July 3, 1999

It should reach 100 degrees today so it is a take it easy day. Ken went off on a marathon hike of about 17 miles and left the house at 5:00 a.m. You don’t want to be at the top of the mountain at 1:00 p.m. because of thunderstorms. They can come up very quickly.

Yesterday the wind came up quickly here. You could look out to the north and see dust clouds rising and you knew you had to run to the windows and shut them as fast as possible. You know that expression “batten down the hatches”. Well that’s what you do here in a wind storm.

Tomorrow I will go with Ken for a hike, probably 3 hours. I’m not up to a marathon as yet. My knees and legs are still recovering from standing on them for 10 hours straight moving and lifting things.

I received some information from a woman, Shirley, who is president of the Newcomers Club. Some aspects of the club sound interesting and I will join to meet people. I also contacted a runners/walkers club and am awaiting information on that club. The Colorado University has an extension just a few miles from our home. Their enrollment begins July 12^th. In their brochure they state you must be a resident for 1 year. What is not clear is if you are a property owner, does that make a difference. Of course, you can enroll if you have not resided in Colorado for a year, but the tuition is $800. And for only 1 or 2 courses I don’t think so.

There is plenty to do around here when you have the time to do it. There is live entertainment at the Pearl St. Mall, concerts at Chataqua Park, Shakespeare Theatre at CU campus, concerts in Longmont and a Blue Grass Festival coming up in Lyons. We are having dinner with friends on Sunday and are looking forward to seeing fireworks later that evening.

We are going over to our neighbors for a bar-b-que this evening. (Our only neighbors on our road.)

I can’t believe we have been here one month. The mountain scenery and plains are lovely to drink in and enjoy.

The horse farm neighbors asked if they could use a portion of our property (outside the electric fence) to ride their horses, so as to cut out a portion of road they would otherwise have to use. We have given them the ok. However, Samson and Zeus are not used to horses and bark and run for them. They of course stop at the fence, but they are only inches from the horse. The horses are well behaved and do not appear to even pay attention to the dogs. I try to get the dogs in when I see one of the people on horseback coming. Zeus comes in, but Samson knows there is something he should stay out and see. Well it will take time to calm the dogs down when they see horses, but again, they may not. We’ll just keep working at it.