Another beautiful day in Southern Colorado...piercingly blue skies, light breeze, and low humidity! Yay!! Laura and Tom changed their plans on timing for their raft ride down the Rio Grande from a mid morning run until noon so we decided to not go to Pagosa Springs today, but rather do that on Saturday. That gave us all a slow morning until it was time for them to head to the rafting concession.
 
In the meantime, John and I took a walk to get in some exercise . All in all we are doing OK with the altitude but we have both discovered that we definitely get a little "puffy" if we try to walk at the same speed we are in the habit of going at home (8100 ft. elevation here). Having said that, it still felt good to get out and walk in this beautiful area. We seem to be adapting more each day which is a good thing.
 
Around 11:40 we took Laura and Tom (and Sheeba) in the Big Red Truck to the rafting office to get them signed up (and paid up) to take their self-guided excursion on the Rio Grande. We waited with Sheeba until they took off and then followed them to the drop in point where we took a few pictures. Poor Sheeba was heart broken when her parents left her to the tender mercies of her only recently met grandparents. It took us several minutes to assure her that her folks would be back with her before she knew it. She sadly lay down in the back seat with a look on her face saying that she doubted it and that she for sure wasn't overly impressed with the two she had been left with!
 
We drove back toward South Fork, following the Rio Grande for a few miles before deciding to pull off to an overlook and wait for Laura and Tom to float by . We waited about 20 minutes before we saw them coming coming under a bridge towards us. John got out of the truck and took a few more shots. He called to them but they didn't look up, and apparently didn't hear his voice because of the noise of the river.
 
Leaving them to their watery trek, we drove back into town and picked up lunch from a Mexican restaurant that Laura and Tom had recommended. When John got out of The BIg Red Truck to go in and get take out, Sheeba was once again in the throes of deep sadness because of her desertion by one of the few people left to her in her doggy world. I assured her that "granddaddy" would be back soon. She wasn't convinced of that, but sure enough, before she had enough time to fall too deeply into a state of depression, sure enough John was back!
 
We drove back to camp where we enjoyed our very good lunch, walked Miss Sheeba, and checked email. At 2:30 Laura texted to say that they were at the pick up point and so we headed out to pick them up. Sheeba was ecstatic. All was now right with her world once again. In the meantime, Bourbon was a no show for all of today's activities. He chose to roll up in an afghan and sleep her day away inside the RV instead!
 
Tomorrow we have tickets for a rail road ride up the Rio Grande valley which should be fun. Today has been a good one. Laura and Tom said they had a great time on their ride but would not have wanted it to be a five hour one! I think the river was higher for their ride today than it was for ours a couple of years ago. We spent a good deal of our time bumping our behinds on the river rocks (thus the reason we volunteered to dog and cat sit) but apparently that was not the case today!
 
The Big Red Truck drove approximately 35 miles today.