This morning, the clouds were at the 6000ft level. Walsenburg is at the 6185ft level. So, we were fogged in! Not that cold damp kind of fog, but the cotton candy whispy stuff. The sun was trying to peep through the clouds with rose coloured rays. It was a very pleasant drive taking Munchkin Morgan to the bus stop. Keep in mind that this is a rural Colorado bus stop. Morgan goes to school up in Gardner, Colorado because the school is very very good. So, we have a 16 mile trip out to the bus stop.
These photos were taken last October, and the place is a little greener due to all the rains this last couple of weeks.
Looking towards the east
However, as we drove into the bus stop, there were tendrils of fog everywhere. What light came through was rose tinted. My trip home was not as beautiful as the sun had begun to burn off the clouds.
Today was also my second day of work at the Huerfano Chamber of Commerce. I got hired as the secretary on Monday. It’s partime work at the moment. However, I worked there as a volunteer 11 years ago. It is going to be very interesting. It also pays $9 an hour!!!! Wheee!!!
I am putting the brakes on this week! It has gone by way too fast. We got home Monday from camping and the week just ran away from us.
Tuesday was a blurr of homeschooling and laundry. We also set up my mom with a new email address. Oh, we also got a new domain for a website we are building. Wednesday I took John to the VA in Pueblo. He is having a flare up of cellulitus. I ran to Walmart while John was in the drs. Bought Daniel a toaster oven, and power cord. I also picked up tennies for Morgan and dog food for Sasquatch.
Thursday was more homeschooling. Matt is sort of getting the hang of how we want stuff done. Then it was time to head up to Gardner. Morgan had her first volley ball game. She plays on the B team, and is so proud of herself. They won! First time in 7 years against La Veta. She just glowed.
This morning, I got up at the crack of dawn, showered and got ready to take my parents to Colorado Springs. I got to drive my parents ’06 Subaru Legacy. Talk about nerve wracking! This is Dad’s baby! Aieeee~~~ Dad was going to see the oncologist about his bladder cancer. While he was at the doctors, Mom and I went to breakfast. By the time we were done, so was he. We drove home with a brief stop in Pueblo for a bit of lunch, paper and wine for my parents. Then I drove home.
We dropped Dad home while Mom and I went to Safeway. I dropped her home, Dan picked me up and it was back to homeschooling and now blogging. Gads!
Did have some good news though. Mike, the Chamber of Commerce president called to tell me the secretary job was mine if I wanted it!!! Part time, and I’m pretty sure it is minimum wage, but… it’s a JOB! I start on Monday.
Tomorrow holds no rest either. Shopping in Pueblo.
In case you didn’t catch on to what happend, we took a break. Dan and I headed up into the mountains towards our favourite valley, the Upper Huerfano. Original plan was a picnic and rosehip gathering expedition. On second thought, we decided to go camping for the night.
We stuffed gear in the truck, borrowed pots from my dad and headed up into the mountains. It started to sprinkle as we got further into the valley. By the time we got to the Lily Lake trailhead, it was raining very hard. As there were so many new “repairs” on the road with fresh dirt, we decided to camp lower down the mountain. We drove down to the lower campsites and checked out the sites that were available. The first one Dan felt was too much of a flood risk if the river should rise. Reluctantly, I agreed. Another site was across the road and up the hill, and just didn’t look comfy. Too many rocks. The next site had a decent little plateau to put the tent on, and so we set up camp. The river was close, about 15ft from the tent and still running clear. It was also still raining.
We cooked dinner just outside the tent and ate in the tent. After a cup of tea, we did the dishes and then crawled into bed. That is when we discovered the leak in the tarp. Ah well. It wasn’t a big leak, just enough to dampen the bottom of a few bags.
Going off to sleep was a bit difficult as the river was loud, the generator down three campsites was loud and there were some odd sounding noises that kept waking Dan up.
I was the first one up in the morning and found that the river had changed overnight. It was not about 4.5 ft from the tent, flowing much faster and now a frothy chocolate milk colour. Oh my… Walking to the outhouse, I saw that there was flood damage in various places. Worst one being across the road. If we had camped there, we would have been without a road. A good twenty feet of it was underwater and eroding away fast.
Our new beach front propertyThe flooded road
I woke Dan up and told him that he was right about the river. He popped out of the tent like a rabbit and looked around. after a bit, we got breakfast going and then looked at all the flood damage.
Flooded meadowMore flooded meadow
Last of all, we gathered rosehips. About a pound of them were ripe. Next week we will go up again and see what is ripe.
All in all, it was a lovely 24 hours away from reality.
Oh my gods! We lost our phone line on August 21st. Our ex-business partner would neither turn the phone off, nor give us access to do it ourself. sigh… So, when she didn’t pay the bill, Qwest turned it off. We got the phone back on rather quickly, but it took them until yesterday to turn the DSL on. They forgot it on the first order and I had to redo the whole thing. Grrrrr……
Meanwhile, we’ve wired my parents house for telephone service. That was fun.. NOT! Dan had to crawl under the house in the crawl space. Not a fun time. He did however zing my mom. Told her that she really needed to dust down there. She told him to “bite me!” I laughed.
We’ve also dealt with tons of rain. Yesterday’s storm was so heavy with lightning that I nearly got hit. I had just gotten my feet out of the inch deep puddle at my mom’s house when there was a Flash/BOOM! That blast was so loud that all I could do is yell “Shit!” and watch the sparks from up above fall into my parents yard. We think the antenna next door got hit. It rained hard enough that the arroyos flooded and several low spots on the frontage road parallelling I-25 were full of mud. Dad and I saw this on our way to Pueblo today. In fact, one area washed out the road. At least 65 sq. yds of road and land next to the road were gone.
As mentioned, Dad and I went to Pueblo. He and Mom needed a pantry cupboard for the kitchen. Their house is sadly lacking in storage. It was really heavy, so when we got back, I dropped off Dad and picked up Dan. This way they could put it together. At one point, Dad was saying that he was use to being precise like they were on missles when he worked at Martin Marietta. Dan, who was putting on the hinges turned to him and said, “Jon, this isn’t rocket science!” They both laughed.
They got the cabinet together, and we took home a dresser that they didn’t need. Wheeee! Dan now has a place to put his clothes! As Mom and Dad unpack boxes, she is sorting through things and deciding what she doesn’t want any more. I of course get first pick.:)
Dan and I have also been working on lots of information for our other blog, The Pagan Way. We are getting ready to formally start a coven. I’ve been working on by-laws, book lists and other bits and bobs.
30 degrees lower than normal. Brrrrrrr!!! Another day of cold rainy weather in Southern Colorado. So cold that there was snow on the Spanish Peaks. All above the 10,000ft mark. It was cold and damp all day.
I woke up to Daniel bringing in Fatty the puppy. He wanted me to snuggle him because the dog was cold. Oh, and he wants me to knit the dog a sweater. Then Erin woke me up because he needed to get into the house at 520 and Dan had locked the door and wasn’t answering the phone.
No sooner got to 520 when my mom called. Could I take her to the store? At 10am? Of course. So, I shuffled laundry, took my mom to the store, shuffled more laundry and then headed back to 520. Morgan and Matt are here today too. Since then we have worked on the house, played silly spray the stuff in the cans game, had an asthma attack, cooked dinner and now I’m headed to bed. Wheee…. Oh, and Matt and Morgan went to the movies.
Tomorrow will be interesting. Mom & Dad’s furniture arrives. Wheee…. we get a dresser, a tv and a washer out of the deal. Wow…
Because it’s Monsoon Season! Here it is Saturday, and it has been raining almost non-stop! Apparently, it rained most of the time I was gone, and the few partial days we didn’t have rain have been made up for. My friend Chas posted a lovely piece in his blog. rain-on-back-order.html
As for myself, I blame my parents. teeheehee. You see, Hell is attempting to freeze over and all this rain is the result. My Dad decided at long last to retire. He has been a park ranger at the Grand Canyon for over 25 years.
Jon Sudar, Park Ranger
Dad did the whole Interpretive Park Ranger thing. Trail talks, Evening Programs, etc. He was very good at it. However, over the years the politics of it has worn him down. Plus, he will be 72 in just over a month. So, he retired.
My parents bought a house and have slowly been moving things in. They did the final packing and left the Canyon yesterday. They arrived today on this bitterly cold August day. 30 degrees below normal! I almost started a fire in the fireplace! I woke up to thunder and lightning at 5:15am. Could not believe the length of the thunder roll. Nearly a minute at one point. We’ve had a few breaks in the rain, but not many. Right now, the gutters are flowing so full that they are spreading out into the street.
Monsoon!
As for the rest of this week… I spent most of Monday and Tuesday trying to catch up on sleep and house hold stuff. Lots of running around and trying to get stuff done while jobs kept piling up on top of everything else that needed done.
We wired Boutique Blvd. on Wednesday. Marianne Smithey is a sweet lady who was having telephone troubles. Dan re-did the wiring and fixed that issue. Thursday I went down and worked on her computer for 2 hours. Made $50, which was nice. However, that will get dumped into the bank on Monday for bills.
Friday, we went with Maryjane H. up to visit her husband who is finally up at the VA hospital in Denver. Friday was Carl’s 77th birthday. He was happy to see all of us. He also learned that he has cancer that can’t be operated on. They can treat him, but not cure him. Not a nice thing to learn on your birthday. We stayed as long as we could and then had to drive home. The trip up had been wet and rainy. The trip home was just as bad. I swear that parts of the highway were under 2-3 inches of water at times. Dan drove which was a good thing. Got home around 10pm and collapsed.
I planted a few Italian plum trees in the back yard. I hope they take well. The plums are wonderful for cooking as they are very meaty and tart. At least I don’t have to worry about watering them for a while!
My parents did arrive on Thursday as planned. I visited with them for a bit and then instead of going shopping in Pueblo as planned, ran around trying to get all sorts of things done. Ha! Mostly I got caught up on some laundry, packed things for my trip and tried to organize stuff at the 520 house.
Friday I got up early, showered, finished packing, did lots of running around -like the proverbial chicken minus the head- and finally got out the door by noon. Frustrating as I still had to go to Pueblo to buy jeans and shoes.
Have I ever mentioned how much I hate shopping? Especially for things like shoes and bras. I found my jeans in 10 minutes. The shoes took nearly 2 hours. I went to Payless, Walmart and finally Target. I found two pairs of flip flops. One pair is brown leather and very minimal. The other pair is tan suede with cream, and pale rose beads on the straps. I also found some blue mascara for myself. (wheeee… shades of high school… )
Then it was off to Denver. I got there early and drove around to find where the reunion bits were being held. I found Saturday’s venue rather easily. Friday night’s was a pain in the butt. I ended up calling the place to get directions. Then I found Jill’s house and relaxed. Her dogs kept barking at me. Silly mutts.
Friday night was fun. It was at the Fox and Hound tavern. There were probably 100 of us there. I have to admit that I was afraid I wouldn’t recognize anyone. Wrong! Granted, the name tags helped, but… teeheehee…
Friday night!
I saw all sorts of people I hadn’t seen in at least ten years and some I hadn’t seen in thirty! Robbie being one of them.
Robbie!
It was so neat to see her. It was like we hadn’t seen each other in 30 minutes instead of 30 years. Walking around I visited with lots of people. I showed off pictures of the tribe and chatted for nearly four hours. Robbie and I left together and stood in the parking lot for nearly an hour talking. Got home at 12:45am!
Saturday, after sleeping in to the late hour of 8am, I got up, visited with Jill and her daughter Franny and had breakfast. Franny wanted sausage and eggs, so they cooked while I showered. After breakfast and talking with Jill, I called Robbie. She picked me up and we went and had lunch. We talked and then went for a drive to various places around Littleton.
I took lots of pictures. Littleton High School has changed so much.
Littleton High School
I really wish that the reunion had organized a tour of the school. I’d have really liked to see how the restructuring looks on the inside. Maybe we can do that next time. Robbie dropped me off around 4:30pm. I chatted with Jill again and then got ready for the evening event. This was out at the “Den at Fox Hollow” which is a golf course out on Morrison Road.
We were out under a big pavilion on the edge of the golf course. The volcano was a bit trite, but alright. The entertainment was funky. The musician was ok. The magician and fire eater were a bit lame. Granted, those two didn’t have much of a chance with Robbie making comments right, left and center. In some ways, she was better then them. Ok, she was a LOT better than they were.
We had lots of fun looking at year books and trying to match them to people at the party. We figured out that there were more people who had died than were listed. We also figured that the men were harder to identify than the women. Some of us aged well, some of us didn’t. I think I got told that I hadn’t changed by almost everyone. lol! I was still the “hippy” of the bunch. 🙂
I finally left around 10:30pm after saying numerous goodbyes. Crawled in bed and slept till 8am. I packed up my stuff, got ready, said my goodbyes to Jill and then headed to Pueblo. I of course had to do the shopping. gads… It was HOT in Pueblo.
I got the shopping done in just under four hours and headed home. I swear the moment I got in the door, the rain started. Monsoon season has hit Walsenburg. Meanwhile, I got the pictures loaded up on Picasa, my bags unpacked and a cup of tea. Huzzah!!!
Oh, and we saw two deer walk across the front yard.
Is far too often traveled lately! Pueblo is only 50 miles away, but having been there nearly six times in the last ten days is getting a tad old. We went up again on Tuesday. We had parts for a job to pick up and Carl to go visit. All total, we grabbed dog food, phone wire, phone boxes, a printer cartridge and tp. Wheee…. Such exciting shopping. We also discovered that one of our favourite shops was closed. 🙁 No more Instant Karma. Yes, that was really the name of the shop.
Our visit with Carl was good. He was actually in better spirits than he had been. Still waiting for transfer to Denver. I don’t see why the VA doesn’t just pay for him to stay at Parkview. It would make so much more sense. Oh yeah… sorry, my logic circuits forgot that the military and hence the VA don’t operate on logic! Sigh… Meanwhile, we wait to hear when he will be transfered.
Yesterday we were suppose to get some work done on the phone job. Hahahaha! The customer had new vendors coming in, so we figured we’d wait until the evening.We had the phone ringing off the wall as well. One call was a friend of our who we talked to for over an hour. 🙂 Others were for jobs. Dan went and fixed stuff for Karen in Aguilar that she had totally botched and I went to Armida’s. This is our local “oh my fancy clothes store” in town. Sort of pricey, but very nice. I must have tried on five different outfits. I really liked a few of them, but I am so not going to try and wear cream to a dinner. No way I’d keep it clean. So, I finally opted for two blouses that are really nice and that I can wear with jeans or skirts. One is pale lavender and the other is black. Button up, princess cut with lace and sparkley bits. I’m going to get a pair of black jeans to go with the black top and I have a white skirt to wear with the lavender one.
Why the new clothes? Well… I’m going to my 30th reunion. Wheeee…. No Idea of how it will go, but I hope to enjoy myself.
Around 6pm, I went out to Marge Durram’s. She is in need of a home help person who doesn’t mind dogs and can actually work, drive in the snow, etc. She is an older woman in poor health that rescues dogs. Her current help is due to leave in a week. She interviewed me and now will try and get the hiring agent, COG, to want to hire me. Here’s hoping.
When I got back, Dan and I went out to dinner. Karen actually paid him! We went out to the Rambler. Chicken enchiladas!!! Our waitress was tired though and the plate way too hot. She dropped one. Mine. Oh well. Dan was almost finished by the time I got my dinner. They didn’t charge us for my dinner, so Dan gave the waitress who had burned her hand a really good tip. We figured that they may have docked her for the dinner as she dropped it.
When I got home, I showed John the tops and we talked about this festival in Missouri in October. He said I could go, as it would help him figure out what to give me for my birthday! Wheeeee! Jolene may go with me so that she can visit her parents while I go play in the caverns. http://dragonlakecircle.com/index.html
Today started out misty and rainy. Neither Dan or I are very motivated. We still have to get the phone wiring job done, visit Brian and Gretchen at the Huerfano Journal and my parents arrive around 2pm. Wheee….
Mwahahahahah!!! I just convinced Dan to try WordPress! 🙂 He now has a blog entitled, Pagan Way to be found at http://ulfjoronen.wordpress.com/
Granted, the sneaky bugger put me in as a co-author. 🙂
Plus, my mom called. She is cleaning house, and trying to get it ready for inspection before they leave the Grand Canyon on the 12th. It will be interesting with my parents living here in town.
Every time I thought I’d have ten minutes to sit and blog, something came up. Thursday was busy. running errands and such. Dan got home early enough that he watched Stardust with Little Morgan and me. Friday was another busy day. We went to Pueblo. We were suppose to get there early enough to find the farmer’s market, buy some fresh veg, run our errands and then see Carl. Slept a bit late, had breakfast and then were late starting out. Plus, we decided to go the back route. Good thing, as Dan was a “good Samaritan” and helped two ex-marines with their jeep that lost it’s brakes. The brakes had caught fire. Dan had an extinguisher in the back. He gave it to them in case it happened again.
We of course missed the farmer’s market and when we got to the hospital, Carl was asleep. So, we went looking for fabric. Hobby Lobby was a dead loss. Headed over to Walmart, and actually found a fabric that was nice. It’s a light green with a tan leaf print. I’ll probably sew it up this week. We did finally get to see Carl. He drifted in and out of sleep while we were there. The VA was planning to move him to Denver, but hadn’t managed it. Hopefully they got that done on Saturday.
When we got home, we watched the Presidio. It’s a good movie, but one Dan hadn’t seen. 🙂 Not sure which scene I like best. The one where Meg Ryan rips Mark Harmon’s shirt off, or where Sean Connery tells the drunk he’s only going to use his right thumb, because his left one is too dangerous. 🙂
Dan officially resigned from RBT Friday night as well. He’d finally had enough. The pressure was affecting him both mentally and physically.
Saturday was another day of oddball errands and trying to get stuff done. Finally around 2pm, we dropped Blue off with John and then took a drive. We ended up in the Upper Huerfano. Near the Singing River Ranch, we startled a Mule eared deer and her brand new fawn. Tiny little thing with spots! Oh it was cute. Didn’t get as far up as we’d have liked to, but there was a puddle across the road that would have eaten LRT. So, we grabbed our stuff and headed up to our favourite meadow. Of course, we had to go around the huge puddle. Didn’t do too bad myself, but Dan stepped right in the middle of a swampy spot up to about mid shin. And, true to experience, the moment we decided to sit down, it started raining. We could see Blanca through the rain curtains, and instead of clearing off, the rain just kept coming. We finished a bit of food and then walked back to LRT. We were soaked. Granted, it was hot enough that by the time we got home, the only bit that was wet were the backs of our shirts. We also saw about 20 deer on the way down. It was really neat.
We finished off the evening with a salad and a couple of Babylon 5 episodes.
Woke up this morning with a sinus/migraine headache. Felt like I’d been kicked in the face. Plus, the lights were too bright, the noises too loud and my sense of smell could pick up moldy cheese three states over. Uggggh! It’s only taken me 10 hours to feel almost human. Now I get to write my Huerfano Journal articles. Wheeee…..
