And Now, a Word (or more) from the OTHER...from Vail

As this is the Slate-Katz FAMILY blog, I thought I might contribute a bit of my own fluff to the effort. I'm visiting my daughters, sons-in-law and grand kids in Colorado for several days, and having a great time. As a quid pro quo, Sallie gets space and private time.

Got to fly there solo...what a freeing experience...and it's always nice to see family. The kids have all grown (as they're wont to do when fed), and Fletcher, the youngest, is a cute handful. We're stuffing as much fun as possible into four days: tubing down Gore Creek; riding bikes in Glenwood Canyon; eating the least nutritious food we can find; downing beers and tequila at the Friday night Vail Mountain Top party.

Today, I headed out with Glenn, Ali and Fletch on their boat...3 hours between getting to the lake and putting the boat in. Glen got to wakeboard for about 20 minutes before thunder and lightning cut the boat trip short. Best part of the day, and totally serendipitous...we took a dirt side road home to an out-of-the-way campgrounds and Glen introduced us to KK's, a fabulous hole-in-the-wall outdoor barbecue joint run by KK, a fireball of an old lady who's been running the place for 20 years. Four huge ribs and a home made brownie with home made vanilla bean ice cream, in sight of the Colorado River...a perfect day.

The kids are running in a triathalon event tomorrow, and I'll be there to root them on. Of course, there's no place like home, and I'll be back Monday evening.

With apologies to our main writer, I've inserted a few pics from the trip.