Fun (finally) in Colorado!

As my friend James says, I've been spending my weekends enjoying the "joys of home ownership".  Not this weekend, however, we decided to get out and play!  I started doing CrossFit workouts again this week, and my 56 year old body is wondering what hit it, but never mind that, I'm in charge here! So on Friday, the glorious flex day off, we slept late (yahoo!!!!) and then climbed Eagle peak.  That's a steep rough trail but not very long and it has this beautiful aspen grove half way up.

 And it was Moose's first time on this peak, so he got in the selfie...

...and we hung out by the creek on the way down....

It was one of those perfect weather days that's just cloudy enough and just sunny enough.  It feels really good to climb, and Sue and I both are getting better at it.  Moose, on the other hand, with his youth and raging male hormones, never seems to get very tired, at least not for more than about 15 minutes!  He's turning out to be a great hiking companion, but at 70 pounds and 7 months, he's likely going to be a big one.

After recovering by eating Pasties (Scandinavian meat pies), we got up Saturday morning for our first mountain bike ride of the season.  We headed out the the Greenland open space and it was glorious!

 Great rolling single-track trails, hardly any people, a few nice horses, and some runners and wonderful vistas.  It felt like we had the area to ourselves, and this place is only 15 minutes from our house!  We love living in Colorado!  The place had one long hill (Reptillicus hill from the BLLLLBR comes to mind), but we made it and the downhill on the other side was a blast!  It was another perfect weather day after several weeks of rain and thunderstorms.  The wildflowers were amazing!  We saw big stands of waist-high pearly-white scarlet gilia (it wasn't red) and tall grasses and penstemon.  The company was awesome too....I love living in Colorado with my best friend ever!

After the ride we hit the local farmer's market ( I love saying that, "local" farmer's market, CAUSE I LIVE HERE and I'm a local now!!!!)  OK, I got carried away there, but I'm allowed.  Green beans and a falafel sandwich...life is very, very good.

Back (Home) again!

I've decided to come back to my blog because Colorado is such a great place and I'm going to keep track of my adventures here.  On Friday I was at work looking out my window at the mountains and it hit me....I need to be there!  So I decided to get up early Saturday morning and do a hike.  Then I realized that I could hike to Stanley Reservoir and hike and fish (with my new fly rod) both!  Great plan!  Sue is out of town or I would have taken her with me.

I woke up to a cloudy sky, more accurately it felt like I was in a cloud, but I trusted my weather app and set out anyway.  This is what it looked like when I left my truck at the trailhead:

But, in about 100 yards my faith paid off:

SUNSHINE!!  We haven't had a lot of that around here recently, but I'm grateful for all the rain because it means a better summer.  This is a beautiful hike, but the first mile (of 2) is VERY steep, kind of a hard way to get started but its worth it.

The hike was lovely and cool, but I started to wonder if I was going to be able to get past the waterfall, which is usually pretty tame.  It was running high, but thanks to my hiking poles and my super great Keen hiking boots (product placement!) I got by just fine.

Next along the trail is one of my favorite places in the world.  I've been to this spot with my friends, my kids, my wife.  It is most lovely in the fall when the aspens are in their glory.  It may not look like much, but when I step into this meadow I forget my cares and my heart soars!

Next is the lake, which sits in a lovely spot and you'd think you were so far away from the world.  I had the place all to myself.  My son-in-law-Stephen was supposed to be with me, but he chose the better part and was with his family (he's leaving on a business trip on Monday).  Good call Stephen, but I missed you.

I recently bought a fly rod, because for many years I have wanted to learn to fly fish when I moved back to the mountains.  So here I am, and thanks to the really nice guy at Bass Pro Shops, I had the basic flys and how to fish them.  The Olive Wollybugger was knocking them dead!  My casting wasn't so great, but I was catching fish (catch and release) and having a blast.  I even successfully did some roll casts right next to some trees and caught a fish there too!

Before I left I had to take the iconic fly fishing picture.  There should be a wicker creel in there, but I don't have one!

The hike down was equally lovely (and lots easier).  What a jewel this place is, 15 minutes from my house and up in the mountains I love.  If Sue had been home she would have enjoyed fresh trout for lunch!

So I'm back blogging, so give me your comments, and look for me on Facebook...I'm coming back to that too!

All In!

Sue had the week planned.  New appliances on Thursday, household goods delivery on Friday, and Christmas lights hanging on Saturday (before it snowed and we couldn't get on the roof anymore)(a tangent…in Alaska we'd hang our Christmas lights on Labor Day weekend, because that was the last date that we could be pretty sure there wouldn't  be snow on our houses.  We turned them on Thanksgiving weekend.)

Anyway, the household goods delivery was delayed by a day until saturday, so Sue resigned herself to just a few lights in the windows this year.  But no, April and Stephen to the rescue.  They had been planning to come and help us on moving day anyway, and they said that the lights would get hung.  So, as the boxes came off the truck, Sue waited anxiously for any box that said "Christmas decorations" on it, and she immediately tore into it.  After a few…Eureka!  She found the lights.  April took over my job checking off the inventory and Stephen and I got up on the roof to hang precariously over the edge of the second story roof to hang lights.  My neighbor, Toni, looked up at one point while I was on the edge of the roof and said, "Now Mark, don't fall off.  That roof has a history of people falling off of it."  I told her that she could have waited about an hour to tell me that!  We both had a good laugh, and she said she was praying for me. By the time that was done, I had paperwork to do, so Stephen took care of the lower level roof himself.  We had fun!  When the movers left at about 2pm, we finished up, and by dark we had a house full of boxes and wonderful Christmas decorations on the outside.  (Just so you know, the purple/green tree in front is not Sue's fault.  We originally bought green lights for it, but didn't get enough.  When I went back to Home Depot to get more I found out that Green is sold out across the universe!  So I chose purple to finish the tree, just because.  I love it!)

So, thanks to Arpin Van Lines we have our stuff, and thanks to Stephen and April our home is beautifully decorated for Christmas!  An Honorable Mention to Sarah, who unpacked our Kitchen!  Thanks kids, it was a great day with you!

More House photos

Renel asked for these, and I'm not one to deny my sister!

This is the front of the house...every time I look at it it looks more like a mansion to me!

Standing in the dining room looking at the living room and front door...

The family room from different angles...its open to the kitchen but Sue didn't take any kitchen pictures...

Our neato stairs...

The "loft" which is kinda like a library with built in shelves...I'm thinking it would be a great place to play guitar!

and a couple of shots of our small but lovely back yard.  Sue has many plans to improve it with more plants between the rocks, a few burning bushes and probably a Japanese maple, but we have Aspens!!!  I might remove the concrete pad and build a nice redwood deck instead.

We hopefully close tomorrow!!!!!

Home

While we were driving along in the middle of nowhere NM (and there's a lot of that) my phone rang.  It was the Air Force Academy legal office calling to tell me that I got the job!  I was, and still am, overcome with gratitude.  I really know that for years we've been led along by the hand of God to this very point, and now apparently we have things to do in Colorado Springs.  That God would know us enough and care about us enough to take such an interest in our affairs makes me more humble and grateful than I could ever have imagined.

Oh, and another thing.  We should close on our house, yes.........that's........ OUR HOUSE........ IN COLORADO, IN GLENEAGLE, ON THE NORTH END OF CO SPRINGS, next Friday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, on December 15, our Vagabondancy will be coming to an end.  I always knew I'd get a job, but I really like retirement!  I hope I can take the calm and easygoingness that I've learned something about and apply it to the rest of my life.  For the last several months I have neither known nor cared what time it was, I've had no idea what day of the month it was, and most often I didn't even know what day of the week it was.  That's been wonderful!  Now I have to transition into being on time, and even having a schedule.  Hopefully I'll do OK.

That leads me to answer the question...Where in the West are The Garneys?  215 Holbrook St, Colorado Springs, Colorado  80921.  We have plenty of room, so please come and visit.

Lastly, don't forget my blog.  I'm going to try to keep it going, because I'm certain that our adventures will continue!

New Mexico??

I really don't like New Mexico.  I've been forced, at gunpoint (just kidding about the gunpoint) to drive through NM several times, and I think I'd rather go to the dentist.  So, what would prompt me to go there voluntarily?  Well, its the love of my oldest brother, Norbert.  Norbert lives in El Paso, TX, but he has built a beautiful retirement home above Cloudcroft, NM, in the mountains east of Alamogordo.  We wanted to visit Norbert, so we went to NM.

We saw a giant pistachio,

and the sunset was pretty good,

so it wasn't a terrible trip.  We ultimately arrived at Norb's mountain chalet and it is a beautiful home in a beautiful location, high up in the mountains with a 200 mile view to the north!

The house is built so that it is very open and airy, and you can see right through it!  We took a nice walk to Norb's favorite elk meadow,

and had a wonderful dinner at the Lodge at Cloudcroft.  It apparently is haunted by a naughty chambermaid, but I didn't see her.  We had a nice visit with Norbert and are looking forward to him coming to see us in January.

So, what else does one do in NM?  Well, my intrepid wife is always finding things to do!  On Sunday evening we went to watch the sun set on White Sands National Monument.  I have to admit, this was really cool!  The sand is not silicate, but gypsum, and is really fine and soft.  So soft in fact that these dunes were packed and hard.  We took the advice of the park pamphlet and went barefoot, and it was neat!

But, is that all?  Of course not.  You're probably asking, "well, aren't you going to mention the Very Large Array?"  As a matter of fact, I am (btw, how did you know about that, anyway?)  Sue found out that the Very Large Array, a series of radiotelemetryimaging discs, (huge satellite looking thingys) were not so very far out of the way, so we went to see them.  There's a lot of science involved, but it boils down to the fact that these things can see out into space pretty much forever...and take pictures.  It think Sue was jealous because of the pictures part.

If you have seen the movie Contact (Jodi Foster), you have seen the Very Large Array.  One of them even moved while we were standing there!  You can see that the Array encourages silliness, like two grown people doing the Vulcan wave, only mine is the Modified Cause My Fingers Wont' Do This Vulcan Wave.  We had fun!

Southern Utah!

After a successful job interview we headed out to make our way to St. George, UT to visit Sue's mom.  We had earlier promised to visit and clean their carpets, which we ultimately did.  But that's boring.  The good stuff is that we took the southern route and ended up in Monticello, UT for a visit to the Monticello Temple.  

What a gem it is in this tiny town in red rock land.  We had a nice visit.  Then we went on to the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park.  Many years ago we visited this place so Sue could run a 50K event (I was broken, so I stayed in the campground with the kids) and since then she has always wanted to show me a specific place far into the desert...the Joint.  So, we went back to see it.  We decided to try camping in the back of our VW Sportwagen...

...and it almost worked.  It seems I'm either just a bit too tall or its just a bit too short, but the experiment failed.  After I un-kinked myself in the morning, we had a great time.  By the way, southern UT is a great place for sunsets and sunrises.

We got up early the next morning and were on our way, and what a beautiful place this is!  Quite different from Banff and Yellowstone, but just as striking in its own way.  We hiked a little the evening before and saw some fun rock formations.

Our morning hike led into a neat bowl that had a really great echo

and ultimately to the Joint itself.  This is a real wonder, and we hardly saw any people along the way!

It would be hard to find a more beautiful, diverse and enjoyable 11 mile hike anywhere!  And it sure finishes well!

After the hike we blasted off to our treat for the evening, a hotel room at Ruby's Inn in Bryce Canyon National Park.  But, to my chagrin, I had made the reservation for the following week!  Heaven smiled (once more) and there was a last minute cancellation that allowed us to get a room.  Strangely enough, this was a time of Big Bus Tours at Bryce, and there were certainly a lot of people, many foreign, enjoying the trails.  It was quite a contrast from the previous day, when it felt like we had southern UT all to ourselves.

Then we went off to Grandma's house to clean carpets and enjoy some calm and quiet.  Sue and I have long wanted to visit the Manti, UT temple, so we planned our departure so that we could do so on our way back to Provo.  Well, we didn't look at the schedule too well, and while I was putting on my tie in the parking lot a man approached me and said that the temple was closed for cleaning!  Bummer!  But, being good at making lemonade, we went up to the back door and asked if we could help clean!  We did that for a couple of hours and also got a tour of the temple!  This is a beautiful Pioneer temple that is truly magnificent.  We enjoyed our time there and really want to get back.