A Saturday in Woodland Park

Whew, we have so much reading to do that I have found myself not in the mood to sit down and blog this last week.  And it's not all that much reading in the grand scheme of things, but we are in the middle of four different books all with big concepts of God and leadership and worship and they all blend together and there just isn't enough time to process all the great thoughts for our quizzes or even just life in general.

But!!! Two saturdays ago, Darci, Ryan, and I took a field trip up to Woodland park, where there was a huge garage sale, a car show, live music,...and the dinosaur resource center!  Ryan found a computer desk still in its original box for $10, and I bought Berenstein Bear books for only ten cents each.

PJ would have loved this car show, only half a mile from the garage sale... I don't know much about cars other than whether or not they look pretty.  I do know that Darci and Ryan both stopped in wonderment as a Bentley? drove by before we left.

One nice gentleman waited for you to walk by his car so he could pop the door open with a key fob in his pocket....pretty slick, and then he lets you take as many pictures around and inside the car as possible.

Woodland Park is one of those amazing one main street places, so we literally just walked everywhere.  After the car show we walked on down to the Ute Pass Diner, which has been there since the early 1900's.  THE best burger I have had in a long time...of course a huge appetite helps.

Lunch at the Ute Pass Diner.  

I love dinosaurs.  Maybe it's because they don't exist so they don't pose any sort of threat to me.  Or maybe it's because I grew up going to the National History Museum where the bones and skeletons seem ready to take on flesh and walk again.  Being out west, I am in the midst of potential dinosaur remains.  I think for the most part new discoveries are brought here and casts and replicas are made and sold.  The Dinosaur Resource Center houses over 30 skeletons on display, mostly replicas, BUT some real bones out as well.

The best part of the dinosaurs was our tour guide, Stephen.  Poor guy just wanted to go to lunch, but was cauaght into giving us our tour. He spoke at five miles a minute and when he paused to ask, "any questions?", only waited a beat before leading us on to the next thing. My favorite part: his rant about the most common dinosaur that can be found on any continent and of which they actually know behavioral characteristics.  He said that if we were going to ask any questions about dinosaurs we should ask about that one in particular (which of course I didn't remember the name!), because he knew so much about them.  I finally had to ask, "what do you know about them?"

This was the kind of fulfilling day where one good thing leads to another...after dinosaurs, we saw an ice cream truck..right next to the Ute Pass Cultural Center where there was live music AND...grass that was soft enough to walk barefoot on!!!! So of course we sat and listened and ate and just...enjoyed!

I heart ice cream. And days that are beautiful and friends that are adventurous...more stories to come soon!