An artist in the family

A Mother’s Day present was delivered to my dear wife Karen this weekend, and the thoughtfulness and execution brought tears to my eyes. Darling daughter Elisabeth painted for her stepmother a scene of Sprague Lake, the lovely spot that we visited with significant George Three at Rocky Mountain National Park during Karen’s family reunion last…

Thank you, my new family, for accepting me this way

We sat more than a week back in the living room of our Little Bitty in the Syracuse neighborhood of Eastwood, comfortable in our usual evening hang-out positions of couch and recliner, when my dear wife Karen dropped this one on me. What did I discover about her those precious days we spent in Colorado…

Bringing back the very goods

We saw a lot of nice merch in Estes Park and Denver. Of course, when you’ve got one checked bag each and carry on each that you’re going to lug on the plane at Denver, through the airport for the layover in Atlanta and then back home to Syracuse, you’re not going to try to…

You can get there from here

The 4 a.m. chirp of my cell phone alarm was a harsh wake-up call compared to the usual gotta-go meanderings of Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle. But our beloved rescue mutt was nowhere to be found in the Little Bitty in the Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood, dropped off the previous night at the north…

Drink, eat and be merry

To every Family Reunion there must come the Group Meal. When the destination for the vacation is a locale where nobody in the gang resides, that adds to the inherent challenges. Who likes what type of food? What time does everybody prefer to eat? (Don’t forget to factor in the time zones everybody involved started…

What’s in store for us today?

I’ve joked about the T-shirt-iness of the downtown stretch of Estes Park. Surely, the shop owners have set up racks of Rocky Mountain-loving wear daring you to plunk down your 20 bucks and call it your own. What tourist town doesn’t? Truth be known, on the grand scale of Where I’ve Been, this destination for…

Feeling at home in the blue cottage

First-timers that we were, my dear wife Karen, daughter Elisabeth, boyfriend George Three and I did not know what to expect out of anything in Estes Park. When we pulled the rented SUV into the short, weed-filled driveway of the blue cottage with the white 330 on Virginia Drive a little before check-in time that…

Going, going, gone to Coors Field

We gave ourselves an 75 minutes between leaving the Denver Zoo and the start of the game between the Colorado Rockies and Cincinnati Reds on Sunday. After all, GPS told us the trip between the two downtown landmarks was merely a few miles and 15 minutes or so. George Three didn’t fancy the in-city driving,…