Visiting Family in Colorado (09.04)

The week before Labor Day, I was in Colorado for business. Lisa and Kellisa flew out for a long weekend at the end of my trip. We visited with Lisa's sister Donna and her family. Lisa's other sister, Cindy was also visiting the same weekend. With half the siblings in one place, it felt like a small reunion. This trip comes with two stories: one about the law at high altitude and the other a hurricane.

..............................................Beverly and Kellisa

........................................Andrew, Beverly and Kellisa

The ladies wanted to go shopping and the guys wanted to go target shooting. I didn't want to do either and I had a BMW SUV rental, so I asked for directions to the nearest mountain dirt road. The shooting range was high in the mountains on a dirt road, so I followed a pick-up driven by a family member (name omitted to protect their privacy).

After dropping the guys at the shooting range, Kellisa and I headed deeper into the mountains. Kellisa loved every minute as we tore up the rental car. The BMW really isn't made for off-roading, but we didn't let that stop us from having fun. We eventually returned to the shooting range. The vote was to do some off-roading together before returning to Donna's house.

This is when things got a little out of control. We were racing and changing leads on the narrow mountain roads. Kellisa was laughing uncontrollably in the back seat as we got a little airborne several times. At least one of my brother-in-laws was getting sick in the back seat.

I slowed down as we came upon a tight turn on the mountain's edge and lost the lead to the pick-up. Even slowing down, we were going way too fast. Coming around from the other side was a sheriff and he barely missed both of our vehicles. The sheriff immediately made a u-turn and hit the lights and sirens. Who would have thought there would be a sheriff in the middle of the mountains?

Besides being a little reckless, the back of my SUV was filled with guns and ammunition and I didn't know the gun laws in Colorado. My heart sinks as I pull over. To my amazement, the sheriff passes me and pulls over the pick-up. I assume he will flag me over as I approach, but the sheriff allows us to proceed as we act like we don't know the two guys in the pick-up. I drive under control all the way back to Donna's house without incident.

The incident was awaiting us as we drove up to Donna's house and all the women were outside. You could not tell the SUV was white anymore, it was missing 3 out of 4 hubcaps and it still smelled like smoke and burning rubber from the afternoon's activities. They couldn't help but wonder why we returned without the pick-up and it's occupants. Someone explained what had happened and that we didn't know what was going on since we just left them on the side of the road. Let's just say, every man was in some sort of trouble the rest of the evening.

Lisa, Cindy, Donna and Beverly watching someone climbing up a rock and Kellisa smiling for the camera.

.......................................................Hiking

......................... "I don't want Kellisa getting wet," said Lisa.

.................................................Cindy and Bob

.........................................................Family

While we were in Colorado, Hurricane Frances was churning in the Atlantic. It was expected to miss Jacksonville, which it did, however, tropical storm force winds and rain battered Jacksonville. It was hard to watch the updates from so far away, not knowing how our property made out. We returned home to a neighborhood with many trees and limbs down. Our driveway was blocked by limbs and we lost some of our gutters, but all in all, we were very fortunate.

.......................................Track of Hurricane Frances