Colorado is Beautiful!

Yesterday, Bill and I went for a hike at Red Rock Canyon Open Space. It was a beautiful sunny day. The temperature was perfect.

Parks and Open Spaces here in Colorado get lots of use. We passed other hikers, dog-walkers, bikers, horse-back riders and resident wildlife.

At the top of the ridge, Bill stopped to enjoy the view. We had gone off the path to locate a geocache and our GPS led us to this beautiful spot.

We have no idea what this plant is - but it surely is unusual - in a very cool way.

We only hiked a couple of hours before heading back to the homestead. I had laundry to do and Bill wanted to cut the grass before the afternoon rains arrived.

Just two pictures of humming-birds today - so bear with me; I can't help myself. This is a female Broad-tailed Humming-bird. I'm very pleased with the detail on this shot.

This must be her boyfriend - the original redneck. It looks like he needs to fatten-up a bit before heading to Mexico.

We do not see as many males at the feeders as we do females and juveniles. The youngsters of both genders look like the females.

Today, after Bill returned from the flying field, we headed over to Palmer Park. I wanted to hike the Templeton Trail - that circles around the north side of the park. It is one of the more advanced trails.

I love walking in this section of the park. The views are spectacular and the rock formations are magnifi-cent.

There was a parade and celebration downtown to welcome home the troops. While we were hiking we saw several different kinds of planes flying overhead. Some were restored military planes from WWII. This is a huge Air Force C-17 Globemaster III cargo plane that flew right over us. The wingspan of the C-17 is 170 feet and it is 174 feet long.

We have a new volunteer in the garden. This sunflower is just opening. One of the birds must have dropped a seed from the feeders.

The skies are darkening and I hear thunder in the distance. The afternoon storms are beginning.