Still in Silverton

Monday was a lazy day for me, but Roger took some of his buddies for a motorcycle ride on some of the nearby trails. A good time was had by all and they saw some beautiful places such as this lake which is near Gladstone--we've been there many times but have never found a name for it:

When we were sitting by the campfire early in that evening, 2 precious little blonde-headed girls ages 2 and 4 wandered up with their mom. The older one started pointing at Roger and saying, “Look, Mommy, there’s HoHo!” Seems she thought he was Santa Claus—and he was more than willing to encourage her by asking if she was being a good girl and telling her (with a hearty HO HO HO!) that he was on vacation from the North Pole and he was letting his reindeer run around in these mountains for the summer. She finally decided she needed to go tell Dad her exciting news about meeting HoHo.

A bit later Mom and 2 little girls (sorry to say we don't remember their names) returned with camera in hand so they could get a picture with HoHo! We didn’t have OUR camera handy, but another in our group accommodated us with a picture of the event. Thanks, Bobby!

Weather has been gorgeous this week, low 40’s in the morning (yeah, a bit nippy) but warming to the 70’s during the day—and NO RAIN!!!!!

Tuesday we took a ride/drive to Cunningham Gulch where the waterfalls were spectacular.

And there were places where the stream had cut a tunnel through the snowbank:

Bentley loved riding on the 4-wheeler with Kristin and was happiest in her "frontpack"!

Then we went to our “secret place” on the side of a mountain to look for crystals. Unfortunately, no crystals were to be found—either we had already picked up all of them in previous years or the winter rock slides brought new rock that had covered them up. Oh well, we had a good time, anyway!

Yesterday (Wednesday) we drove up Maggie Gulch to see the wildflowers--Roger had been there on his bike, but I hadn't been there yet this year and we needed to take some pictures. He was right about how wonderful the flowers are this year! Here are a couple of shots and I'll be adding more to the "Mountain Wildflower" link soon:

This little guy (a marmot) was playing peek-a-boo with us, but we managed to get his picture:

Today was laundry day and I've obviously spent awhile working on our blog, but it's such a gorgeous day, it's time for me to get out and enjoy the sunshine for awhile before I take time to add more pics to the web albums! Please check back later!