Here in Palmer Lake

I said in the last post that I would try to post some pictures of my surroundings here in CO. Here are a few of the ones I took today:

This is the view of the surrounding hills from the front of the conference center.

This is my room - mom take notice that my bed is made (for the most part) and notice the full bottle of water on the corner of my desk, just waiting to be enjoyed by yours truly as they encourage us to keep well hydrated up here at about 7500ft.

This is in honor of all of the little boys I know who love or loved trains at some point in the not so distant past. We have windows in the training room that overlook the railroad tracks coming through the mountains and I must admit I've been quite intrigued. I watch the trains go by and the colors moving by against the clear blue sky are really pretty cool. There's something about the repetitive motion of a train that's really relaxing for me to watch/hear as it goes by. I haven't been so brave as to jump up in the middle of a training session to take a picture of the trains passing by out the window but I was lucky enough to catch one going by on my walk around dusk this afternoon. The colors weren't as brilliant but this picture documents the source of the repetition that I enjoy as they roll by.

This picture is in honor of Leslie. To me this looks like it should be called "Colorado Cactus." It looks like a distant cousin of the Saguaro that we saw in Tucson this past Spring. It was the Saguaro that Leslie had an unfortunate interaction with which then landed us in the ER at St. Mary's overnight upon our return to St. Louis. Now, I'm wondering if this is actually dead Columbine because it's everywhere around here.

This is just pretty. I turned around quickly because I thought I heard something behind me as I was returning home on my walk today and this is the glimpse of the sunset that I caught when I turned. Sheesh. Even when you take the girl out of the city you evidently can't take the city out of the girl, always watching my back...