Last weekend I went to Boulder to meet Elke and her family, fly a little, and visit with my sister who lives nearby in Ft. Collins.  The trip was wonderful with many unexpected pleasures.

When I arrived on Thursday I went straight to Elke’s home to have dinner.  They live in southwest Denver so the drive from the airport was not too long.  I was greeted plenty of warm smiles from the family.  Dinner was delightful and consisted of a excellent barbeque, nice company and great beer!

Elke had arranged for me to fly in the club’s DG-505 with Tom Zoellner on Friday.  I was supposed to meet Tom around 11am but I was late arriving a little after 12 noon.  The sky in the local area was rapidly overdeveloping which meant we had to take a tow about 15 miles into the mountains.  We were able to connect and the flying was really nice over the Continental Divide.  Cloudbase was over 18,000 feet with plenty of Cu and climbs averaging 6 kts.  We were able to fly about 80 miles to the south to Twin Lakes and then back north to Long’s Peak.

We had a great flight covering plenty of ground.

Here are some photos from the flight:

Thank you to Tom for the wonderful flight!

It was a real pleasure to visit with Elke and her family.  I returned to the airport on Saturday with my sister for a short visit.  I got to visit with Bob Epp who is an old friend while he put his plane in the box.

It was a wonderful trip and I am so glad that I was able to meet Elke before she returns to Germany later this summer.