Well, the three-day weekend recap is overdue. And will probably never get written as separate entries as I intended.

So.

Saturday:

Game wardens knocking on the door, early. Fortunately, oddly, I was up, about and dressed. Even though the only one in the house.

Before they left, eldest son's girlfriend arrived with homemade pancakes. I used to get homemade chocolate chip cookies delivered to my door...

This may be getting serious.

But she was hoping to hit the mountains. Wife suggested Aspen Alley as a destination, with us as guides.

Me, I thought we were going to get new tires on the SUV today.

Went out to look at the tires she said the mechanic said were too worn to drive.

No trip on miles and miles of gravel roads in the mountains for us. We went to Central City for tires. (Yes, you can buy tires in our town. But Not Michelins. Wife likes Michelins. (Because her Dad always swore by Michelins. It has nothing to do with the price or quality of the tires...)).

And yes, son and pancake-bearing friend headed to the mountains. But took the wrong turn.

And missed the mountains.

How do you miss mountains? I mean, they're mountains!

Anyway, we wandered the mall, enjoyed Chinese mall food (with chopsticks, of course), and bought too many impulse items.

And spent almost an hour at the historic overlook. Taking pictures of...

Wildflowers.

As usual, the wife and I have a lot of photos that look the same.

And yeah, some of hers are better.

Sunday:

Finally managed the trip to the mountains, and Aspen Alley.

If the kids got tired of waiting on me as I tried our tracking equipment to look for collared elk nearby, they didn't say.

But... no elk.

Did have a nice picnic in the woods, followed by a short hike with all three dogs... the heeler sisters, and the corgi. The corgi loved hunting butterflies, and playing in snow.

The only taint on the day?

Waiting 38 minutes without the waitress even coming by our table in the classy restaurant in hot springs town. Yes, she was overworked, but she obviously wasn't very good, either.

Yeah, we walked out. Even though the next nearest restaurant was literally 41 miles away.

At least there we got served.

Monday:

Basically the day to do three days' worth of chores in one day. And for the special celebration for youngest son (since he spent the real date with a friend in Capitol City).

He wanted chocolate chip cookies, so I made two batches. But he only got one cookie.

It was nine inches across, but just one cookie.

And yes, we ended with champagne.

One final item from Monday...

The trespasser I found on the heeler's blanket in the office. (Yes, I worked a little on the holiday. Don't tell anyone.)

Youngest son claims he found a similar one in his room.

Guess it's time to bring out the weapons of mass destruction...