Michelle Ray Cox

A personal blog
Michelle Ray Cox
  • About Michelle Ray Cox
  • Tag: Canon City

    • There Is Hope For The World

      Posted at 10:59 pm by Michelle Ray Cox, on May 21, 2012

      “The Boys” at Tunnel Drive, Canon City

      If our future is our young people, I’m here to tell you that there is hope for our world.

      We had four young men as our guests this week. My nephew Paul brought three of his friends for a graduation celebration trip. All four have graduated from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. That is something of an accomplishment nowadays. I know a lot of young people struggle with college, many start and stop several times before they get through the process. I give them all a lot of credit.

      But many don’t even try. They are too busy getting high and sleeping until 2:00 in the afternoon to even think about college and their future. And some are in a minimum wage job because they are waiting on a court hearing to find out if they are going to jail or not. Several of my friend’s kids are in this situation. These are kids that have been brought up right. Their parents are successful, moral people. It’s like their kids get a big ole dose of stupid somewhere between age 12 and 14 and they are going to completely submerge themselves in stupid for a couple of years. Some of them never get out of it.

      But “the boys” as Keely called them are good kids. These are young men that any parent would be proud of. They were polite. They thanked me after every meal that I cooked. They told me that they loved our house. They told me Keely was really cute and really smart. They told me they thought I was in my mid 40’s. They cleaned up their own mess. They listened when I got Steve to talk about some of his war stories from work and show them pictures. In other words, they did everything right. Paul didn’t even say anything when I was driving his 2WDrive Jeep on rocky paths that weren’t even roads trying to find our way out of Red Canyon. He did hold his breath a lot though.

      Their first day I took them to Red Canyon. It gave them a chance to see some awesome scenery and adjust to the altitude. We climbed on some rocks and hiked a bit, then went into town to eat at “The Owl”. A drive on Skyline Drive and then we headed home. Dinner on the deck, then they cleaned up and went into Canon City to check out the nightlife. Evidently there is some nightlife, because they didn’t get in until 3am.

      They went whitewater rafting on Thursday. They had met a “river rat” in Canon City the night before so they decided to go with him. Evidently Dominic decided to see just how cold the Arkansas River is and went head first into the water. Paul helped pull him back in and they all got really wet. Steve took them up in the plane that evening so they got to see the Royal Gorge from the air as well as rafting under it. They came home to a spectacular sunset. It was great sitting out on the deck that night listening to them talk all over each other describing how awesome it all was.

      Friday we took the top off the jeep, loaded up our friend Boris and one of “the boys” into the jeep. The other guys took the 4WD truck with no air conditioning or radio. We piled tents, sleeping bags, leftover brisket and baked beans and lots of bottles of water into the bed of the truck. Then we took off for the Great Sand Dunes National Park.

      We went up to Westcliffe, then over to State 559. Then we went off road into the San Isabel Forest and later the Sand Dunes National Forest. It took us about four hours to go 30 miles.

      The weather was perfect, and the guys had never done anything like that road before. We drove over rocks, went splashing through streams, bounced all over the place in the vehicles and just had a blast.

      Offroading to the Dunes


      We got to the Dunes, the boys dropped off their camping stuff, and then we drove to Alamosa. We discovered Calvillos Mexican Restaurant on our last trip. They serve a buffet. I’m not usually a fan of buffets, but this one is really unusual. They have dishes made out of cactus that I can’t begin to pronounce. All I know is that it was all really good and you can have all the sopapillas and honey that you can eat. Now you have to understand, Steve is not a “foodie”. He always rates what I cook on a scale of 1 to 4. Mostly I get 3’s and 4’s. If he gives something a 2 that recipe goes in the trash. He raved about the food at this place, even took pictures of it and posted about it on Face book. He has never done that before. So of course we all had the buffet. Boris, who is from Guatemala, said he was going to be coming back real soon. He also found out that the chef is Guatemalan, so maybe that is the difference with the food. It’s not the typical Tex/Mex that we are used to that’s for sure.

      Sunday morning we had breakfast and then they all piled into the jeep for the 12 hour ride home. Lots of hugs. I’m going to miss them.

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      Posted in Uncategorized | 0 Comments | Tagged Calvillos Mexican Restaurant, Canon City, Great Sand Dunes National Part, red canyon, Skyline Drive, Tunnel Drive, white water rafting
    • Fear and Adrenaline

      Posted at 7:24 am by Michelle Ray Cox, on May 2, 2012

      Kayla, Allie and Nicky at Red Canyon

      We have some new daughters now, we call them “The Asian Chicks”.  Actually that is what they call themselves.

      Nicky is a fighter.  I mean a real fighter like in kickboxing.  She hasn’t gone pro because she wants to keep it as a hobby, but training and fighting are what her days revolve around.    I met her at Danny Dring’s several years ago.  We didn’t talk a whole lot, mostly because I didn’t have a lot of breath after working out in one of his classes.   We actually started talking more the last couple of months I was still in Little Rock than the couple of years before.  Isn’t it funny how that happens?  When you know you aren’t going to see someone on a routine basis you start talking a lot more.

      I got an email from Nicky a couple of months ago asking if my invite to come visit was still open.  And could she bring a couple of friends?  Spring Break?

      So we hosted Nicky, Kayla and her sister Allie for a week.  Kayla and Allie are part Thai.  Nicky is Filipino.  Kayla is actually a professional kick boxer.  All three girls are sweet and fun and drop dead gorgeous.

      Steve now has a new nickname…STEVE O!  Always with an exclamation mark.  I think he is ok with it, it’s better than the special nickname that Keely has come up with.  I’m not permitted to tell anyone that one and she is the only person in the whole world that can call him that.

      When we were driving to Salida we got into a conversation about dinosaurs.  Nicky had us all laughing until we cried about some of her comments and questions.  That’s when I came up with my special name for her…”The Incognito Blond”.  If you know Nicky, you’ll understand why that is a really good nickname for her.

      Here is what those girls did in one week

      Sleep (OK, they had to get over jet lag and fatigue from messed up flights, plus the altitude out here takes some getting used to)

      Snowboarding at Monarch

      White Water Rafting in Canon City

      Zip line in Salida

      Skydiving in Penrose

      Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs

      Hiked Red Canyon and Skyline Drive

      Steve and I didn’t participate in the skydiving or snowboarding, but we did all the other stuff with them.  And we had a blast.

      I wasn’t too sure about the skydiving adventure.  But I figured they were all adults and they could make their own decisions.  So I took a lot of pictures and video.  They all said that skydiving was one of the highlights of the trip.

      The next week someone died skydiving at our airport.  The skydiving master that Kayla jumped with was critically injured and his jumper died.  Obviously one of my first thoughts was that it could have been one of my girls.  I can’t imagine what it would have been like to see them falling through the air with no parachute.  I can’t imagine what it would have been like for the other two to watch that.  I can’t imagine making a phone call to their parent.

      Look at the list of things that we did.  Death or injury was possible in every single one.  Well, driving through Garden of the Gods is a bit of a stretch but we could have had a car wreck going to or from.

      There is something about risk, about danger, that gets the adrenaline going and makes us feel alive.  Nicky was much more of a risk taker than Kayla, Allie and me when it comes to jumping around on rocks.  She is a lot like Steve actually and I had to go into Mom Mode a several times and tell her “no you may not jump 10 feet from one rock to another!”

      Everybody has their own threshold of fear and an acceptable ratio of fear to excitement.  Some people live here and have never been whitewater rafting, while I’ve been 7 or 8 times.  They have looked at the stats, evaluated the risk, and decided not to try it.  And that is ok.

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      Kayla, Allie and Nicky after skydiving

      I see people jumping out of airplanes at our little airport down the road from us almost every day.  Watching the girls jump made me strongly consider doing it.  In fact, Steve and I talked about it a couple of weeks before when we met the owner of the new skydiving business at the airport.  We talked about it again after visiting with him last week and talking about the tragic accident.  Bottom line is it is a sport, with inherent risks.  And we may give it a try.  Sometime.

      Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments | Tagged Canon City, danny dring, hiking, kickboxing, monarch ski, penrose, red canyon, skydiving, snowboarding, white water rafting, zip line
    • New Year’s Day Hiking

      Posted at 12:10 am by Michelle Ray Cox, on January 3, 2012

      One of my favorite things to do in Little Rock was climb Pinnacle Mountain and run around the base trail. My love affair with Pinnacle began when I started the UBBT (Ultimate Black Belt Test) in 2009. One of the requirements of the test was participation in an Eco Adventure which would involve a lot a hiking. While I was pretty good at gym conditioning, I had not done a lot of outdoor hiking. I had to overcome some fears about heights and falling to my death, but with a lot of persistence and some encouragement from Steve I got there.

      On New Year’s Day in 2010 we climbed Pinnacle with a few of my TKD students and Keely.

      Yesterday, New Year’s Day 2012 found us in Red Rock Canyon. What a contrast to just two years before. We now live in Colorado and cannot believe how lucky we are to call this beautiful state home. Keely has become much more experienced at hiking and climbing and she doesn’t whine much at all. I don’t feel like crawling on all fours instead of walking when the rocks get steep. We have done some really fabulous hikes all over the country but there really wasn’t great areas close to home.

      Of course some things are not going to change. Keely and Steve are still going to scare the crap out of me getting way to close to the edge of a cliff with a 600 foot drop. I’m not ever going to be the chick on the TV commercial that wants to climb that needle-like rock a gazillion feet in the air.

      My surgeon told me when I had hip replacement that I would never be able to run again. That didn’t really upset me; running has never been my thing even when I was doing 40 miles a week. I just thought it was plain boring really.
      Then I found that I loved running the base trails at Pinnacle. For some reason trail running doesn’t make my hip feel like it’s coming out of its socket like running on pavement does. I love the challenge of dodging rocks, jumping over obstacles, ducking under branches, knowing that if I fall it is going to hurt like hell. There were some trails around here that were ok…but nothing really great.

      I haven’t found a place I connected with like Pinnacle Mountain until yesterday.

      This New Year’s Day we found Red Rock Canyon (thank you Paula!) Rock Canyon is breathtaking, similar to Garden of the Gods but without the tourists. We spent three hours there yesterday, Keely in tow and joined by Steve’s coworker Mark. There are lots of dirt roads and trails, and beautiful red rock formations to climb. The park is huge and the terrain is varied, and it’s just outside of Canon City.

      I am in heaven

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      Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment | Tagged Canon City, Colorado, hiking, Red Rock Canyon, UBBT
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