July 5, 2003

Hi everyone,

One of the major events in Boulder is the annual Bolder Boulder 10k race. This running event draws people from all over the US every Memorial Day. This year Ken and I ran in the Citizens Race together. They had 48,000 entrants this year and it’s quite a happening. Ken could have run faster than I, but he chose to run with me. I finished in 78 minutes and that placed me pretty high in my class. Out of the 65 women aged 65 who finished the race, I finished 8^th. The winner of this category flew in from Hawaii and the second place woman was from California. I was pretty happy with this result!

Ken is making progress on the Suzuki. The redesigned suspension is finally working well. He is now installing a newer Suzuki engine giving him more horsepower to motor up those incredible rocks. He has a deadline to have it finished by mid-July so he can attend a rock-crawling event near Durango.

We had a new person join our fast walking group. She is from Ireland and has resided in the states for 11 years. She also is both a US citizen and an Irish citizen. A few weeks ago we were doing a hike up Hall Ranch Open Space while Ken was doing a mountain bike ride on the same trail. We started earlier than he and when he caught up to us, he was bleeding from cuts and bruises as he had taken a serious fall; so Aine met Ken for the first time with mountain bike battle scars. Luckily he did not break any bones although he did break the handlebars but completed the ride.

A few weeks ago Ken and I drove to Rabbit Mountain Open Space in the Lotus to do some hiking. On the return home, something snapped very loudly in the Lotus. Ken said it broke big time and we coasted to the side of the road about 5 miles from home. I told Ken I would push him a short way to get him off the road which I did while he steered the Lotus. We just stopped when a car pulled up and stopped asking if we needed help. Since they only have one vacant seat available, Ken was driven home to pick up the truck and towing gear. Not long after an old camper rig stopped to see if I needed help. I swear those people were left over flower child hippies from the 60’s. I explained what happened and thanked them very much and they turned around and drove off. (Ken’s comment: A pretty lady in distress stops them every time)

Ken soon reappeared with truck and a towing strap and gave me specific instructions on how to tow the lotus. No fast stops, keep an eye on him, maintain a slow steady pace, etc. With that lecture, I began to drive with Ken in the Lotus steering. We went thru Hygiene and since there were no cars at the stop sign intersection, just kept going and maintaining that steady slow pace. It was scary/thrilling turning onto St. Vrain Road, but Ken was ok and following. Another scary place was the last sharp and narrow turn over the James ditch and into our driveway. We did it! We got home and the only thing that was major was a very broken Lotus Super 7. Ken removed the rear axle and had new gears installed. Re-fitting the axle was complicated since the new parts were not compatible with the old driveshaft. Ken went back to Tom Ellis’ vintage race car shop in boulder and got a trick adapter to solve the problem. With the work completed, the 35-year-old Lotus runs great.

I don’t know if I told you that I am now on the Board of the Visualizing Mahler organization. This January will be the 10^th annual Boulder Mahler fest. Artists may enter this event and use a Mahler symphony as inspiration for a painting. The same symphony will also be performed in Boulder in January 2004.

About a month ago we attended a Trail Ridge Riders Picnic. This is a 4-wheel drive club that Ken belongs to. They had two performance courses. In one, the passenger (me) had to pick brass rings (Mason jar caps) from posts positioned along a rough course.

There was another event where the driver is blindfolded and drives through a twisty course laid out on a hillside. The organizer of the event wanted Ken and me to do this, but I declined. I knew I would not explain the course and turns to Ken in engineering terms and it would result in a family dispute. So they got another one of the wives to ride copilot. You could see her arms flailing about, pointing directions, which Ken could not see. She had one advantage, he could not get angry with her. I asked him about the directions he received and he said she was awful with the directions. I felt pretty good that I did the right thing by not agreeing to be the copilot.

June 15 we drove to Custer, South Dakota, and immediately when to Mt. Rushmore. It is a pretty spectacular place. A choir was singing with a pianist accompanying them. All the songs were patriotic. It was perfect with Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt looking on with approval.

We drove to Crazy Horse Mountain that evening. The Crazy Horse project was created to captures the spirit of the Ogallala Lakota Indians. What a huge project. It is privately funded and probably won’t be completed for another 50 years. However, the man who started it had 10 children and years after his death 7 of them are involved in the project and hope they will be able to finish what he started.

There was an interesting sign in the restroom. It said “please do not wash your rocks in the sink as it is hard on the drain”. I did not understand until we walked by a stand where visitors were free to take rocks blasted from the mountain. What a great way to get the debris hauled away and give people a souvenir from Crazy Horse.

The next day we hiked in Custer State Park to Cathedral Spires and Harnet Peak. Ken’s plan required bushwhacking because a trail was closed and covered in brush. We accomplished this with a little effort as the bushwhacking lead us down some steep areas. We hiked to the highest point in S.D., Harnet Peak and then to Little Devil’s Tower. Little Devil’s Tower trail was very steep. An approaching thunderstorm drove us off the tower. We took the short way out to the road because rain had begun. That meant we had to walk a mile of the Needles Highway to return to the truck.. This included walking through a single lane rock-walled tunnel while traffic waited for us. The black hills of South Dakota receives plenty of rain and the area is very green. Scattered throughout the forest are rock towers that seem to leap out of the earth. Many stand taller than the trees.

We left Custer June 17. On the eastern side of the Big Horn Mountains we drove through Dayton, a perfect farm town. Charles Karult would have loved it. We had lunch in a very down home type environment. Main Street looked like a Norman Rockwell painting.

We drove thru the Bighorn Mountains and stopped at Shell Falls. The part of the drive was just beautiful. We traveled Rt. 14 that is less traveled than Rt. 16. A violent rainsquall in Shell Canyon flooded the road. We passed thru small towns like Emblem; population 10, compete with post office.

We arrived in Cody 7 hours after leaving Custer. Trying to find information about hikes, we stopped at a forest ranger station. We didn’t get much in the way of information about hikes, but the ranger told us to buy bear spray as we were in a very active “bear country”. We looked into buying this spray and after finding out it cost $50 decided against it. Our defense would be my singing to warn the bears we were coming.

Our cabin was hard to find on a one-lane dirt road. Once there, we discovered the cabin to be a 6-room house. It had once been a 2-room cabin. It was a remote area, but we did not see any bears.

At breakfast the next morning at the nearby Wapiti Lodge we were served by the woman bartender who was in a tizzy as this was the first time she had ever waited tables. She was forced into this roll as no other help showed up that morning.

After breakfast we were driving to a second ranger station when we saw a woman pushing her car uphill, barefoot, with 4 children inside the vehicle. We stopped and found out she was out of gas and intended to push the car three miles to the only gas station. We offered to help and her oldest daughter rode with us to the gas station. On the way the daughter told us they had just moved from Arizona. She said they had started with plenty of money ($2,000.) but their car need quite a bit of repair. She said that things would be all right now since her father had gotten work and so had her mother. We got their car started and wished them well.

We set out to on our hike that morning up the Elk Fork of the Shoshone River. The hike was beautiful with long views up and down the Elk Fork Valley. You could see for miles and miles.

That evening we visited Cody. The Cody Historical Center includes five impressive museums. When we visited they had a special display on Colt Firearms. Our favorite display was the Western Art museum.

We walked to the Irma Hotel. Buffalo Bill Cody had built this for his daughter. Inside they have a famous cherry wood bar that cost $100,000 to build. Outside the hotel a street was closed off in preparation for a Wild West gunfight. Before the performance “Buffalo Bill” gave a lecture on gun safety. He did an excellent job and had the kids chiming in on what to do if they found a gun. “DON’T TOUCH IT – REPORT IT TO AN ADULT, YOUR PARENTS” etc.

Our next travel day took us through the Wapiti Valley to Yellowstone. We entered Yellowstone at the East entrance. The east entrance drive is beautiful with lakes, plenty of wildlife bison, elk. At one point there was a traffic jam because of 25 bison on the road.

Artist Point is a picture perfect view point of Yellowstone Falls. The quantity of water was huge. At Artist Point we came upon three photographers who were waiting for a rainbow to appear at 10:00 a.m. They had waited several hours the day before and never did see the rainbow. They had thousands of dollars of equipment with them. Here we are near the upper falls.

We headed toward Norris and took in sights of geothermal areas on the way to Old Faithful. We, of course, had to see Old Faithful spout off and it did. It didn’t get that name for nothing. We took a lunch break and then walked through the lesser geysers nearby.

On the road again, we headed toward the Teton Mountains. They jump straight out of the plains. There are no foot hills, just straight up mountain range of marvelous beauty.

We found our B&B. Since no one was home, we searched for our room. Found it and made ourselves at home. The lady of the house, Carol Kessler, soon arrived. She is delightful and makes you feel at home. You feel as though you have known her for years. With this welcome, the children, and the dog, Dakota, it was a very warm and homey environment. Franz came home after work. He is Austrian, a skier and also a very nice person. So settling down in Wilson, Wyoming, for a couple of days we asked Carol about restaurants. She recommended Calico, an Italian restaurant that was very good. She also recommended Buena Vista, a Mexican restaurant and also very good. Both were only two miles away.

At the Calico restaurant we had dinner on the porch and strong winds came up. We were watching the weather for it looked like it was about to storm. However, we finished our meal outdoors. The next morning we were going hiking and Carol fixed us a bag of breakfast so we could get an early start. The B&B does not serve breakfast until 8:30 and we wanted an early start.

We drove to Moose, a tiny town with little more than a post office and then to Lupine Meadows. During our hike we overtook a group of 4 people in their 30’s and never saw them after that. (Ken’s comment: Diane’s bragging again) The hike was rated strenuous as it had an altitude gain of 3000 ft. The upper portion of trail had snow up to 6foot deep. We reached Surprise Lake but the trail to Amphitheater Lake was hidden under the snow. We had to follow the few footprints over 6 ft. deep packed snow. We finally reached Amphitheatre Lake and yes it looked like an amphitheater. Both lakes were partially frozen. On our descent we met a group of 16 people of various ages who were staying at the Jackson Lodge celebrating their father’s 90^th birthday (father, grandfather and great grandfather). These were teenagers up to 60+ years of age. We also met some climbers who were going to climb the “Grand”. The weather was changing with a cold front coming in. We had thunderstorms that evening and the mountains had snow.

We waited around the next morning till 8:30 a.m. for breakfast. It was a wonderful feast! After that we hiked about five miles to Taggart Lake and Bradley Lake. Of course, we had great scenery of the Tetons and the lakes.

We drove to Jackson Lake Lodge hoping to have lunch in their lovely dining room with walls of glass giving you a spectacular view of the Tetons. However, we were about 10 to 15 minutes late as the dining room closed at 1:30 pm. So, we ate in their Grill Room After lunch we hiked 4 ½ miles around nearby Christian Pond. Scenery as nice, but we were walking away from the mountains. We returned to Wilson on Park Road where the mountain views are spectacular. In the town of Moose, we saw a moose. It must have been the same one we saw in the morning in the same place. The town must have its own moose and require it to hang around for tourists.

Well the next morning we had another lovely breakfast and good conversation and then headed back home. There had been fresh snow on the hills as low as 7000 feet elevation and the temperature was quite cool.

Before we left home for the Montana and Wyoming trip I had hung up 11 paintings in the East Boulder Recreation Center and in less than a week received a call from a fellow who had just bought a cabin in Leadville. He wanted to buy my painting of the Matchless Mine and also wanted the painting “Aspen Grove” which has lovely aspen shadows across the road. That was pretty exciting. Anytime I sell paintings it is exciting.

A week ago I was with my fast walking group up Rabbit Mountain (open space). We had completed the loop and were on our steep, rocky descent when I twisted my right ankle and did an absolute face plant. My cheek hit a substantial rock on the trail and I was concerned I might have cracked my cheekbone. Fortunately nothing was broken. Only bruises and scrapes on my face and knee. Of course, I had quite a black eye.

The next day, Sunday the 29^th, we were hosting a potluck dinner for 40 artists. My swollen eye was a topic of conversation. There was no way you could hide it.

July 1^st I moved a collection of paintings from North Boulder Recreation to East Boulder Community Center. I also placed about a dozen paintings in City Hall in Louisville and one large painting in the Crazyhorse Salon. I’m always hoping for another sale.

On the 4^th of July we hiked to the continental divide via Pawnee Pass. Well, almost to the pass. There was a vast snowfield that had not been trod on and was very mushy from the sunshine. We attempted to go straight up the mountain over a steep boulder field to avoid the snow but this became very technical. We decided to turn around and return. Earlier in the hike we saw a young woman running up the trail. She passed us and continued up the mountain, the technical part. Later she ran by going back down. I asked if she were in training and what she was in training for. She said nothing at the moment, she just enjoys running up mountains!

A couple of days ago Zeus and I were on the deck and I was sketching. Debris was falling on me and on the table and I looked up and the nest that wrens had built was deteriorating rapidly and little bird legs were hanging in mid-air. I rushed to Ken to let him know what was happening. He was busy working and told me he had to finish something and I said it couldn’t wait as the baby birds were falling from the nest. He got a ladder and I put on gloves and picked grass. We had a small basket just a few feet from the nest and Ken relocated that about 3 inches under the original nest and picked up four of the baby birds (now on the floor of the deck) with a dish towel and returned them to the new nest. You should have seen him holding the nest with one hand and tying with the other with the help of his teeth. The fifth baby bird he put into the nest along with the remainder of nest. We waited to see if mother would return. She did! We could watch her feeding her brood from the kitchen area and a few days later they were ready to leave the nest. Made us feel like grandparents.

Today is Sunday the 6^th and Ken got the rebuilt rear axle he needed to repair the Lotus and after many obstacles in the repair, got the monster to roar. He’s off on a three hour bike ride right now with the temperature in the high 90’s.

I may take a break in a few minutes and visit our neighbors to take a dip in their pool.

Love, Diane and Ken