Tonight I feel much more inspired to write and I have a bit more time. This weekend turned out to be exhausting and last night I just didn't have the determination to write the post that I should have written. The exhausting part of the weekend started on Saturday morning when I got up very early as I have numerous projects going on around the house and I wanted to make use of every second that Zack was away at camp! The whole morning was taken up with organizing, purging and more organizing. My major house reconstruction projects are scheduled to kick off in the next 2 weeks so I really need to get things organized and purged before then. The first project that is taking place is installation of new garage doors. The order has been placed and they should be installed by mid-July. To make this project happen my garage has to be absolutely EMPTY. So - there has been a lot involved in making that happen. My other 2 project still have not been approved by the HOA so it might be until August until they happen. The other projects are replacement of the concrete patio in front of my house and expansion/reconstruction of the garage to allow me to have a "mud room" with doggie door for the dogs.
After working for a good part of the day I had to head to Central City to pick up Allen. For whatever reason the BTC was not as well organized as in years past and it took me a good while to finally locate Allen. The problem is that Central City does not have any large facilities to handle almost 2000 bicycle riders. So pick-up spots were scattered around remote areas of the town.
Allen and I finally arrived back at my house around 4:00PM so before you knew it, the afternoon was over and we were headed out to dinner at Thai Basil at Park Meadows. I wasn't able to get anyone to give me info on the bars that I talked about two blog posts ago, so Allen and I instead spent the rest of the evening hanging out at LoDo's in Lone Tree on their roof deck drinking beer. I have been to LoDo's several times but this was the first I had been there on a Saturday night. I will remind myself never to go there again on a Saturday night as the place was extremely crowded and pretty darn crazy! We stayed up pretty late talking and hanging out so Sunday morning came way too quickly.
First order of Sunday was to drop Allen off at the airport and then head towards the mountains to get Zack. I had a bunch of time on my hands after dropping off Allen so I decided I would stop at Mother Cabrini Shrine and climb to the big Jesus statue on top of the mountain as I love the view from there. After about 45 minutes there I resumed my journey to "Camp Comfort" and that's when things got tough.
The whole purpose of "Camp Comfort" is to let kids get their grief out and meet other kids in a similar situation. At the end of the camp they conduct a "Service of Remembrance" in which the kids get to do a bunch of things to memorialize and remember the person that they lost. All the parents of the participants are asked to be there and take part with the kids. The service was very good in terms of the way it was conducted but it definitely brings out a lot of emotion in the kids and their parents. Zack certainly had a hard time with it as it brought out a lot of feelings that he has just continued to ignore and repress. Even for me it was a tab bit hard as I sat there in a very sober mood as each of these kids got up and said a few words about the person that they lost. In the end run I think the whole camp and the "Service of Remembrance" were good for Zack, but it was extremely emotionally exhausting for him and for me alike. I am hoping that some of the things he talked about and expressed there will go a long way towards making him "integrate" the grief that he still feels over Patty's death.
By the time we left the camp I was ready to go home, make dinner and drink an entire bottle of wine - which I did. So sleep came easy last night for both Zack and me as we were both exhausted!
Thankfully the camp that Zack is taking part in this week didn't start until 9:00AM, so he was able to sleep in for a bit. I had very early conference calls this morning so I was up early but this allowed me to take advantage of the rest of the morning.
Before we left the house this morning I decided I was going to put my bike on the bike rack and go take a ride after I dropped Zack off. Given his camp is in the Cherry Creek section of Denver, I decided to ride the South Platte trail north out of downtown Denver. I ended up doing 27 miles and I rode until the trail abruptly ends just south of 120th street in Adams County. I was kind of happy with myself that I reached the end of the line!
(This shows the route that I rode today.)
The rest of our week is busy as well as Zack is in camp and I have a bunch of things going on for work. Hopefully we will also be heading to Greeley to partake in the "Greeley Stampede" and catch a rodeo some evening.
Well enough of my rambling for the night! I hope everyone's week is off to a good start!
Thanks and peace to all! ~J.
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