Spring Has Sprung…For Now

Ah, the sound of songbirds early in the morning. Buds on the trees. Daffodils breaking through the soil….These are all signs of Spring but nothing is more telling about the departure of Old Man Winter and the arrival of that sweet nymph of Spring than the relative position of my snow blower and lawn mower in the garage.

The picture in the upper left shows the lawn mower promoted to a position of prominence in the front of my garage whilst the snow blower is now relegated to a back corner along with the snow shovels. If that is not a sure sign of spring, I don’t know what is.

Oh, we may still get some snow but my experience is that anything we get now will either not stick to paved surfaces or if it does it will melt in a couple of hours. If I weren’t reasonably sure of this, the lawn mower would never have been moved to the front of the garage.

Speaking of the lawn mower, I have to give credit where credit is due. This piece of Sears/Craftsman machinery is about 16 years old now. Unlike children of the same age, it has never been to the lawn mower doctor. It hasn’t had an accident or been pulled over by the police. It’s appetite is downright bulimic. The only thing it consumes besides some of my time, is a tiny amount of gasoline and in those sixteen years, about one quart of oil! To top it all off, it responds to me without argument in no more that two pulls of the starter cord…..every time, for sixteen years. If children could only be like this lawn mower, the world would be a far better place!!!

Even though spring has sprung life is not all green grass and daffodils. There’s still some iffy weather to contend with and unfortunately we will have some of that this weekend, just in time to threaten The Circle’s first Circle The Wagons camping trip. From this weeks highs in the 70’s with brilliant skies, we will descend into the low 60’s with rain.

The good news is that the campground is just minutes from the house at Chatfield State Park. Too Tall-Two Timing, Guitar and myself, his-self, made reservations for camping over a month ago. We knew the weather could be iffy but we decided that if nothing else we would watch movies, have some great dinners and conversation and generally chill out.

Since my trailer is the largest, The Bride and I will host the main dinner on Saturday night. The Bride has chosen an Italian theme for the dinner and we may precede the dinner with a showing of one of my favorite movies, The Big Night. It’s a relatively unknown film but is a great story and contains wonderful Italian music from the 1950’s. It should certainly get us in the mood for some Italian food. Check back next week for a report on our adventure.

Here’s some other signs of the springing of Spring in my yard today…

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for visiting.

Winter’s Last Gasp?

This was the scene when I got up this morning. Another spring storm is blowing through the mountains and across the eastern plains. Just one last reminder from Mother Nature that she is in complete control and even though most everywhere else spring is in full bloom, only SHE will decide when we can put away the ski parkas and snow blowers!

She has been teasing us over the last few weeks but as the weeks pass the teasing becomes more bearable. Three weeks ago we would have three or four days of winter weather with one or two nice days. The situation now is that we get three or four days of nice weather followed by one or two of not so nice.

This system will be long gone by this afternoon and by tomorrow there will be absolutely no trace of the snow you see in the pictures here. It’s a little different in the mountains however. They are getting anywhere from a foot to two feet of snow out of this…..and that’s the way it should be. That’s why God made mountains. They are supposed to get huge quantities of snow which equates to water for us down in the lower elevations. Colorado weather is a marvel. Look at the pictures above and then look at the prognostication for the rest of the week.

If you remember from an earlier post, during the last storm my snow blower self destructed and I had to order a very expensive piece of small plastic to get it back working again. Well I received the part and installed it and everything appears to be working fine. Even though this snow will be gone by this afternoon without any help from me, I think I will fire up the snow blower just to be sure is works. It would be a bummer next fall at the first big storm to find out that the snow blower isn’t working right!

On the household front, The Bride and I are preparing to have our kitchen upgraded with granite countertops. We have lived in this house for 14 years now and still have the original Formica countertops which we have never liked. We have spent the last six weeks or so looking at different materials for both the countertops and backsplash. The sheer number of possibilities is truly amazing but The Bride finally has found a combination that she likes and we will meet with the contractor tomorrow to finalize the project.

I’m currently refining some of my travel plans for next month. On my last trip to Arizona I had planned on visiting Canyon de Chelly (pronounce canyon de shay). The same Mother Nature I referred to in the beginning of this post had other ideas however, and I never made it. This destination has actually been on my “to do” list for several years but it’s pretty remote and the weather window for a pleasant trip is pretty narrow.

During the first week of May I will be participating in a Passport in Time project just west of Taos, NM. That’s about half way to Canyon de Chelly from the Denver area. So, my current plan is that after the Passport in Time project I’ll continue south and west to Canyon de Chelly and spend two days there before heading back home. The weather should be perfect by then and the rest of the summer is already pretty well booked up with other adventures so I’m thinking this is a good plan.

Thanks for visiting.

Visions Of Springs Past

First of all the weather shamans were mercifully wrong on their forecast for last Saturday. We got a dusting of snow, but nothing really stuck to the road and driveway surfaces. This was one time I was happy that they got it wrong!

Sunday it started to warm up and it has been absolutely beautiful since then…so beautiful that yesterday I got a severe case of road trip fever. Since it’s still too early to try a trip to the mountains I decided on a day trip to the Eastern Plains of Colorado. For some time I have been wanting to investigate a small ghost town that I read about that’s about 150 miles southeast of the Denver area.  It’s a long drive but it was just what the soul craved. Miles of deserted road and visions of springs past.

Aroya began it’s life as a small railroad camp for workers laying track for the Kansas and Pacific line. The name itself is a bastardization of the Spanish word arroyo for “gulch” and the town was built next to a gulch.

The heyday of Aroya was around 1912 when it boasted a dozen or more businesses including a hotel, a blacksmith shop, a school and several mercantile stores.

The town went steadily downhill from there on. The Great Depression took it’s toll and by the 1970’s there were just two old men living there. The last resident, “Red” Morland, the son of one of the town’s pioneers died some years ago and Aroya became a true ghost town.

The town sits about a half mile off a main state highway (the fact that the highway bypassed the town also helped in it’s demise) on a lonely dirt road. I arrived just about noontime and the weather was perfect….high 70’s, sunny with a stiff breeze. A lot of the town land is now private, so I did not have total access to all of the buildings but it was enough to make the trip well worth the while. The private part belongs to the J.O.D. ranch. The ranch is historic in itself, having it’s start in 1866 and continuing to this day as a real cattle ranch.

I spent well over an hour wandering around thinking about springs past. Imagining the residents of Aroya going about their business. Thinking about their struggles and their hopes for the future. Children were born here, grew up, married, had children of their own and died. This place is more than a bunch of broken down old buildings. It was a vibrant community that is now gone. As cars speed by a half mile away they have no idea that this place exists….but I do.

Driving back home I went through numerous other small prairie towns that were saved from Aroya’s fate because the highway didn’t bypass them; Hugo, Limon, Simla, Ramah and Callahan. At each and every one I took the time to turn off the main street and explore the “guts” of these old towns. Each had their own memories of springs past.

It was late afternoon when I returned home. The road trip fever has been tamped down for a short while….but there are other ghost towns on the Eastern Plains that I think I need to “discover”.

Thanks for visiting.

Same Ole Same Ole

So we got 12-15” of snow early in the week and then we had two days of nice weather (high 50’s). Time for another storm! This one is not supposed to be as bad but the weather shamans are saying I may be looking at 5-10” on the ground by tomorrow morning. I hope they’re wrong this time because I haven’t gotten the parts for my snow blower yet and anything that ends up in the driveway will have to be dealt with manually.

While I don’t really mind the winters here or the snow, this time of year it’s hard because of the teasing that Mother Nature does. It would be one thing if it were just crappy weather all month long but the Spring weather that is wedged between the frequent storms gets my hopes up that it will be an early end to the snow and it will be RV season again.

Hopefully, this storm will be the last of any consequence because The Circle is planning on a Circle The Wagons camping trip in three weeks. This will be a local camp out at Chatfield State Park which is only a couple of miles from here…..about 8 miles to be exact.

The picture at the top of the post is a shot from the roof of my trailer “Bivouac”. It not only shows some of the snow left from the last storm but It shows the new wiring job on my solar panel. The original wiring was located under the panel and went through the roof and towards the back of the trailer. This new wiring goes to the front of the trailer and down the plumbing vent stack in the middle front of the roof.

The picture to the right shows the new Tristar TS45 Solar Controller installed in the basement storage area. The battery compartment is behind the wall to the left of the controller and the red “knob” on the left of the picture is a Perko battery cutoff switch that allows me to shut off or disconnect the batteries when the trailer is stored. That prevents the batteries from being completely discharged by things like the fire and CO2 alarms that cannot be turned off inside the trailer. 

Finally the picture to the left shows the remote meter that is installed inside the trailer. This digital display tells me all sorts of information about the charge state of the batteries, how much charge the solar panel is providing to the batteries and how much electricity is being used by all the electric things inside the trailer. It will also track this information over time. Cool stuff!

I expect that to be able to boondock for extended periods I’ll need at least one more solar panel but before I spend the money for that I will spend some time testing out the one panel system. The good news is that there is plenty of room on the roof for several more panels and it’s simple to add panels to the base system I now have.

Thanks for visiting.

A Typical March In Colorado

It was in the 70’s two days ago and even yesterday morning was pleasant. Yesterday afternoon however a storm blew in and for much of the evening it was blizzard conditions here. By the time it all ended at mid day today we had 10-15” of wet, heavy snow on the ground.

How do I know it was “heavy”? Well about 3/4 of the way through snow blowing the driveway the snow blower quit. Not the motor but the wheels and the auger. Seems as if there is a little  $0.50 plastic piece that keeps the control cables for the wheel drive and auger in the exact spot it needs to be to have the proper tension to work…..that broke.

That unfortunate breakage meant that I had to do the rest of the job manually. I haven’t done that in a while and the last time I did do it, the snow was our standard Colorado champagne powder which is exceedingly light and easy to move…if it’s not 3 feet deep.

My normal thorough and neat job….wasn’t today. I did the bare minimum to get by and I still think I’ll be a little sore tomorrow morning.

Now back to the snow blower. I pulled out the parts diagram and called Sears to see about ordering a replacement. The good news is that I can. The bad news is I can’t just get the $0.50 part but have to buy $30.00 worth of other parts to get that tiny little plastic part! While I’m pretty peeved about that there was no doubt in my mind that I would spend that much if I had to to get the snow blower back in operation. Before I called the parts center I checked all the miscellaneous junk I have in the basement trying to figure a way to jerry rig a fix and to my disappointment could not come up with a plan. So Sears has now got my $30.

The roads were so bad around here this morning that I decided to drive The Emmer to work. I’m glad I did because it was pretty slick at 5:30 am. Heavy wet snow is a different driving experience than champagne powder and The Emmer doesn’t have experience in the heavy wet stuff. The snow stopped and the sun came out right about noon and as of now (3pm) the main streets are clear and dry. Some of the side streets have a bit of snow left but that’s melting fast.

I mentioned that the weather yesterday morning was fair and pleasant and it was. I decided to go down to the RV storage lot and check the progress on the solar system upgrades I mentioned in my last post. They were just in process of finishing the last part of the job and everything looks great. I’ll report more on that at a later date.

The other reason for going to the RV lot was to replace some of the light bulbs in the trailer. I’ve got quite a few lights in this trailer and while that’s a good thing for being able to see, the light bulbs use a lot of power and put out a lot of heat. I’ve been investigating the possibility of replacing the incandescent and halogen bulbs with LED light sources. LED bulbs use very little power, produce almost no heat and last a very long time.

The picture to the right is one of the LEDs that I used. It goes in a recessed light fixture and produces almost the same amount of light as the halogen bulb that is currently in the fixture. It’s a simple swap out of bulbs so it’s an easy project.

I replaced four bulbs yesterday and if I’m happy with them I will replace all the rest of the bulbs both inside and outside the trailer with LEDs.

Thanks for visiting.

Waiting For Spring

Not much to report this week. We are now in the swing weather period here on the front range of the Rockies. We had a little snow on Sunday and today the high will be around 70. Friday night another cold system moves in and there is a chance of a lot of snow with lows in the teens on Saturday. While I enjoy the days of good weather it’s tough to be teased with a touch of spring, knowing that things are still pretty iffy weather wise for an RV trip….that is unless I want to head to Arizona again.

Because the weather was so nice today, I went down to the RV lot and installed two vent covers on Bivouac. I bought these covers over a month ago but just haven’t gotten around to installing them. These covers allow you to open the roof vents when it’s raining and not get water inside the rig. I have installed covers like these on every RV I have owned and they are well worth the money and effort to install.

While at the lot I made arrangements with the service department to do some work on my solar system. The trailer came with one 100w solar panel and a solar controller to convert the energy from the panel to 12v electricity and then charge the two marine batteries that power the lights, run the fan to the heater and move the slides in and out when I’m not hooked up to shore power. Unfortunately, the manufacturer of the trailer is not an expert in solar power and the system really was sub-par because of the type of solar controller that was used and the distance of the controller to the batteries.

Over the last few months I have read a lot about solar power for RVs and decided to redesign and upgrade my system. I bought a new solar controller and a couple of accessories that will make it even more efficient and figured out a way that I could position the controller just a foot or so away from the batteries. The current controller is about 25 feet away from the batteries and in solar power, distance is an enemy. I will also install much heavier wire than the factory installed wire. All of this should mean that my one solar panel will be much more efficient and should keep my two batteries fully charged most of the time. My ultimate plan is to add one or two more panels later on.

On the adventure front….not much is happening right now but I’m arranging for some adventures when the weather turns. The latest is a couple of projects for the Colorado Division of Wildlife. The first will be pretty mundane but it will offer me a chance to see a state wildlife area I have never been to before. I have volunteered to help clean up the Bosque del Oso Wildlife Area in late April. This 30,000 acre wildlife area is about 40 miles west of Trinidad, CO. I’m sure we won’t get to all 30,000 acres and will probably concentrate on the parking areas. My plan is to go down a day or so early and explore the area.

The second project will happen in the middle of May. I have signed up to help patrol the Mountain Plover nesting area at John Martin Reservoir in southeast Colorado. May is nesting time for the Mountain Plover and they build their nests on the ground in the sand around lakes and ponds. While they are not endangered by government definition, their numbers have declined seriously. John Martin Reservoir is a popular State Park and visitors to the park can disrupt the nesting activity so my job will be to interact with visitors to the park and explain why they can’t go into the nesting areas. I have committed to a week for this project and the Division of Wildlife will provide me with a camping spot with power and water hookups. Sounds like fun and I’m looking forward to it.

Thanks for visiting.

Fishing at Tarryall and Devil’s Head Hike

Wednesday I decided to head to the mountains and see if the snow was gone around Tarryall Reservoir. Just in case it was I brought my fishing rods and my belly boat. I left at about 9 am and was at the reservoir by 10:15. All of the snow in the South Park area where the reservoir is, was clear of snow and things are greening up nicely.

It was a gorgeous day but a bit windy so I didn’t even think about using the belly boat. Instead I fished from shore using my ultralite spinning rod and a trusty #1 Mepps lure. The reservoir is stocked with rainbow and Snake River cutthroat trout and the limit is four fish per day. I had my limit within an hour so for the rest of the day I explored the Forest Service roads around the reservoir. I found a lot of good camping areas but many would be inaccessible in my RV because the roads were pretty rough. The Picture above is of one of the campsites I found. Talk about a great view!! I headed home about 2 pm pretty satisfied with myself.

The weather cooled down a bit on Friday with temps in the upper 60’s. Perfect hiking weather so I headed for a very popular hike about 30 miles from home. Devil’s Head Trail leads to the last manned fire tower in Colorado. Friday was the first day the trail was open after the winter season. I didn’t know that when I left but as I made the last turn down the Forest Service road, the ranger was just removing the barricade and the “Closed” sign. I would have been a mad guy if I drove all that way to find the road closed!

The road into the trailhead was closed though and I had to park about a half mile from the start of the trail. That made the hike 4 miles round trip with an elevation gain of 1300 feet. That is a pretty steep climb and coming down isn’t easy either but the scenery is worth the effort.

Once at the summit of the trail you can then climb the ladder up to the fire tower itself. That’s another 143 steps pretty much straight up. The fire tower itself had not yet opened for the season but I was able to walk around the outside and see the 360 degree panorama. A beautiful, beautiful sight and icing on the cake for the hike.

I spent about an hour at the tower, had a leisurely lunch and took a bunch of pictures before heading back down.

When I was hiking up and while at the tower I only saw two other people but by the time I started down, I passed more and more people on the way up. My timing this day was great! I was however one tired puppy by the time I got back to the car and this morning my calf muscles are complaining loudly! The going down part used muscles that I obviously need to exercise more.

Next week I’ll begin preparations for our trip to Moab. Have I mentioned that? The Ladder Lady is coming in for a visit and The Bride and I are taking her to Moab with the rest of The Circle for our annual trip. I’ll drive my RV on Tuesday and Ladder Lady and The Bride will follow on Wednesday in a car. This will be a trip a great one so stay tuned.

Thanks for visiting.

An Afternoon Hike

The cloudy weather of the past week is finally beginning to break and I wanted to get out and do a hike. I recently purchased a new pair of hiking boots and I was looking for an opportunity to break them in before the summer gets here. I also wanted to do some photography work so I headed to Roxborough State Park, about 10 miles from home.

It’s a great place to hike, and watch the wildlife. Wildlife includes numerous birds, mule deer, foxes, coyotes, mountain lion……….and black bears. Boy, did I get my chance at both wildlife viewing and photography! About 3/4 of the way around the trail I was hiking, I spotted the bear in the picture to the left. It walked out of the bushes on the right of the trail. The wind was blowing directly in his face so he immediately picked up my scent and turned to inspect me….less than 100 yards away. I’m not sure whether it was a boar or a sow but I didn’t see any cubs. That was actually my biggest worry, that there would be cubs around somewhere because a mother bear with cubs can be very unpredictable and aggressive. Fortunately this bear was alone and after giving me the good once over it turned and continued on it’s way.

After that adrenaline rush I just kept smiling to myself. In over 13 years of hiking here I’ve only seen a bear once before and that was at a considerable distance. This was a great encounter. We both, the bear and I, got something interesting to look at and we both got a nice walk!

I continued the hike and saw some mule deer and was able to get a couple of good landscape shots that made respectable HDR photo’s, if I do say so myself.

Today will be gorgeous, 80’s and clear so I’m headed to the mountains with my fishing rod and camera. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to fish but I want to be prepared just in case.

 

 

 

 

Thanks for visiting.

Dancing At The Prairie Chicken Fair

The title of this post is a take off on a classic western novel by Ivan Doig, Dancing At The Rascal Fair. There’s not really any connection but it seemed like a spiffy title and I really enjoyed the book!

To get back to the story of the Lesser Prairie Chickens, I battened down the RV hatches and went to bed at about 9pm on Wednesday with instructions from Norma to be ready to go at 4:30 am the next morning. I haven’t had a “special” time to get up in the morning since I retired. Even when I was a working stiff I almost never used an alarm clock. I was always able to set an alarm clock in my mind and wake up at whatever time I needed to be awake.

This time however I needed to make sure I was up and ready so I brought along an alarm clock and set it for 3:45 am. I was nervous that something would go wrong and either the alarm wouldn’t work or I’d sleep through it….Shouldn’t have worried. Between a fierce wind that blew all night long and rocked the RV more than I’ve ever experienced before, and my constant checking of the time, I got very little sleep and finally just got up at about 3:30 am.

By 4:30 am the wind had died down and Norma and I headed out in her pickup truck to the lek we were going to watch this day. For whatever reason I was the only customer this day so I really got the personalized treatment. As we approached the lek it got overcast and foggy. Norma said that the Prairie Chickens might not be active because of the weather and I got this sinking feeling. Within a couple of minutes however we could hear the birds calling to one another in the dark.

Sure enough, as soon as it was light enough to see we could see six males about 50 yards away doing their daily dance. Each male had staked out a territory and every couple of minutes another male would come running into the others territory all puffed up with tail spread and ear feathers pointing to the sky. The two males would circle each other squawking pejoratives about the others mother or some such insult and jump up and down in front of each other. After about 30 seconds of this they would back off and sit down in the grass facing each other. After a rest of a minute or two they would break off and go challenge one of the other Prairie Chickens. 

We stayed in the same spot and watched the display for about two hours. I took a ton of pictures but because the lighting was pretty poor and I was shooting at maximum telephoto distance, a lot of the pictures were not in complete focus. All the while we were watching, Norma kept up a commentary about the birds, their habits and habitat. She said she was worried for the survival of these birds because they cannot tolerate humans. They won’t nest or exist within a mile of human activity or even a building. The government currently pays landowners not to develop areas so that the birds will have some habitat but Norma said that this program expires this year. She said the landowners that are paying taxes on the land have to make some money from the land in order to pay the taxes. She feared that the few areas of habitat left would be farmed or ranched without the government program.

I feel privileged that I was able to see this natural curiosity and watch these incredible birds. I hope that next year I can bring The Bride to see it as well.  We were back at the ranch by 7:30 am and I packed up the RV and headed out for more adventure. Stay tuned and I’ll tell you about the rest of the trip.

Thanks for visiting.

Magic Carpet Ride and Powwow

Two intense days of moving everything I own from room to room, breaking down furniture and putting it back together again, sweating and straining, but it's done. We now have new carpeting in the entire house. You'll have to take my word for it because there are no pictures.

In a way this was more work than moving. We did just about everything you do when you move....except end up in a new city or a new home. All the work but not the payoff of having a new house.

The only real problem was that I had a weight machine in one room that I thought could slide through a doorway into another room while they re-carpeted the exercise room. Wrong. Panic time. I've got to get it out of the room so they can work there and in a hurry. This is one of those weight machines that has a jillion pulleys and cables. There was no easy way to take any major piece off so I just had to start removing bolts and nuts and collapse the thing in one big pile of metal, cables and pulleys. It's gonna take me a month to get the thing back together (if I'm lucky).

The Bride was a trooperette but paid the price. This morning she was pretty sore and stiff.

This morning was my morning to volunteer at the Indian Powwow sponsored by the Tesoro Foundation. It was held on the grounds of The Fort Restaurant. I've posted about The Fort before but it's a replica of an old fur trading post that is located in eastern Colorado. A great venue for this type of event because they have a large outdoor area that overlooks the plains to the east and has views of the red rock formations of the foothills.

My duties this year was to be a "gopher" in the participant area. That meant I was along the side where most of the Indian dancers were set up and right behind (and I mean only 2 feet behind) one group of Indian "singers". A ring side seat!

I had been to one other Powwow at The Fort, last fall. That one was piggy backed on to the Spanish Market, also held there. It was not nearly as well attended as this one was. Today the crowds were thick and there were many, many more Indian Dancers present. Dancers included both men and women.

The costumes were fantastic with lots of color, beads and feathers. Sometimes when two or three participants were dancing close together it was difficult to separate the individuals. All the colors and texture just blended everything together into one colorful mass. Both the picture to the right and the picture at the top of the post illustrate this pretty well.

So, I worked from 10 am till 1 pm. Had a ring side seat for the festivities. Got a free t-shirt. Got a free lunch. It was a beautiful Colorado spring day. Cobalt blue skies with a light breeze and temps in the 70's. Life is very good!!!

Thanks for visiting.

Out Damn You Winter!

It's hanging on by it's fingernails. A couple of nice days and then this yesterday morning. We got about 2 1/2 inches before it was all over and it was all over by noon. By 4 pm there was no sign that it had snowed at all. It will be a few days before the temperature recovers to spring too. It will only be in the 50's today compared to the 70's earlier this week. By this morning this is what my yard looked like.

Earlier this week it was so pretty that I decided to take a hike in Roxborough State Park just to enjoy the day and check to see if any wildflowers were starting to bloom.

It's probably going to be another couple of weeks before the wildflowers start their show at this elevation but there were plenty of deer to watch.

I guess tomorrow marks the honest to goodness start of the wedding process for my oldest daughter CaJenn. She is flying in from the left coast to attend a bridal shower a friend is giving her here in town. I'm not sure if I'm even going to see her on this trip. She's getting in late and will be staying at the friends house in downtown Denver. After the bridal shower they are doing the bachlorette party and she's flying out on Sunday.

We will be hosting the groom's mother at our house tomorrow night so The Bride is in full panic mode over cleaning, preparing, opining, arranging and a zillion other "...ing" things. I have been helping by doing some old fashioned white glove inspection cleaning around the house.

The wedding will be on the left coast in just a little over a month. Last weekend I made arrangements for my tux so I'm set. As father of the bride about all I do is sign checks. That's good news/bad news.

Yesterday, I volunteered again to help at the Tesoro Foundation's Indian Market. This is a combination of a Pow Wow and an art show. This will be the second time I have volunteered for this foundation. It's a fun time and it also gives me the opportunity to learn about southwestern arts. Because I'm volunteering I get a ticket to preview the art before the market itself so if I was in a mind to acquire something I could do it before the general public.

Next week will be pretty busy for us as we are having the carpet replaced in the entire house. The Bride an I will be up to our noses in moving furniture, dishes and the like. After 12 years of kids and teenagers it really needs it....

Thanks for visiting.

I'm Dreaming of a.....Sunny Day

O dark hundred this morning and I'm on my way to the airport to send The Bride off to North Carolina. Dark, windy, snowy....oh what fun. The snow started at about 3 am so by the time I got on the road it was pretty nasty. White knuckles and all, we made it with time to spare and I immediately headed for home.

By the time I got out of the airport it was beginning to get light, which made the driving a little easier but it also meant that the work a day folks were into their commute. Now we all know that if you own an SUV, that means you are exempt from the common sense rules of bad weather driving, right?

I didn't mind sitting in stop and go traffic on a major highway for an hour. Really I didn't....that gave me time to reflect on the utter stupidity of some people.

It looks like this is going to continue through tomorrow and by Monday it will be 70 degrees.....Com-mone Monday! In the meantime I'll just have to catch up on reading.

Oh, a little added bonus for me. I live on the south side of the metro area. Right down there where that purpley color is with the text 6-12". Aren't I lucky?

Thanks for visiting.

A Day Makes a Difference!

Well, it is Colorado and it is March...or almost April. This is the time of year for contrast. We went from the top picture on Saturday, an absolutely glorious spring day, to....


This is what Sunday morning looked like. Not a whole lot of snow and it was gone by the afternoon but is sure is a mood breaker. This morning looks exactly like Sunday. We had another snow last night. Only about an inch but it's cold and dreary.

I took full advantage of Saturday's nice weather and did some modifications to my RV. The major one was to install a vent cover over the fresh air vent in the bedroom. The picture above shows the original vent. It basically is a big hole in the roof with a screen over it. If it rains and the vent is open, guess what, you get wet. You can't take advantage of the vent while the RV is moving either because you're likely to have the vent ripped off by the force of the wind.

If, you install a cover over the vent, you can open it in all but the most severe rain storms and you can also open it while the RV is moving. This is a great way in the summer time to keep the inside cool without using air conditioning. It's a fairly straight forward operation and the cover itself costs less than $20. I had already installed one on the forward vent so I was comfortable with the installation technique. I have two other vents, one over the bathroom and one over the shower. I believe I'll install one more over the shower.

Saturday evening The Bride and I went to dinner at a restaurant close to home. The Old Blinking Light is the second of two restaurants with the same name. The original is in Taos, NM. A pretty nice menu with an informal feel. I had Poblano Relleno with Risotto, Spanish Paprika, Ratatouille and Tomato Buerre Blanc. It was very good with a slow burn on the spice side. When I ordered, the waiter made sure I knew that this was a meatless dish....worked for me.

Because the weather was less than optimal on Sunday I started a chore that I've been planning to do for some time. Bad weather and the fact that The Emmer is out of town made this the perfect opportunity. We finished off the basement about 9 years ago and in that time we've never shampooed the carpet. The Emmer's bedroom is in the basement as well as a dining area and a TV room. About 1100 square feet in all. That was my chore. I've just about finished The Emmer's bedroom and will start on the rest of the space later today....

In other news, the local rag reports that a skier died on the slopes this weekend after crashing into a tree. This is the 14th fatality of the year for skiers and snowboarders in Colorado. This is why I snow shoe and don't ski anymore. At my age I can't get up enough speed on snow shoes to make running into a tree dangerous.

Thanks for visiting.

A Walk in the Park

The past week has not been very post-worthy but today turned out to be a gorgeous Colorado spring day so Guitar and I decided to take a hike. Not the one our spouses have been telling us to do but a "nature" walk at a local state park. Guitar brought along his grand-daughter MK. We left fairly early as this park gets a lot of use because of it's proximity to Denver.

Just because it's close to a major metropolitan area, however, doesn't mean that this would be a wimpy, cutesy nature walk. You can run into some very serious real nature at this park as the picture at the top illustrates. I saw a bear there a couple of years ago and about five years ago a man was attacked by a mountain lion at this park. I'm talkin' serious nature here.

Rather that do a lot of describing, I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves. We had a great time and are looking forward to next month when the wildflowers are in bloom here, a spectacular show!


By the way, you can click on any image to see a larger picture...










Doesn't the picture on the left look like an Indian head laying down?












This rock formation looks like a thumb to me.....

























Thanks for visiting. Oh, yeah, Happy Earth Day.