After
a good night's sleep in Sheridan we made the relatively short, 360-mile drive
to Helena, MT. This was a stop I had waited years to make. I
was adopted by my step-father at age 3. Since I have no memory of my
father, my step-father was always DAD (and still is). To make a long
story short, 20 years passed before I saw my father again. I met him
in Kodiak, AK and my grandfather in Bellingham, WA in 1992. This trip
to Helena was to meet the rest of the family as well as to allow all of them
to meet Joanne. Most of them had not seen me since I was an infant.
Our greatest pleasure was in meeting my great-grandmother. She's celebrating her 90th birthday next year, so we're planning to return to Helena in the spring. We spent Memorial Day Weekend with them and continued our journey Tuesday morning.
The highlight of our stay was visiting
the Timpanogos Caves. Being at an elevation of 7000 feet, we definitely
got our share of exercise with this cave. The hike was about 1-1/2
miles with a vertical gain of over 1000 feet. To make matters worse,
we got to make the climb in the rain. The cave was very much worth
the climb. The Timpanogos Caves were the most beautiful yet. There
were several large formations. But the most spectacular ones were the
smaller, crystal formations.
All of this driving is beginning
to get tiring. Our next leg was 530 miles to Denver, CO. Our
primary focus was to visit my sister, Terrie. It was good that this
was our longest scheduled stop. We used the four days to rest and relax.
I had reached the peak of my head and chest cold. It may have
grown into mild bronchitis. But now it's tapering off nicely. We
visited several friends in the Denver area. Among them was a family
that we met in Alameda, CA. It had been over six years since
the last time I saw them. We went to church with them and spent the
day at their place. I also got to see another Coast Guard friend, John
and his wife, Lynn. He got out of the Coast Guard in 1991, got married,
and moved to Denver. I had not seen him since he left the Coast Guard.
We had a barbecue and visited "Redrocks," an amphitheater that's built
into dense red rocks. The acoustics must be very nice during a concert.
We also managed to squeeze
in the new Star Wars movie and the subsequent shopping associated with seeing
a movie in a mall. We visited the "Butterfly Pavillion" on our last
day. There was a huge collection of insects, spiders, and other creepy
critters. They also had a few small aquariums with samples of
Pacific/Atlantic Ocean sea life. The most spectacular part of the visit
was the arboretum with tons of plants and thousands of butterflies. There
were also several breeds of box turtles present,but
we didn't see any of them. Terrie was a little concerned that we didn't
get to see as much as we could have, but we were able to get some needed
rest. We left the next morning and visited "Garden of the Gods" park
near Colorado Springs. Garden of the Gods is popular for its many rock
formations. We could have seen much more, but wanted to get to our
next stop before sunset. "Balanced Rock" is pictured.
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