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Some of you may have noticed the lack of blog posts for last week. Or not. Either way, I'm gonna tell you what I was up to now that I'm back.

I was in Colorado. I used to let the world know in advance that I was going on a trip so that they wouldn't think I had gotten too sick to post, but now that is considered an invitation for thieves to descend upon your empty house, so now I just slink off and tell of my adventures later, if my post-vacation flare isn't so severe that I am unable to do so. I do have that flare going on, so this may take me a few days to post, but please bear with me.

When I talked to my dad on the phone in April, he asked me to come visit. Since Dan was actually allowed paid time off from his job this year and we hadn't been home (no, I still don't consider South Dakota home) in four years, we made plans to come out last week. Dan and I had originally considered this to be a vacation, but things took a more serious turn when my dad was diagnosed with a bladder tumor and was scheduled for surgery the day after we were to arrive.

Dan and I left Sioux Falls the morning of September 11. We stayed on the interstate, even though other routes are more scenic, because I need to have easy frequent access to restrooms and cities large enough to have restaurants where I might acquire gluten free food. Our intent was to go south to Omaha, cut west across Nebraska, stay overnight in Kearney (the halfway point between Sioux Falls and Denver), continue west into Colorado and then southwest to my dad's house which is in a rural area outside of a suburb of Denver.

Lots of construction in Iowa as we traveled south, but we made decent time until I decided to find the Qdoba restaurant in Lincoln. We had a nice lunch, but we got caught in a ton of vehicular and human traffic as hundreds of people tried to make their way to the Cornhuskers football game. And I thought Broncos fans were obsessed with football!

Got to Kearney about an hour after we had intended. Dan had been driving for nearly seven hours, so we were quite ready to check in. We stayed at the Ramada Inn, probably fancier than we needed, but we got a decent off-season rate for a room with a king-sized bed, a fridge, microwave, cable and a recliner, so I certainly wasn't gonna complain.

Riding in a confined space for several hours makes me incredibly sore, so I put on my swimsuit and headed for the pool, thinking they had a hot tub. This turned out not to be the case, but since I was already there, I braved the excessive air conditioning and freezing water of the pool and attempted to stretch. I dog paddled a bit, fighting muscle cramps, debating whether this constituted much-needed exercise or a counterproductive waste of energy.

Either way, I took a long hot shower afterward which felt awesome. I've been keeping my showers short at home because of sewage system problems in Sioux Falls, so it was nice to stay in there long enough to relax and fog up the whole bathroom. Then I flipped channels for awhile, but pretty much every station was either talking about the Cornhuskers or some other football team, so I just had a snack and read for awhile.

Got up early enough on Sunday the 12th to allow Dan to have the free breakfast after we checked out. I had had to drink a Boost for my breakfast, but I did snag some apples for later in the day. We made pretty good time despite more construction, and Dan got some road hypnosis going on because there is NOTHING much to look at in northeastern Colorado, but we got to my dad's house earlier than expected, about 3pm.

My dad and stepmother were babysitting their grand-kids, which was cool because I had never even met my nephew (my stepbrother's son), who was born in November. My niece of course did not remember me because I had last seen her when she was 2 years old. They played with blocks for awhile, and I talked to my niece about kindergarten, which she likes.

We also got to meet the new dog, a yellow Lab mix named Maddie. She's on the petite side but more than holds her own with Onyx, the Weimaraner. She barked at us quite a bit at first and was nervous when we tried to pet her, but she eventually warmed up to us and became quite a fan of Dan.

My stepmother was kind enough to cook supper for all of us, pot roast with carrots, potatoes and fresh tomatoes. Afterward, she and Dad took the kids back to their parents and went to a square-dance group board meeting. Dan and I went to the closest grocery store to find some Boost and string cheese to get me through the week.

While we were out, we decided to drive down to our old house to see how it was faring four years after we sold it. To our delight, it looked exactly the same, in perfect shape. Sad to say, though, the neighborhood as a whole was not doing so well: there were foreclosure signs interspersed with nicely kept homes and others whose lawns had died due to water restrictions.

I did not sleep well Sunday night, which is not at all unusual when I am away from my comfy bed and sofa. Didn't really matter because I needed to get up at 6am on Monday the 13th so that Dan and I could accompany my dad and stepmother to the hospital for Dad's surgery. It was across town, so it took quite awhile to get there; Dad checked in about 8am.

As expected, the hospital was huge, so I used my wheelchair to get around. The surgery was scheduled for 9:30, but of course there was the usual pre-surgery instructions and prep to go through. I knew I'd be waiting around quite a while and brought snacks and plenty of reading material.

The surgery itself was pretty brief, only about an hour and 15 minutes, and even more surprising, it was outpatient. The tumor was about walnut sized, but they had to do a bit more than expected to remove it all. Still, my dad was awake within another hour and quite perky, chatting with the nurses about his dogs.

All told, we had Dad back home and resting by 1:30. Pretty impressive. Then Dan suggested that he and I drive into town to go to the cemetery where my mom's ashes are interred, which we did after visiting a health food store to get me some gluten free snacks for the rest of the week.

The cemetery seemed a bit run down. The flowers in the garden near my mom's niche were dead, probably because of water restrictions, and the bushes were so overgrown that you couldn't even get to some of the interment sites. But my mom's niche seemed all right, and there were still silk flowers in the vase, albeit faded ones.

Since we were in the vicinity of my childhood stomping grounds, I asked Dan to drive by my mom's old house. I'd heard the neighborhood had fallen on hard times. I was relieved to see that someone had apparently purchased the house recently because it had fresh paint and a new roof, but I did note that many of the neighboring homes now had bars on the windows and doors, which was not a good sign.

After passing my sister's elementary school and our junior high, we went over to the house I'd lived in from age 3 to 12. I must say red brick holds up well. The house still looked good even if incredibly tiny compared to what passes for a family-sized home these days.

On the way back toward my dad's house, we popped into a brand new shopping center and went to a sporting goods store. Dan was looking for Avalanche clothing but didn't find much. I, however, did purchase an inexpensive Rockies t-shirt to replace one from their first season that I had worn out.

On Tuesday the 14th, Dan and I met up with a former co-worker who had taken extremely early retirement from the newspaper rather than wait to be laid off. He had a non-healing injury to his tailbone, which meant he couldn't sit or ride in a car for long, so we picked him up at his condo and had lunch at a nearby bar/grill, and I was able to get a pretty good chef salad there. Then, because walking is easier for him than sitting, we went to a large open-air mall in his part of town, and I rode along in my wheelchair with Dan pushing it, so we could shop and converse.

Since I was burning through the books I'd brought on my trip pretty quickly, I picked up two more: parts five and six (cheap paperbacks) of the Stephanie Plum series I was reading by Janet Evanovich. We wandered a bit while talking about baseball and TV and classic movies. After maybe an hour, our friend and I had run out of steam (all the previous day's activities caught up with me), so we took him back to his condo and called it a day. Spent the rest of the evening chatting with my dad.

Spent the morning and afternoon of Wednesday the 15th recuperating, reading and saving up energy for a big family get-together at my aunt's house. My dad went to work that day, believe it or not, and still felt up to going into town with Dan and me for the dinner (although I was able to convince him to let Dan drive). Besides the three of us, there were two aunts, an uncle, a cousin, and three children of cousins. I brought my camera to get some family photos, and of course we talked each others' ears off, heh heh. We had apples and cheese for an appetizer, and for dinner it was grilled pork chops, baked potato wedges, corn on the cob and green beans. Probably ate more than I should have, but it was yummy. Did hafta stay up kinda late that night because I needed extra time to digest.

We had a dilemma come up on Thursday the 16th: Dan and I had planned to get together with a friend for lunch on the south end of town at 2pm, but then we were invited to have dinner on the northwest end of town at 5:30 with my dad and stepmother and some of their friends. I didn't think we could squeeze in both, but fortunately, our friend called at noon and said she was available all afternoon Friday, so we re-scheduled lunch. Only problem was, we had planned a day trip to the mountains Friday, so if we were gonna get to see them at all, it would have to be Thursday afternoon, so we jumped in the car immediately and headed west.

Because of recent wildfires, I wanted to avoid the area southwest of Boulder, so we headed straight for Long's Peak, my fave mountain, which is to the northwest. Getting straight to anything in the Rockies is a relative term, though, given the wildly winding roads, and it took us a full hour just to get to the mountains from my dad's house as it was. Knowing we were on the clock, whenever I would see something that would look nice in a photograph, Dan would quickly pull over where practical, I'd hop out and snap a couple of pics, and we'd be off again like a shot.

Due to the unusually hot weather (90 degrees four of the days we were there), the aspens were only just barely starting to change color. Long's Peak itself did have a couple of trees with red leaves, but they were too far away to photograph clearly even with a zoom. We did pull over at a church that I think was called Saint Malo's to get some nice shots of yellow aspens, but I got distracted and took so long that when we finally pulled onto Long's Peak Road, we didn't have time to actually go into the park, so we resolved to spend a day there sometime on a future trip.

We went back onto the main road and sped along to Estes Park. I had wanted to photograph the exterior of the Stanley Hotel, but it is gated off unless you are a guest. Luckily, so many people apparently take pix of the place that there is a place on a nearby road where we could easily pull over, and even though the angle wasn't ideal, with the zoom I got good enough photos so that the hotel was at least recognizable.

Once I got back in the car, I realized it was 3pm, and we were supposed to meet my dad and stepmother at their house at 4:30. We flew down the highway out of the mountains, and judging by the clock, speed limits and number of miles to drive, we could have made it in time. But I seriously underestimated the volume of traffic in Boulder, which was at a crawl.

Just before 4pm, we decided to call Dad's house and tell them we would just meet them at the restaurant, but we don't have a cell phone. We found a phone booth, but wouldn't you know the phone had been removed. We were pleasantly surprised and grateful when someone let us use his cell; if only anyone had answered!

We jumped back into the car and kept going. When we were almost directly north of the restaurant, we decided to just head toward it, looking for another phone booth. We found one a grocery store with an actual working pay phone, and Dan got through this time.

We got to the restaurant a half hour early, but I didn't mind as this meant I could just put the seat back in the car in the parking lot and rest for a bit. It was a family owned Mexican restaurant. I was in luck because their red chili enchiladas were gluten free AND tasty.

On Friday, I slept in best I could because I was pretty wiped out from the previous day's excitement. We left my dad's house about 1:30 and headed for the P.F. Chang's that was in a new mall wayyyyyy out south and east, practically in Kansas, heh heh. We were to meet our friend at 2:30 but were still late due to highway construction.

Our friend was our former co-worker and next door neighbor. It was really great to catch up because we'd only had a few brief Facebook conversations in the past four years. We talked jobs and dogs anything else that popped into our heads, just like no time had passed.

We split a gluten free order of lettuce wraps, and I had a lunch-sized portion of gluten free moo goo gai pan with chicken and shrimp on brown rice. It comes with egg drop soup, which I love. But even with a lunch portion, I still had to take some of the entree home.

After we finished lunch, we decided to explore the mall as none of us had ever been to it before. Thank goodness for my wheelchair because this was a series of stores that went on for blocks. I rather liked the place with all the retro rock band t-shirts but didn't purchase anything; I did, however, pop into a book store and pick up another Stephanie Plum book and one about the ghosts of the Stanley Hotel published by a local press.

As the sun started getting low in the sky, we decided we'd better head back while we could still easily read the road signs. So we parted ways with our friend and took the long trek back north. Spent the rest of the evening polishing off my moo goo gai pan and talking with my dad as this was our last full day.

Got up early on Saturday because my dad had to work, and I wanted to make sure I got to say goodbye before he left. After a week of gorgeous sunshine and warm temperatures, it was raining and cold that morning, which made loading the car a bit soggy. We left the house about 8am, got gas and realized we had left the cooler behind, went back and got it and were on the highway about 8:30.

If we had thought northeastern Colorado dulled the senses on a nice day, it was even worse in the gray and drizzle. The only real attention-getters between Denver and Kearney were a roadside drug bust on the Colorado side and a rollover accident on the Nebraska side. On the plus side, there was less construction than there had been the prior week, and we got to Kearney an hour before check-in time at the Ramada Inn, which gave us the perfect opportunity for a nice lunch.

As there aren't a lot of restaurants in Kearney where I know I can eat, we went with the Red Lobster near the hotel. I got my usual baked lobster tail (I avoid anything grilled, and while I love crab, I can't get it out of the shell with the arthritis in my hands). We were seated next to a table of about 10 people, all wearing their Cornhuskers apparel.

Our room at the Ramada this time was an interior one with a balcony over the pool area. The trade-off was that it didn't have a recliner like the previous room had, so I just made do with sitting in a regular chair and propping my feet up on the bed, not terribly comfy but better than nothing. As I had the previous week, I made use of the cold swimming pool and the hot shower, and then I watched the uncut version of "Airplane" on cable.

Sunday morning was still overcast, but not as cold as the previous day. We checked out, and Dan did the hotel breakfast and I grabbed some more apples. By the time we got to Omaha, I needed lunch, but Dan was still full, so we found a Qdoba and he just had a pop while I did a naked fajita burrito.

Dan needed a break from driving and wanted to check out the Burlington Coat Factory because Sioux Falls doesn't have one. He didn't find anything he liked, but I spied an adorable purple suit and a grey animal print skirt. Since I can't work anymore, I really didn't have a need for the suit, but I rationalized that I could wear the skirt to church and tried it on; it fit like a glove, but also showed off curves I thought best left hidden, so back on the rack it went.

Omaha to Sioux Falls was kinda slow going due to all the construction in Iowa, but we finally got home around 4pm I think. I must say I'm glad I don't live any further away from Denver. I also wish the trip had been at least three weeks longer to give me enough time to see all the people and things and do all that I wanted to, but I'll just have to be happy with what I got. Have no idea when I'll be able to get back out there, but I hope that I won't have to wait another four years and that I will have more cash to spend next time.