My Typical Mountain Day

Temperatures got up to a little more than 50F degrees today here in the mountains, but there has been a stiff breeze most of the day and it was only warm mid-day.  I finished that Walter Mosley book, She Only Shot Her Man, I started yesterday evening and had an e-mail alerting me that a book I had requested was in and being held, so decided I'd take Dixie on her daily ride and include a visit to the library. 

But first I drove to Rollinsville with the intent of taking a few items to The Wild West Mercantile Co. for resale.  There was a huge sign in one window announcing they were closed on Tuesdays, which I had not noticed when I was there on Friday, so I turned around and came back to Nederland, and went to the post office.  This time I did not anticipate a check from Sears.  I had e-mailed my contact at their claims company and had been told the check, which he had told me would be mailed March 21, had never been mailed, but would be now and I should receive it no later than April 3.  I'm not holding my breath. 

We then drove to the library and I returned the Mosley whodunnit, which I recommend, and picked up the latest Elizabeth George Inspector Thomas Lynley mystery, Believing the Lie.  It's a whopper, 608 pages, so should keep me occupied for a while.

On the way home I decided to veer off and drive up to the ski area. 

I couldn't see a thing in my viewfinder it was so bright out, but I managed to a get a few shots that weren't exactly what I thought I was aiming at but give some idea of what the area is like...

It apparently is spring break...I noticed there were no cars in the high school parking lot...but there were so few people on the slopes I thought at first they must have some of the runs closed. 

But eventually this one lone skier came into view.  The slopes did look very shiny, so perhaps were icy, but they had been grooming here...

It was such a gorgeous day, t-shirt weather...

it almost made me want to jump on the chairlift...

...to see if I could still ski.  Paradoxically, my skis, boots and poles are still in storage in the desert in Phoenix and they were not a priority when I was there winter before last sorting through things and trying to decide what to bring to Colorado with me, some indication of what an avid skier I am!

When we got back, Dixie did her thing and is still in the backseat of my car...

This is funny.  I went back out there to take her picture and she looks quite willful as if she thought I was going to make her get out and she was prepared to set her heels.

Apollo took advantage of her absence...

It would be ironic if he became my "office dog" after it took me a year to even get him to let me touch him.

Did you share your day with pleasant companions?  Teddee

Summertime

According to NOAA we were supposed to have a high of 58F degrees today.  It's 6 p.m. and it's still 70F degrees on the thermometer installed outside the north cabin window.  It was sunny and hot.  I've got the top panel of the door open--that pesky door that caused so much trouble all winter and on which I had taped shut the panels covering the screens--to keep the wind and snow out.

The other windows have screens that are still in storage and need to be installed, but even my neighbors who have lived here for years are skeptical this is the end of winter.  We all keep remembering it snowed regularly throughout April and May last year and we had our last significant snowfall on Memorial Day.  I downloaded the photo below on June 9 last year!

Today, I decided to start moving the woodpile.  Even though I'm the one setting the task, this always makes me feel as if I were in military boot camp and just being given make work.  Move that wood from there to here..then move it from there to here...

I didn't keep track of the number of trips I made, but the cord against the privacy fence is starting to take shape...

Dixie was certain each time I made a trip toward the woodpile that we were going to get in the car and go someplace...

...so finally I put her in the car and we went to the post office...still no check from Sears...and dropped off a couple of books I'd finished at the library.  It was such a pretty day and I knew she wasn't ready to go back to the cabin yet and neither was I, so we drove over to Rollinsville, the next mountain town south of Nederland.  There was a pull-out where I was able to park and get a pretty good shot of the Eldora Mountain Resort ski runs.  I don't know when they're scheduled to close.  Because they are in the Roosevelt National Forest they must close on a specific date even if they have ample snow.  It must have been really frustrating last year when we had wonderful snow and lots of it so late. 

I knew that a couple of years ago there had been what was really just a junk shop in Rollinsville.  I'd been there once and it was so bad I'd never been back.  It now has a new owner, Tim Underwood, who has really cleaned it up and it is now The Wild West Mercantile Co.  He takes things on consignment, thank you, thank you, and only takes 35%!  I'm heading down to my storage unit in Boulder next week and dragging some of the stuff out of there and taking it to new friend Tim.  This may be the answer to my prayers since I have been unable to open my own store.

While I was in Rollinsville, I took some photos of this wondrous pie-shaped abandoned building that I would love to have a shop in.
I wonder if its odd shape would be bad feng shui?  When I return with my consignment items I'll have to ask Tim about its history.

Train tracks go right through Rollinsville heading west toward the Moffat Tunnel.  I remember my folks taking us to the tunnel to watch the train enter the tunnel when I was a child so decided I'd drive over there.  It's about a 10-mile drive and the road eventually gets pretty rough.  This is what Wikipedia has to say about the tunnel:

The Moffat Tunnel is a railroad and water tunnel that cuts through the Continental Divide in north-central Colorado. Named after Colorado railroad pioneer David Moffat, the tunnel's first railroad traffic passed through in February 1928.

Fifty miles (80 km) west of Denver, Colorado is the East Portal in the Front Range, about 10 miles (16 km) west of the town of Rollinsville, Colorado at 39°54′08″N 105°38′46″WCoordinates: 39°54′08″N 105°38′46″W. The West Portal is near the Winter Park Resort ski area at 39°53′15″N 105°45′41″W. The railroad tunnel is 24 feet (7.3 m) high, 18 feet (5.5 m) wide, and 6.2 miles (10.0 km) long. The apex of the tunnel is at 9,239 feet (2,816 m) above sea level. The Moffat Tunnel finally provided Denver with a western link through the continental divide, as both Cheyenne, Wyoming to the north and Pueblo, Colorado to the south already enjoyed rail access to the West Coast. It follows the right-of-way laid out by Moffat in 1902 while he was seeking a better and shorter route from Denver to Salt Lake City. The water tunnel and the railroad tunnel parallel each other; the water tunnel delivers a portion of Denver's water supply.

This is what it's going under or through:

I got all the way to the tunnel, got out to take a photo and my camera battery had died!  So here's a photo off the internet:

Photo by Ian Stehbens for Google Earth on Panoramio.

I remember when I was a child we got close enough to the tunnel entrance that we could feel the wind from the train, but they have obviously improved security and this is as close as a person can get now.

Since I did this on the spur of the moment, I had no idea what the train schedule was and, in fact, did not see one....I can sometimes hear the whistle from the cabin deck on a quiet evening...so next time I'll try to time my visit with the train and be sure my camera battery is fully charged.

Did you have a traveling companion that led you to take an interesting drive today?  Teddee

Blame It on the Baby

It seems it's always the baby's fault.  Sometimes it's the boy baby's fault and sometimes the little girl's fault.  If I understand correctly, we've been having a La Nina (little girl) winter when the global weather patterns are affected by colder temperatures in the Pacific Ocean.  During a La Nina winter, according to http://library.thinkquest.org, there's more snow and rain on the west coast and unusually cold weather in Alaska while the weather in the rest of the USA is unusually warm with even drought in the southwest and a higher than normal number of hurricanes in the Atlantic.  However, if I understood that lecture and slide show I attended last evening at the Black Bear Ecology Center in Nederland, La Nina is getting tired and weakening and this is the result:

We are finally getting snow--a lot of snow--not only here in Eldora, but in Colorado generally.

 

This was my car about 11 a.m. this morning and it has been snowing lightly all day.

Snow, like a big loaf of bread, on the picnic table covering almost half of the lower pane in the south window.

The dark line three quarters of the way down is the deck railing with snow on top and snow almost up to the railing underneath.

I tried to measure the snow on the deck right outside the front door with a yardstick this morning.  It measured about 19 inches, but there seemed to be a lot more than that out in the meadow and the local ski area made the news this morning with "more than 24 inches" overnight.  Needless to say, they and their powder lovers, were ecstatic.  You can bring up their web cam by going to Eldora Mountain Resort Web Cam if you're interested.  When I did publicity for Midwestern ski areas, a loong time ago, I learned that the optimum temperature for making snow, which all Midwestern ski areas did, was 27F degrees.  My thermometer has been reading about 29F degrees today and I notice now at about 5:30 p.m., as the temperature is dropping, it seems to be snowing harder.  Don't know if that has anything to do with it, but NOAA is predicting possibly another seven inches over night.  Is anyone old enough to remember Al Capp, Li'l Abner and Lower Slobbovia? 


Although the on-line headlines this morning used verbs like "pounding," to describe the storm, it has been absolutely quiet up here in the mountains, so I'm cozy as can be.  I think the snow piled up around the cabin may also be providing some insulation as well...like being in a snow cave.  It is supposed to get down to 13F degrees tonight and then 6F degrees tomorrow night, but it looks as if the winds are going to stay calm.

I can't think any animal would willingly dig itself out of this snow at this depth, and if I did put food out for the fox, it would sink and then soon be covered by the quickly falling snow, so think I'll take a chance and not put food out for the fox this evening although I'll keep my eyes open for him.  He made repeated trips last night, carrying dog food by the mouth full back to the den while I was bringing in wood!  It made me realize that the consistency of pet food is probably not ideal.


Here is another not so great photo from last night.  He always comes so late at night that the photos are underexposed even with the flash.  He had one red eye, which I was able to fix, but one white eye, and there seems to be no way to fix those.  Does anyone have any suggestions?  He looks quite demonic.  Teddee