Air Force Academy, Colorado

After we attended the Chapel at the Air Force Academy, we went to Garden of the Gods. It was awesome! It was pure sand stone stacked upon each other like building blocks, and the result was towering, solid boulders. We climbed a couple of them, and then Dad yelled at us to get down. So instead we biked around The Garden.

Remember when I said that we said, “See you again” to the Baileys? Well, we weren’t lying. They drove over and we got our huge hiking bags packed up and then we left to the Stanley Reservoir. We hiked and hiked and finally we were at the Stanley Reservoir. We set up camp, I started a fire, and we went around playing tag and staying up late in the pitch black night. We stayed up very late and then when we went in our tents. I stayed up even later reading my Boy Scout book.

The next morning we were running away from Ben because Ben was being a jerk. We climbed up a steep boulder and when I was trying to find an escape route, I tripped and fell. It was very scary and could have killed me if I didn’t fall on a precarious ledge. It hurt me a lot and I could have broken my foot. I puked a couple of times and my eyes went funny (which in my scout book means I went into a small version of shock), and then Dad helped me down. My mom carried my pack, which made me feel really humiliated when we passed a lot of people. When we reached the bottom, my foot was swollen and I was hungry and tired. We went to Subway and then I went home and watched To Kill a Mocking Bird.


On June 26, 2009 we finished school! To celebrate, we brought Clayton and Spencer Bailey to the 3-meter high dive. It was awesome, but the fun wasn’t over yet! We then brought them bowling and ate dinner there. Then my dad dropped them off at their home.

After that exciting day, we went to another pool with tubes and noodles and torpedoes. We stayed there for hours and played with each other. Next we went trail riding on horseback. I had a quarter horse named China who was the youngest and most energetic. He was the best. The stables had fine horses, but they didn’t take the best, finest care of them. My dad’s horse, Clever, wore down her shoe until it actually fell off!

The next day we went to the Royal Gorge. The Royal Gorge is a giant gorge in the earth that was over 1,000 ft. deep. Its deep, chilling gorge made me uncertain. But we went over it in a tram and went to the petting zoo, saw a rare white, not albino, bison, some rams, and elk.

But the fun was yet to begin! We waited in line about an hour. Then they strapped Ben, Sam and me into harnesses, clicked us onto a bungee cord, raised us about 190 ft., and then flung us over the now-1200 ft. gorge!. My ears popped, the wind was whooshing through my hair, and we went back and forth until we didn’t have enough momentum to keep going.

The next day we went to the Galvin’s new home. It is in the Rockies and is big enough for the Besch Family! We stayed there for a while and visited, and then went to the stables where their three horses were. We then walked around a lake, with Sam flirting with Shelby along the way. We also went canoeing, and we went twice as far as we were supposed to. We then went to a Chinese restaurant for dinner, said good bye, and then left.

This morning we went over to the archery range and I found out, thanks to Mr. Doug, that I am a lefty for archery. This is because I am left eye dominant. Then we bought a compound bow from a nice boy named Chase.

Air Force Academy, Colorado

After the Bowen’s house we drove over to the Bailey’s new house! It was fantastic! It was enormous! We played at their park for hours until we got hungry and had some wonderful lasagna made by Mrs. Bailey. We then watched the Dark Night, the new batman movie, and then had the sleepover. We told jokes and played together until we were too tired to lift our arm. The next day we played at the park some more. We then went home to meet my mom and dad, said our goodbyes and see you agains, and left. The next day we woke up, got in our fancy clothes, and went to the Air Force Academy Chapel. It was a beautiful chapel and the sermon was great also.


On Father’s Day, we went to Pike’s Peak. It is a 14,010 ft. mountain, and you can drive to the top. It is extraordinarily pleasurable. We saw lots of wildlife. I saw a female mule deer and a raven and hawks and lots of other nature. People even skied at the top of the peak!

Leavenworth, KS and Colorado Springs, CO

June 9
We drove a while and finally arrived at a campground in Leavenworth, Kansas. We felt a little unsafe there because there was a huge jail. There were lots of bums scattered around the campground, and since there is a jail, there are prisoner’s families there. We locked everything up and went to the house of my best friend in Texas, Olivia Galvin. Mr. and Mrs. Galvin were truly kind and hospitable, and Olivia has a 14 year-old sister named Shelby. We had a wonderful meal of ham, corn, beans and lemonade. We played with them for a long time outside and I loved the REC room. We had a sleepover and stayed up playing games like Guitar Hero and Mario Brawl.
The next day we were all walking to the park together and I almost stepped on a little bird. It didn’t look injured, but it seemed to me that he jumped out of his nest a little too soon. We caught and fed him and soon he wasn’t scared of us at all. We were going to the museum, so we put him in their garden and told him to stay and then walked around town. We saw the Missouri River and went to the Ft. Leavenworth Museum. We saw mountain Howitzers that they pack on three mules, the fire cart, the police cart, weapons back then and a whole bunch more. We walked back, Olivia telling us about Suicide Hill and how great sledding there is in the winter, and we came back and our little bird was sitting just about where it was before! We played a little longer together and then said goodbye. I didn’t want to leave, but I had to.

We drove a long way, through lots of wheat fields, and finally arrived in Colorado!! We then drove through lots of farmland and saw lots of ranches (which I would be overjoyed to live at) and arrived at the Air Force Academy RV camp. We did some school and called it a night. The next couple of days we did school at the library, and then we got a visit from the Baileys, our great friends that we had back in Alaska. We played cops and robbers in the woods for a couple of hours, then, just like in the movies, crossed a huge log that just happened to be right across the river. We walked to a little sign on the other side of the river saying “Treasure Island, STAY AWAY!” Naturally, as Besches, we of course didn’t stay away and instead explored the place until we got hungry and went home for sausages. We went to a park afterwards and had to share it with some real crud that cussed every other sentence. We said goodbye and see you again to the Bailey’s, and went to sleep.

It turned out that another one of our Alaskan friends was preaching at a church nearby. We packed up and soon were on the road, driving to the church. About an hour later we were at the church listening to Mr. Gene Raiford preaching about how we change so much. It was great and at the end we were downstairs chatting with Mr. Gene and his wife, Ms. Ronda. I met a man who could rock on the guitar, and he taught me some basics on the guitar like a G, E, E minor, C, F, D, A, and A minor. It was really great and I’m probably going to start practicing on and off.

After that we got back into the car and started driving to a ranch for the day. My dad worked with Mr. Roger about 17 years ago. He has a very kind wife named Ms. Sue and we went to work building a garden in their back yard. First we took some BIG logs and put them into Mr. Roger’s Bobcat and brought them to the will-be-garden. We took them and put them so it would make a rectangle shape. Then we put down a screen on the bottom to keep the prairie dogs out and stapled it to the logs. Mr. Roger then, (with Sam driving it) brought fertile soil to the garden and we started shoveling it in there. We then leveled it and planted strawberry plants!



We then got to drive his four wheeler, his bobcat, and one of his two horses named Dusty! We had an awesome dinner where all he did was take the pot of shrimp, sausage, corn and potatoes, and literally dumped it on the table. It was a remarkable dinner because you couldn’t not make a mess! It was great!

We went back to our cozy little home for the night. The next day we went to visit more friends! These were Alaskan friends. We lived right next door from them for one year in Alaska. Colonel Bowen was nice and funny and Ms. Kristin was very hospitable. Little 8-year-old Carmen was practically Sam’s best friend in Alaska. They had a retired Grey hound named Polly. We took her for a run in their back yard and it was the fastest dog I ever saw! We played with Carmen and had more dinner! I swear, we could easily live off of our friends’ dinners. Bye!

Iowa and Liberty, Missouri

June 2, 2009

We drove a long while in our coach, and finally stopped at an ice rink in a huge mall in Iowa! We skated there and ate while my dad got the RV in a campground. We spent the night at that campground and the next morning went on a jog. It was a great campground with wifi and awesome landscaping. Afterwards we packed up and drove to the Conge’s house.

The Conges are really nice people who I played with when I was a baby. The parents, Mr. Mike and Mrs. Susan, were very hospitable and let us have three sleep over’s in a row with their children, Mac, who I used to play with at a very early age, and Christine, who was Robby’s friend when young. We played outside and went jogging with their yellow lab, Duke and liked to play on their trampoline.