White Water Rafting...with cousins.

Last weekend we had a wonderful visit from Kelley's cousin Angela and her husband Jed. They are from Dearborn, MI. They came out to Denver for a few days.

We met them out in the mountains in a place called Idaho Springs. We hopped in a raft and headed out onto the river.

The experience wasn't "too" scary but we did have a chance to go through some decent rapids. It was very much fun.

Jed and Angela came back with us to Boulder and spent the rest of the day and night with us. We all cleaned up, walked downtown, had dinner and dessert and just had a wonderful time visiting with them and getting to know them better.

Is this how you sell small wind turbines?

Kelley and I headed up to Briggsdale, CO today to participate as a sponsor at the "Briggsdale Classic". The "classic" is a youth livestock show which is sponsored by an agricultural radio station, named "The Barn". The producer of "The Barn", Brian Allmer, is shown with me below. I met Brian earlier this week at his farm to talk about putting a wind turbine on his site. He thought it would be wise for me to attend the "classic" and promote the Hummer wind turbines there.
Needless to say, this was a new type of experience for me. For Kelley, it was like going back to her youth as a 4-H member.

It was a pretty small event. The city of Briggsdale is pretty small too, but people came from all over CO and WY to have their children participate. Here is the "show ring" where the children showed their goats, lambs and cows.

I was stationed about 40 ft from the show ring, strategically located next to the concessions area. Every 30 minutes of so, Brian (from "the Barn") would announce the on-site sponsors. There were 2 of us. A "tack" shop (which sells farm supplies, livestock feed, animal grooming stuff, etc) and Renewable Options and Investments (ROI a.k.a. me). Each time Brian did his anouncement about ROI, he would add a bit more "color" to the announcement...

Kelley spent a bit of time painting outside.

After the "classic" we headed out to explore a bit. This was a beautiful, old-fashioned wind mill we passed.

And this was a beautiful, modern, wind turbine farm we passed.

There we some interesting formations on the prarie known as the Pawnee Buttes.

And finally, we couldn't resist, taking this shot.

Just Announced...Visitors in September...

Press Release: July 9, 2009 - Boulder, CO:

Towards the middle / end of September a very special group of people will be arriving in Boulder for a long weekend visit. Kent, Marilyn and Karter Fannin, of Spring Arbor, MI, will be travelling by airplane to Colorado to spend some time with David and Kelley Shirkey.

First stop off of the plane after the Fannins arrive on Saturday, September 19?

The University of Colorado versus the University of Wyoming football game where Karter will be able to see Ralphie and all the Buffaloes for the first time.

# # #

For more information regarding this event please contact David Shirkey or Karter Fannin.

Back in Boulder...

I'm heading out this morning to north east Colorado to visit some farmers who hopefully will want to consider small wind turbines for their farms.

Kelley has a volleyball game tonight.

Last night, my little brother, Alex, and I went for a hike and a bike ride. Kelley took me too our garden to gather some crops.

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During our drive back to Boulder on Sunday we stopped to go for a hike and ended up at this lake. It was about a 1 hour hike to arrive. There were some nice waterfalls also.

During out hike back down I caught Kelley with an excited look on her face.

It is pretty nuts because this is just a road side park along I-70 and you can venture into a beautful river / mountain lake hike.

Traffic was horrible with a capital H so we stopped in this small town for about 3 hours and just hung out. This town in Georgetown...an old mining village.

Fireworks tonight!

We enjoyed some excellent fireworks tonight. Kelley got some more painting done up on top of this mountain.

Pie eating contest.

Happy 4th of July

These are photos from our early morning hike. Now we are headed to breakfast.

First afternoon in Telluride

It was pretty wild driving into town this afternoon. It took about 7 hours to drive to Telluride from Boulder. The scene was worth the drive.

We rode a ski lift up the mountain and took some shots on the way.

Here are the state flowers...Columbines.

Kelley spend some time painting...

and quickly gained some admirers.

I mentioned to Kelley that many famous people vacation in Telluride because it is so far off the beaten path and they can get away. The first famous person we saw was Bill Ford. He is the chairman of Ford Motor Company and he is the great-grandson of Henry Ford. We saw him and his family entering a restaurant and then later on he walked by as Kelley was painting.

Driving to Telluride

These are some of the images we captured today during our drive from Boulder to Telluride.

Kelley was driving and we got chased by a bike gang.