Last walk

As our 46 years in Colorado were ending very soon, we wanted to spend as much time as we could fit into our hectic schedule to do some of our favorite things.
One of our favs was walking the St.Vrain State Park Lake loops around what was originally called Barbour Ponds in Firestone/Longmont Colorado. 

There are multiple lakes in this state park that offer amazing scenery and wildlife, especially birds. This is one of Colorado's state parks that have nesting Bald Eagles near, nesting Osprey, and many other raptors flying around. 
There is one huge dead tree in the middle of the park that you can see from miles around. This is the fav for the local eagles as they like to perch high up in its branches ever alert and vigilant. When you see them, time to go for your walk. 

As we walked around for our last time we really felt glad that we took the time to appreciate what God had put just a couple of miles from our home. 
Every year for the last 10, we would frequent this state park as it was so close. 90 % of the time we were there the eagles were there smiling down on us. A few of the times we were walking the lakes the eagles would grace us with a show of their fishing skills. There is nothing like watching a Bald Eagle hover over a lake, swoop down catching a fish in their talons and fly off to enjoy lunch perched in a large tree overlooking their domain. 

(Not my picture, public domain)

During one of our walks here we were able to watch one of these beautiful Bald Eagles feasting on a Mallard Duck. The eagle ate everything but the wings...
One of my favs, Duck Confit!

We were blessed as we could go during the week when there were not as many visitors at the park. On the weekends the ponds where circled by numerous fisherman, fisherwomen and children. 
The lakes/ponds are stocked by the state with a variety of fish from keep to eat or catch and release. As we walked around we would talk with the fisherpeople and listen to their stories of fortune or misfortune. One day we watched as a woman standing on a paddle board, paddled to a spot in the middle of a lake grabbed her pole and started fishing? never seen that one before... 
As we do not fish it was fun to watch and learn about what many of these people were doing just to put food on their table. Whole families would be there working the poles with their small children playing around the family unit as they caught today's dinner.
Think about it, fresh fish for dinner, not bad and it would be yummy yummy for my medium sized tummy...

W

The tractor and the Triumph

As a motorcycle safety instructor, I usually do not tell my war stories about crashes... 
Due to a post (picture) I made on FB sometime ago, and that so many of you asked me about, 
I will now enlighten you with my war story of the "tractor and the Triumph"...

When you are teaching people to ride you see/experience some of the craziest things, and also some of the most heart wrenching.

I was working with one of my mentors teaching a beginner class of 12. Normal class, yes we do have these sometimes. We had all the bikes in the staging area lined up in a nice straight line waiting for the students to come back from lunch.

As I look to my left there is a John Deere tractor approaching (nothing runs like a Deere). One of the grounds crew for the Community College is driving the green machine towards our range. 

Nothing unusual as we always saw him working at the site, but wait the bucket is up full of sand and well, I say: "hey Bob do you think he can see the bikes"? He says; "yeah he knows we are here". We turn and continue to talk and well that tractor just keeps motoring on into our parking lot from the east lot. We turn again and we are getting concerned enough to start yelling, course he can't hear us over the tractor's engine noise and his ear plugs. Then we start running, waving and yelling louder, no response as the tractor marches on. 

By this time we can tell it is too late, the tractor is goin' in... Once he hears the bucket hit the rear of the first bike he slams on the brakes thus causing the front of the tractor to dive dumping all the sand on the bike as it is pushed into the second which is then pushed into the third one. Knocking over all three, thank God the class was at lunch and no one was on the bikes. 

As we stand there with our mouths agape, silence fills the air. Nobody not even the tractor driver can understand how this could have happened. Next comes the fun part, I have to call the administrator of the company that I work for to explain what happened and ask what he wants us to do. I have never heard a louder quiet over the phone than when I said; "a tractor ran into a bike, pushing it into two others and in the meantime dumped a load of sand on the range". 

We're not going to be starting the class back up after lunch...

Anyway, the Triumph I am sitting on in the photo was the tractor drivers. Months later he talked to me and told me he had liver cancer and needed to prepare the bike to sell for his wife when he was gone. I agreed, went to his home to pick up the bike and meet his wife. I was able to bring the bike back to life for them, ride it down their street for him before parking it in their garage one last time. 

A couple of months later his wife called to tell me he had passed and she was selling the bike. I offered my condolences and wished her well hoping that she and her children would weather the storm.

He was a very nice person, always had a warm greeting for me when we met on the motorcycle range. There are many ways we can serve, giving of ourselves for those in need...

W.