Over the mountains

After spending the night in Denver, we drove through the Rocky Mountains to get to Rachel and Chris's house in Grand Junction. The weather was great and the flowers beautiful. These were at Vail, the world-famous ski resort, built in the style of the Alpine villages in Europe.

At this altitude, the weather can become chilly, even in the summer, so the town thoughfully provides a throw for visitors to use when sitting on the benches. The town also thoughtfully made sure it chained the covers to the bench. Does that mean you're welcome to take the throw, as long as you take the bench with you?

But we have flowers back home in Madeira, too, of course. The latest additions were in window boxes, which cast shadows on the curtains as the sun was coming up.

Back to our trip... Braewyn, who turned 1 on July 26, finally decided that, although crawling around on all fours could get her anywhere she thought she had to go, two legs were all that are needed, after all. She only started taking independent steps a couple of days ago, so we arrived just in time to see her perfecting the technique of taking a series of them one after the other to get somewhere. She's catching on fast. And Rachel is going to have to be fast to catch her.