The Flip Side of Miserable is Some Kind of Wonderful

The gale blew itself out overnight. In its wake comes the gentle pitter pat of raindrops on rooftops; it settles the dust and scrubs Lovely Ouray clean like a fresh coat of paint. Out the Imax, clouds swing low in veils, masking, except for a few teasing apertures, our steep surround of mountains. Steam rises vertically from the Hot Springs Pool. Golden leaves glisten with moisture and are still for the first time in days. Bobbie steps out onto the deck to gauge temperature—arms wrapped protectively against her chest, breath floating off to join the clouds. "Forty something," she guesses.Yesterday's demons have been purged, and all is well in The Crevice once again.

Marauding Day and Night-in-Gales: Small Dog and Foul Mood Warnings!

"Mariah blows the stars around and sends the clouds a-flying, Mariah makes the mountain sound like folks were up there dying. 
Marrriahhhhhhh...they call the wind Mariah."

Ketchup...

There has been a seasonal shift, finally. Mountains surrounding our Lovely Crevice are capped with snow, the air slaps cheeks red with crispness, and summer's green leafs yields to autumnal gold coins fluttering in the breeze.

A "Postcard" social hike is on today's agenda. "To Simplify" Glenn lurks somewhere in town wanting to test his newfound hiking legs, Marathon Man is itching to ditch his clothes and jump into some ice-watered lake, and friends Martha and Tim are scheduled to join the above motley crew, thereby submitting to Mark and Bobbie's alter call—a soul salving, eye filling, spiritual awakening guaranteed to shake the fence-straddling legs of the most devout of agnostics.

Home Sweet Second Home, At Last: and RV Solar Install Finale

I am proud of my childhood "trailer trash" roots, all twelve years of them. Everything from a 16 foot Shasta that served as our "home" for about a year in the late 50's, to a 14 by 65 foot brand new Magnolia in the 60's that seemed like a millionaire's mansion to me, and probably Mom, too, given what she'd been living in up till then. If someone would have told her that she'd be leaving her "mansion" to move back into an 8 by 40 foot piece of crap—that the Lord's Will was going to call our family out of the Arizona desert we had grown to love, all the way to Missouri's insufferable humidity, and that Dad was going to tow—not a "travel" trailer, mind you, but a swamp cooled cracker box with axles and wheels that were designed to come off once you plopped it down on permanent dirt—behind a well used 57 Cadillac...such that we looked like the Beverly Hillbillys movin' to Cal-i-forn-i-aay, hitch draggin' on the ground and shootin' sparks with every bump in the road...it would have killed her right then and there. Thus were the roller coaster days of Feast to Famine, and the ever crazier forage for God's purpose in our lives.

Jamming With Joe and Tracey From Maryland...and The Much Rain Delayed Solar Install

An email tipped us off that Joe and Tracey were headed cross country, all the way from Maryland, and planned to light in Lovely Ouray for a few days. Of course we planned a get together, one, because we enjoy meeting up with BCB readers and RV'ers, and two, because Joe was bringing along the new Yamaha Keyboard I've been coveting for over a year. So I went to the RV park to pick them up, toured their Lazy Daze...same exact model and color as ours, only a 2003...loaded his keyboard, guitar, and lovely wife...stopped for a couple of take out pizzas, and put all of a mile and a quarter on the Sue Bee. Ya gotta love the logistics of small towns :)

Oh Brother Where Art Thou?

(See previous post, this one seems to have a bug. Mark)

Oh Brother Where Art Thou...

"Summers and winters scattered like splinters...and four or five years slipped away." Jimmy Buffet has a way with lyrics, of putting Life in nutshells that even I can understand. When I stop and think about it, time is our most precious asset...if fact, it's all we have. You can run out of money, run out of love, run out of luck—even try to run away—but when one runs out of time, nothing else really matters. 

The Prying Eyes of Aspen, and Dodging Bullets

The "Quakies" may not be changing color just yet, but their lush bedding below certainly is. What is it about aspen trees that makes them so interesting...so unique, with individual personalities? It has to be their "eyes," always watching, noticing, prying. If I could design my own forested back yard, it would be open meadows skirted with groves of aspen and forests of ponderosa. Throw in some mammoth granite boulders...a little creek for the birdies...and I'm good. Now, back to our hike; where were we?

Unanticipated Merits of Summer Employment; Plus, A Novel High-country Hike

The spirit's "uptick" is in play—counting down the days now till Goldie's RV rubber hits the road. On the brink of Autumn my mental and emotional footing finds solid ground. The most tedious  chores of summer are in the rearview mirror, and my Polo work-shirt is laundered, pressed and hanging in the closet awaiting a well tanned, rested, and wandered thin Gallery Boy's triumphant return from saguaro strewn deserts come spring. I take immense pleasure in performing the few remaining RV tasks—little toy projects compared those "life and death" maters from long ago treadmills...the one's where back seat driver bosses from hell scrutinize every move, or lack there of, and second guess. Indeed, by comparison, RV problems are water off this ugly duck's back. 

Good Light and Shadow at Bullion King Lake, and The High Cost of "Free Energy" from the Sun

Mike and Nancy, Marathon Man Leonard's brother and sis-in-law, came calling on him up in the Big Box, Californicated, Desert City of Mo-Town...said they'd like to do a light hike someplace Purdy (they're from Austin and that's how they tawlk). So ole Leon contacted the professionals at Mark and Bobbie's Guide Services of Lovely Ouray for ideas about a place to go that would knock socks off...but not put them in a casket—a place where he could maybe take an ice water plunge, preferably in a lake he hasn't seen yet, and not too far of a drive, and less than two level miles from the parking lot. Spreadsheet says....