Horses and more horses

My wife and I spent yesterday in Estes Park CO at the Rocky Mountain Team Penning sorting event.   She is a member and tries to ride as much as possible.  It was a long, but fun day.  Her class wasn’t until the end of the day, so I had plenty of time to practice sketching the horses.   I’m finding out that they are not the easiest things to draw.  They don’t stand still very long (especially these guys!).  About the only time they are not flying around is when they are watching other sorters, so I got the “rear end” of most of my subjects.

Time is Estes Park is always fun.  Great scenery and its nice to get out of the 90 degree plus weather in Denver and enjoy the 80 degree temperatures in the mountains.

New bridge near our house

During the first half of this summer, the road in front of our house was closed as they replaced a bridge over a small creek.  It was actually nice to have a month or so of no traffic, even if that meant an extra 5 minutes to get to town.

On a Saturday morning, the cranes and trucks came in with the new concrete spans.  Over the next couple of hours, the cranes lifted a half dozen of them into place.  Quite a few neighbors came out and watched the whole process.  Now, a much wider bridge is open and the traffic is back.

Sacramento

 

We have an office in Sacramento and I travel there quite a bit.  The hotel I usually stay at is near the state capitol, right across the street from Capitol Park.  After work, it’s a great place to visit and sketch.

The capitol building itself is surrounded by trees.  Sacramento’s nickname is the City of Trees and I can verify that it’s well earned.  Every time I found a bench to sit at, I discovered it had a great view of the trees and not much else.  I’m not sure, but I believe they planned it that way. 

Wings of Freedom

 

I spent Saturday at the Loveland / Fort Collins airport viewing the Wings of Freedom tour.  Even though it was only 10:30am, as I drove up I could tell that the runway was packed with other WWII aviation enthusiasts.  The lines to tour the planes were long, full of people ranging from small kids to elderly veterans in their various WWII veteran hats.  It was an honor to meet some of them. 

On display was the B-17 Flying Fortress Nine O Nine, the B-24 Liberator Witchcraft, and the P-51 Mustang Betty Jane.  All were amazing.  Round the planes out with a few classic cars, a few uniformed German and GI soldiers, a few bi-planes, and the normal air traffic (mostly helicopters) and the morning was great fun.

For approx $500, you can fly in the bombers.  For $3200, you can book an hour with the P-51.  I heard its worth every penny.  I saw it take up 3 different people while I was there.  Even though the $3200 is slightly out of my budget, I just enjoyed seeing it start its engine and taxi down the runway.

I was able to view the planes and sketch them for several hours.   Because the lines were long, I never did make inside the bombers.  It was quite hot in the sun… probably at least 95 degrees by the planes.  During that time I think I burned my neck and arms to a crisp…. must remember sunscreen next time.