Chainsaws and Chuckwagons

Mark:   What are we going to do this weekend?
Me:      I found this event called Chainsaws and ChuckWagons.  Let's go!
Mark:   It's going to be 101. 

Me:      It won't be too bad!

Mark:  *The Look* 

Yes it was another one of "those events".  Of course since I am the de facto weekend planner I don't ever pay attention to *The Look* much anymore.  However, I think I probably should have paid a little more attention to it this time.  Because it was indeed HOT!  I mean cook the meat off of your bones HOT! 

But we went anyway.  It was in a little town north of Denver called Frederick.  It's a former mining community that is now a suburb of Denver but is still pretty rural.  Every July they have their Chainsaws and ChuckWagons event that features wood carvers (that can only use chainsaws) and food from ChuckWagons.  They also had a Colorado Craft Beer tasting that was going on at the same time which excited me for about 4.5 seconds. Because in order to get 2 oz of beer you had to stand in 100+ heat for 20 minutes at each brewery.  I would have toughed it out for a 12 oz beer but basically standing in the heat for a shot of beer was NOT my idea of a good time.  

Personally I think that there was a little false advertising going on because when they said ChuckWagons I was expecting the old guys standing by dutch ovens, cooking out of the backs of Conestoga Wagons, dressed in period costumes.  But instead there were just regular guys in faded t-shirts, with scruffy beards, serving regular food out of old food trucks. And what good is a having a bunch of food trucks around if they didn't include at least one that had ice cream? But alas, there was none to be found.  

So we abandoned the beer tasting and the food trucks and went over to the wood carving contest.  This lovely display of craftsmanship would have been great if they didn't have it situated on an asphalt parking lot right next to a busy highway!  Did I mention that it was HOT? And each of the carvers were burning wood scraps right next to their carvings so the ambient temperature probably hovered somewhere near what Hell's thermostat is set at. No kidding.  Even my sweet hubby said he was getting "pretty warm".  

No doubt these guys are very talented.  I can't do anything with Play Doh and a butter knife much less a humongous tree trunk and a chainsaw.  

They also had lots of events for people to do besides look at the art work.  They had live bands, a splash garden, a gigantic beer pong game, face painting, and a mechanical bull plus various vendors that you find at farmers markets and such. 

But this last picture sums up the whole day.  This little puppy had been walking around on his leash for about a half-hour.  He suddenly stopped, plopped over on his side and refused to get up.  So the owners took their toddler out of the stroller and put the puppy in it so they could keep moving! Score one for the HOT dog! 

Mom and Dad's Visit

Well this wasn't really a visit per se.  She was actually here for some medical intervention. They came for 10 days and ended up staying for a month which was just fine with us.  My mom had some health issues that she had been dealing with since October 15 and it was time for her to get some answers on what was going on with her.  She went to National Jewish Hospital for some nodules in her lungs.  The doctors in Odessa had suggested that she get a lung biopsy and she decided that she was going to go to some place that did hundreds of them every month instead of one a month.  That's how she ended up here in Denver at NJH. 

If you've never been to a place like NJH it is hard to describe.  They had mom scheduled for 7 days worth of tests.  And I mean tests from 7:30 in the morning until 4:30-5:00 every afternoon.  She saw almost every specialist known to mankind over the 6 days that she was scheduled to be in Denver.  She saw and allergist, gastroenterologist, cardiologist, pulmonologist, infectious diseases specialist, oncologist, an interventional pulmonologist and respiratory specialist and and ENT. and had at least a million tests run.

Dad and I just sat around and waited for her to do her tests and went in with her to all of her appointments with the doctors. 

The first weekend they were here we stayed home and Mom rested. In fact all of us rested.  Dad and I were pretty tired from sitting around doing nothing and Mark had come in from North Dakota and had had a very stressful week.  We went to go see Finding Dory on Sunday but that was the extent of our weekend. 

While they were doing tests on the lungs they also found a suspicious nodule on her thyroid and they decided to do a biopsy on it so that kept them here for another couple of weeks.

In between the next two weeks of testing we managed to get some fun day trips in. The second weekend we went to Rocky Mountain National Park.  Mom and Dad had been through the Park in 1960 and they had always wanted to go back to see it.  It was a beautiful day and we totally enjoyed taking them to see it again.

Sack lunch in the mountains

Me and my posse

 

We also managed to explore a couple of new breweries that have opened up in the area too. 

We took a hike in Roxborough

We also had some down time too :)

The last weekend that they were here we went to Breckenridge.  Surprisingly Mom and Dad had never been there!  The best part of the trip was when my 81-year-old mother decided that she wanted to do the bobsled run!  She had so much fun doing it and she talked about it all day long.  We also took them home via Hoosier Pass.  It was a great way to spend the day awaiting test results. 

 

So the upshot of the whole thing is that my mom has some swallowing issues that caused the lung nodules but she can correct with exercises.  And the thyroid biopsy came back negative so she is cancer free!  Best news ever!

4X4 Jeep Trip

Marks best friend Stan and his wife Ladonna came to visit us for a few days in July.  Ladonna had two days of follow-up testing at National Jewish Hospital so we decided to take them to the mountains on the weekend so that they could be tourists for a few days.  We went to Breckenridge and ended up renting a Jeep and did a 4X4 jeep tour.  The day was absolutely gorgeous and the place that we rented the Jeep from gave us a map of several places that we could go to to try out our 4X4 skills. We ended up going to several ghost towns that were once part of the mining operations that were prevalent in the late 1800's.  We had a great day in the mountains and added two more Continental Divide places to our list!

My Birthday

Well this was a great birthday for me.  My friend Chauche and I share the same birthday so we decided to spend the first part of the day hiking in one of the most beautiful places I have been to.  We went to Roxborough State Park and hiked for the better part of the morning. This place is absolutely gorgeous!!

Do you see the face of the giant?

After we finished we went to Morrison and had brunch and and then poked around the shops in town.

Earlier in the month Mark had asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday and I told him that I wanted to go see the Little River Band at Hudson Gardens.  He got the tickets and he took me to dinner in Littleton.  The evening was great but the band was horrible!  It's basically a cover band because there are no original members left in the band.  It was kind of disappointing but we had a great time anyway!