January 10, 2000
Happy New Year! We
celebrated on New Year’s Day with friends from Denver. We went up to Rocky
Mountain National Park
and hiked, returning to our home for dinner.
It was quite invigorating. There
were quite a number of people trying out their new snowshoes.
On Christmas Day, it was sunny and
warm at our home. We really wanted some
winter atmosphere, so we drove to the mountains (RMNP) and immediately found
winter and did some snow shoeing. We
were in an area in the park where families come for sliding and you can really
get quite a thrilling ride. There is
quite a lot of laughter, squealing and cries of terror. I think everyone else there also wanted a
taste of winter on Christmas Day.
In November we had local elections
and our election headquarters is the Altoona Grange Hall. Picture an old white grange hall plunked in
the middle of acres of farmland where you drive up to the building, park on the
grass and enter through a small side door.
(In the election material, which is sent to all registered voters, it
specifically states that this location is not handicapped accessible.) There are no voting booths with curtains such
as we were used to using back in Connecticut. Instead they have small portable punching machines. I practiced
on this machine and then went over to the designated voting table with 24”
partitions, punched in my votes and returned to the election workers
table. Ken arrived at Altoona Grange
later in the afternoon and was told that they did not have him down as registered. He said that couldn’t be because just this
morning my wife was here and voted. They
remembered me, looked further into the records and found Ken. He went through the voting process, but
before he left they said, ask your wife if she would like to become an election
judge. Well, I looked into it and signed
up for this service. You essentially
must be at the voting headquarters 6:00 a.m.
stay till the polls close (7:00 p.m.)
and then tally the votes by hand. You
cannot leave the building until you have completed the vote count. You must be prepared to bring whatever you
need with you, food, water, etc. Ken
said he would bring in supper. I thought
this would be a good way to meet my neighbors and perform a civic duty. Another interesting note, we are not in the Longmont
jurisdiction, we are considered Boulder
County residents even though our
address is Longmont.
On December 12th I
hosted the gourmet newcomers luncheon at our
home. We had 29 ladies here. The house was fully decorated for Christmas
and there was plenty for the ladies to stroll around and look at both upstairs
and downstairs. We had 4 cooks from our
newcomers club who helped with the meal and the comments were “this was the
best luncheon we ever had – it sure will be hard to beat”. Oh, I love it when a plan comes
together. Just a couple of days ago the
president of Newcomers called asking if I would accept the Vice President
position. I asked what it involved and
agreed. I remember the first time I ever
attended a Newcomers lunch, I was very welcomed and
made to feel at home. If I can give back
that feeling to other people who are new to the area it will be worth it.
Ken has been mountain biking and
has found a few new mountain biking enthusiasts. They are all geologists and quite
strong. However, after finishing work at
the office, he goes off to one of his favorite mountain biking locations, Hall
Ranch and works out. There are some
areas that are very challenging and it is only 6 miles from home.
One of my desires after retiring
from the working world was to take art classes.
This is finally happening. Gretel
and I have signed up for oil painting art classes in Denver at the Art Academy
beginning February 1st and classes at the Loveland Academy of Fine
Arts in where else but Loveland. These
classes begin January 28 and run thru mid March. My first workshop in Acrylics will be held
January 22nd in North Boulder. This should keep me busy. But it is what I have so wanted to do.
In November I took a cooking class
at the Cooking School
of the Rocky Mountains – Pizza Till You Drop. Great class, good tips and the result was it
improved my pizza quality and taste.
Well worth the time and money. Incidentally,
upcoming classes which I have already signed up for are: the Stock Market – soup stock, Sushi, and
Italian Every Night, and Italian Every Night (2) with Giuliano Hazan, a famous
chef who has written several cookbooks.
His mother is Marcella Hazan, who they call, Queen of classic Italian
cooking.
Last Saturday we drove up to the Brainard
Lake area. To get to Brainard, you must drive through
the town of Ward. Now Ward is a throw back of a Hippies town in
the 50’s. There are more abandoned
vehicles on the sides of the road then there are houses. Houses probably number 50 it’s hard to say
because you can’t see all of them. It
has been said that the residents of Ward grow plenty of pot and smoke the same;
and if you come nosing around, they do not hesitate to take their shotgun to
you. It is a community of one mind and
they definitely keep the old vehicles around to deter anyone else from moving
in. Why the dogs hang around in the
middle of the road with an attitude of “why are you
here, just move along.” It really is
amazing that the town exists.
At the Brainard
Lake area, we started hiking the
Waldrop Trail. A lovely narrow trail through the pines. People were cross country skiing with some
very challenging down hill sections; and believe me, in several areas, you
really have to know what you are doing, because the trees come up real close
and personal and they will not budge if you crash into them. We arrived at Brainard
Lake and the wind had to be blowing
at least 50 mph really fierce. There are
several trails from this point up into the higher elevations, but you have to
be prepared for artic conditions so we decided to save this exploration for
spring and summer. We were already over
10,000 ft altitude. Ken’s plan was to
return on the CMC Trail (Colorado Mountain Club) but it was not as well packed
as Waldrop and you ended up post holing up to your knees, so we returned by way
of the road, which is closed off to all vehicle traffic until June. The wind blew so hard and without letup that
after arriving home, my fat globs were freezing cold. It took a while to warm up; one thing that
helped was the magnificent hot tub.
We currently have a weather watch
in our area of high winds up to 100 mph and dry. They call these winds the Chinook winds. They bring warm air with them and it usually
is in the 60’s. Good thing it is warm,
because if you had frigid temperatures, the temperature would be way below
zero. The central portion of Colorado
has a winter storm watch, especially in the mountains.
It has been quite dry and being in
Colorado you have to water your
plants in the winter to assure their survival.
It took me four hours to water everything. However, we have not watered the grass and it
is recommended that you do this. Without
the irrigation system in use because of the freezing temperatures, this is not
possible. Hang in there grass; let’s
pray for snow.
An
update—unloading the car today (1/11) there were wind gusts of 70 to 80 mph. It was quite an effort to keep hold of what
was in my hands. Inside the house, the
squeals and rattling of the vents gets the dogs
attention, mine too.
Hope I haven’t bored you. Until next time,
Love,
Diane and Ken