks of each other and both on Quebec. How bout that?

We got there. It used to be a Red Lion and it seemed like it was up until yesterday. The desk clerk said it had changed two years ago. Oh. Well, what do you know. I missed that change.

Anyhow we’re here, a west facing room., toward the Rockies. The grandkids are coming over tonight for a meal here. Then we’ll see what happens next. The party for Gabe is on Saturday.

Spring                                                                Bee Hiving Moon

Fog over the Platte, now being disbursed by a rising yellow star, one invisible all day yesterday as we drove in the gray and drear. Breakfast here overlooking the sloping front lawn, watching the birds come and go.  Mahoney is not very lively on an April midweek, which is just fine as far we’re concerned. That meant we ate breakfast in an empty dining room, a big one, reminiscent of our first breakfast at the Station Hotel in Inverness 24 years ago. Their tables were set up in an old ballroom and we were the only diners. I had blood pudding that morning.

It’s good to be traveling with Kate. We travel well together.

Today on to Denver. On my first trip out to Denver, over 10 years ago, I took Jon to his new home on High Street near Cheesman Park. He had just obtained a position teaching art in the Aurora School District, in fact in the very school where he still teaches today. On that trip I realized the Rocky Mountains were the boundary to my homeland, for me the Midwest ends at the Front Range.  The Upper Midwest ends somewhere in or at the Iowa border, but Colorado feels like it fits in with it, Colorado, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan.

Well, the bus is leaving.  See you in Denver.