May 8. We discovered that making mini waffles at the hotel was easy and delicious and it became a tradition with breakfast while we stayed in Castle Rock - and to the end of our trip.
Even though we didn't have to be up early, Dad and I are early risers so we had some time to kill before going to our first visit of the day, so we hit the road early again.
We drove by the park Dad helped get started before we moved. They’ve done great things there. I was a bit shocked to discover that the brick and mortar bathrooms were fancy outhouses, though I shouldn’t have been given their remote location. I have a thing about outhouses, and it is very very difficult to relax enough to do business!
We visited with dear friend Lu at her home in Franktown. We had a great visit catching up and looking through her photo albums, reminiscing and remembering the good days we had together. I snapped some photos of pictures of my brothers in their baseball team photo, one that includes both brothers and Stacy, and one at the 4th of July picnic with me and my parents at the left and Dad's brother Mick in white shirt and black pants with sunglasses to the left of center.
We loved spending time with Lu and there is never enough time to be together!
When we got in the truck to leave, Mom sent another message by song: Send Her My Love. So I sent Lu a text letting her know Mom was sending her love. They were such good friends.
We had some time to kill before meeting the current owner of our house, so looked for a place to have lunch. I was rather excited to go to the Stagecoach for lunch! It's a bar and was off limits to me as a kid. The lunch was delicious and service fantastic. If we lived there, we'd be regulars.
We then headed up to our old house to meet with the current owner. The road was paved just last year and for the last 50 has been the dirt road I remember sledding down to the highway. Tim and I used to walk down to catch the bus for school until the later years when they'd pick us up at the end of our property. Unfortunately, the video I took is too long for the blog.
We had a wonderful visit with the current owner, Jack, who's owned the house for about 16 years. He said when he saw it, the place was in bad shape with a partial renovation, but the view is what grabbed him. He called his wife and said this is where they are going to retire - and they did. The house has been changed on the inside completely, but the soul of the place is still there. Many of the trees Dad planted as saplings are still there and growing strong.
We had brought some of Mom's ashes and Dad asked permission to spread them. Jack graciously and immediately said yes, anywhere. Dad spread some of Mom’s ashes where you could perfectly see Pike’s Peak. There were workers there this day that blocked my view of Dad doing this, but another opportunity to come.
For reasons not known, Dad didn't spread all of the ashes that day. He couldn't explain why, but we brought a portion back to Castle Rock. When we got to the hotel room, I turned on the desk lamp so Dad could do some computing. And it started flashing intermittently like it had a short. Dad and I looked at each other. The light over Mom's chair has been going off and on since she passed, and this seemed to be a message. More to come on this on the next day.
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