So I guess my vacation for the summer is over.  I’d say we pretty much maximized our time off though;  I’m absolutely worn out, and I definitely don’t have that feeling of having just left a few days ago.  As I mentioned briefly last week, we started things off at a two-day music festival in Denver.  It was all things that your standard music festival should be:  Brutally hot, exhausting, loud, and crowded…  But in an entertaining kind of way.  About the only bad thing I could say about it was that I didn’t like the four different stages;  Way too much walking for an old man.  This setup resulted in me missing the Black Crowes show entirely, as I was just too worn out by that point to walk across three soccer fields again.  And, I didn’t even know The Whigs were playing until just now as I was scanning the list…  Guess I missed them too.  Can’t complain though, we heard plenty of music.

After Denver, we headed further west to Vail to rest up.  I didn’t envy Ed & Kim having to work on Monday after the festival, I don’t think I could have done it.  We straggled into Vail late in the afternoon and got checked in, and proceeded to do not a whole lot for the next three days.  I don’t know if there just isn’t that much to do in Vail during the summer, or we were all worn out from the Denver trip.  (I suspect the latter.)  About the only “activity” we did the entire three days was renting some bicycles and coasting down from Vail Pass.  That little jaunt started off kind of rough, as it rained on us pretty hard the first 1/2 hour or so, but then the sun came out and we had a nice little roll down the hill.  The Martins rode the bikes a few other places during our stay, but we stuck close to the hot tub and pool ourselves.  Other than that, I guess we walked around a lot, ate a lot, and enjoyed the 75-degree weather.

Thursday morning we got up and started heading back east.  After dropping the Martins off at Denver airport, we kept on driving to Lovewell Lake in KS, a trip that took us a rather unexpected ten hours all together.  When we finally got there, we met up with the “old army buddies” for a reunion of the 295th Ordnance Company’s tour of Germany during Desert Storm.  One of the guys brought a boat, so we got in some lake time;  I even did a little tubing for the first time since my last ill-fated outing.  All my joints stayed together this time though, due mostly to the fact that we never exceeded 3 MPH, and the tube was so enormous I don’t think it could have flipped.  The rest of the weekend was spent grilling, and sitting around a fire re-telling our “war stories.”  The weather wasn’t quite as nice as Vail, but the company was a lot better so it made up for it.  (Thinly disguised stab at Martin there.)

Sunday we headed back to KC, which didn’t take too long.  We picked up Gabe from his Aunt Ronda’s house, then headed back home for a much-needed shower and nap.  The house looked the same as ever, with the exception that my Aerogrow garden had quite a growth explosion;  It now occupies the better part of the dining room.  I don’t know what’s on the dinner menu this week, but I imagine it will all have lots of fresh herbs in it.  I put up a quick 50-pic synopsis of our journey in the photo section…  How’s THAT for timeliness?