Mountains, Mary Poppins and the Beach Boys

     It seems unreal that I leave for France in about three weeks!  So much planning and purging and preparations in the past two years and now the time is almost here.  I am so excited!  CoCo knows something is getting ready to happen, but she has no idea how much her life is about to change.  The great thing about CoCo is that she is happy as long as she is with me, so I'm not worried about her.  Her happy place is in my lap and that won't change, no matter what country we're in.  
     I will try to get you caught up on my activities of the past two weeks.  I spent the last week of July (how is it August already??) in Cripple Creek at Cindy and Aunt Mary Ann's cabin.  What a great time that was.  Very peaceful and quiet and beautiful as each morning I woke up to being surrounded by mountains and pine trees.  We had a wonderful time together.  I never even made it into Cripple Creek.  The cabin is on the road to Florissant and I get there by taking Two Towers Road off of Highway 24 - sort of coming in the back way.  It takes me past the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument and the Wolf Sanctuary.  It's a beautiful drive.

Cripple Creek - elevation 9500 ft

     I remember visiting Cripple Creek when I was little.  It was a fun little "ghost" of an old mining town with lots of history and a famous melodrama performed every summer at the old Imperial Hotel.  When the casinos came in everything changed and Cripple Creek lost a lot of its charm.  Unfortunate, in my opinion.  Most of the little shops and cafes were forced to close as they couldn't compete with all the amenities offered by the casinos.  There was a lovely little shop that sold upscale jewelry, knick knacks and Colorado souvenirs.  I still have two of the rings I bought there years ago made by local artisans and using local gems and metals - a black hills gold and a rhodocrisite stone set in silver.  The store has been gone many years now.  I'm sure that visitors who know very little about the town and how it once looked are quite happy with the casinos and how much money they can lose in a short amount of time.  :-)
     I was back in the Springs for two days before my friend, Jane, arrived from California.  I spent two nights with her when I went to LA to visit the French Consulate there to get my visa.  She needed to come here for some personal and professional business meetings and I offered to return the hospitality while she was here.  We have managed to fit in a number of "touristy" things to do to make her visit more than just stressful meetings.  We saw "Gone With the Wind" on the big screen at Tinseltown with Beth.  Jane wanted to meet all my "friends" at the zoo!.  Then we spent a morning at the North Pole with Renae.  Both of them worked at Santa's Workshop at some point in their lives and had a lot of stories to share. Fun!

Elsa and her daddy

Aslan and Boma look like a two-headed lion!

Handsome Abuto

Beautiful Elsa

My sweet friend, Asha

Santa's House at the North Pole

     So, perhaps you're wondering what connection Mary Poppins and the Beach Boys have to do with anything.  That very proper British nanny with the bottomless carpetbag and the parrot handled umbrella; who could breeze through every job with just a little magic and song; who could make everything easier and fun.  And then that marvelous band of genius musicians who filled our lives with "Good Vibrations".  What do those two have in common?  Apparently ME!

     According to Jane, I have whipped out my Mary Poppins magic and mixed it with "good vibrations" to make her stay here more enjoyable and less stressful.  So, I feel very honored to have channeled those personalities to give Jane a good time while she's here.  I hope it can continue for me in the next three weeks to get me from here to France with as little effort as Mary Poppins used to clean the nursery!  If only I had a bottomless carpetbag!  How handy would that be?  My two suitcases are looking very full - but that's for a later blog post. . . .
     Thank you for joining me on my journey around all of these bends - some expected and some that just sort of popped up on the horizon.  I'm glad you're all here with me and cheering me onward.  Merci!