9.12.2009

Autumn is knocking



This morning is a sure sign that fall and winter are just around the corner. Temperatures have dropped and the sky is masked by clouds of blue and grey, the colors seemingly weaved together. The windows have been open for the last few weeks (one of the great things about Colorado this time of year) and today there is a certain chill in the air that is beckoning some old blues from the likes of Billie Holiday and Dinah Washington. The dogs after their morning reprieve even returned inside and curled up on their beds instead of sitting on the deck and keeping watch over the neighborhood. It's a rather dreary day with the feeling as if mother nature is mourning the passing of summer. Today's the perfect opportunity though to get things done around the house, knowing that the upcoming weekends will be spent in the mountains chasing down the colors of autumn. I've looked back over my photos from last year and have mapped out this years trips chronologically. I learned last fall that the changing of the leaves migrated from northwest to southeast in Colorado starting from a weekend in Grand County at a friends cabin in late September. Having been back in Colorado just over a year now I have had the opportunity to find the nooks and crannies of the Colorado Rockies that most people don't take the time to explore.

I'm also on the hunt this year for a pumpkin patch in the Colorado Rockies. While living in Atlanta I made a yearly trip with friends in the fall to the big pumpkin patch in Dawsonville, GA. However I learned a few years ago to plan my annual trip around their Moonshine Festival (yes, I'm serious). They had pumpkins of every shape, size and color, although the sign at the entrance noted that wheelbarrow drivers must be of at least a certain age (I always found that rather amusing). It's one of the things I miss doing with my friends there, and am hoping to resurrect the event with friends and family here. This year though I hope to get to more of southern Colorado and I have a friend there on high alert to notify me when fall shows up at their door. It's hard to believe how fast this year has gone by, and the majority of the summer months seem as though they just vanished out of my life. Before you know it we will get our first snow fall and the living things of Colorado will go into a state of hibernation. But as plants and animals prepare for the cold winter months the countdown until the opening day at Winter Park has begun!

8.24.2009

Colorado Wildflowers



It's been a year of the strangest weather here in Colorado. Everything from 70 degree days in January and February to a summer full of tornadoes and hail storms. Of all the years I have lived in Colorado this has got to be one of the greenest. In the distance from downtown you can see the mountains blanketed in vibrant colors.

This year I've seen wild irises in the Teller County valley this spring, wild sunflowers just about every where you turn, and now wildflowers of every shape and color throughout the high country. Walking through valleys and even up fourteen thousand foot peaks they are everywhere and in mass numbers.



A recent hike on a hunt for the state flower was successful and I got to share the adventure with a great friend. The friend I went hiking with jokingly commented on a song from a very well known movie... and this year the mountains truly are alive!

Crossing the Cattle Guards


It seems they are everywhere… some near, some far. And once your tires rumble across the staggered metal bars it’s almost as if you enter into a totally different world, and even sometimes a state of mind. Some are as near as the rural county roads not far from the house. I even see the grass feeding creatures they contain, daily as I merge onto E-470.

But the cattle guards that seem the most intriguing to me are the ones that take you into seemingly far away lands from the everyday life in the city. Wide open fields of the eastern plains, where fourteen thousand foot peaks are barely within sight, trains rumbling through the countryside as the tall grass sways in the wind. Dried up ancient bodies of water, the massive round boulders and eroded banks a testament to the waters that once whisked through the valleys. And majestic pyramids of granite, only slightly eroded by time, adorned with wildflowers of every color and slowly melting glaciers. All are in sight once you cross the cattle guard and yet each so drastic from one another.

8.21.2009

Artistic Expression


By the date of the last posting on here one can easily see how neglected this blog is… again.
Even though life is a much slower pace in Colorado than the rat race of Atlanta, it’s still easy to get caught up in people and things, and forget about what it is that makes us tick. Just as lives together can build they can easily crumble, and most times much faster than the rate of which they were built. It’s in these times that one looses the identity of “us” and painfully returns to just “me.” But as that shift revolves the dreams of a life together and of dreams that were seemingly in one’s grasp suddenly slip through the fingers and off into the darkness. I try to remind myself of the saying that “It is better to have loved and lost, then to have never loved at all.” But when it’s your breaking heart that keeps you up at night, there are few things that comfort you. It’s those difficult days of learning how to fall out of love, clutching the pillow at night rather than falling asleep with our heads on their chest… waking up without the cup of coffee they bring us or the early phone call to say good morning, that rattles our emotions and can shake us to our core. It’s the moments we realize how badly we’ve been hurt that we drive up to the mountains in the middle of the night to sit under a starry moon lit sky and let it all out. The pictures we took, the places we went together, the times shared… that we hope in time our hearts will heal and let those memories once again be filled with joy and happiness. It’s the true friends that show their colors and either directly or inadvertently show you how much they care and understand what you are going through. Dogs still sit at the door waiting for you at the end of the day… their tails wagging with the unconditional love they have for you. And then new people come into our lives… reminding us again that there are truly good people out there in the world that we can trust and open up to. Whether near or far, they bring smiles to our day in the simplest ways… and they remind us how the poetic lyrics of our favorite song, the art of the written word, or a moment captured in time through a lens can begin to heal our heart, mind and soul. It’s those artistic expressions that can help us heal as we learn to allow into our lives those that can show us how to do it all over again! As each day sets over the horizon of the jagged Colorado Rockies… new days begin from the east with hope and understanding.


Dedicated to my friend Russ in Atlanta… who’s walking in foot steps very similar to mine.

11.15.2008

Shut your eyes...




It was about the time I moved back to Colorado I first noticed, or rather really listened to this song... and kind of ironic that I did at that time. I had bought the album some time ago, and finally took the time to listen to the whole thing... not just the song that the radio deemed important enough to play... or however all that works. But this day while driving up the tight turns on Loveland Pass this song suddenly jumped out and grabbed me. I had taken a liking to the song melodically some time ago, but suddenly words created a shiver up my spine and goose bumps ran down my arms to the steering wheel.

“Shut your eyes and think of somewhere, Some where cold and caked in snow…” “And when the worrying starts to hurt and the world feels like graves of dirt Just close your eyes until you can imagine this place, yeah, our secret space at will” Shut your eyes, by Snow Patrol

I’ve always needed my place to get away from it all. In GA had my favorite spot where two trees had fallen across a river and formed the perfect get-a-way above the running water. The cottage, being way out in the country another great escape from modern day life. And here… in the Colorado high country sitting at the top of a mountain you just climbed is more freeing from modern day woes than anything I’ve ever felt. You realize how small we are when sitting on one of these granite giants, and suddenly you begin to appreciate everything around you a little more. Stock markets will tumble… gas prices fluctuate… big companies start to fall… and election campaigns finally come to and end. But the mountains are always here…

Go west young man...








Some would say I’m crazy, but the adventurous side of me did it anyway. In April I had the goal of interviewing for a job or two, seeing family and friends, and also reconnecting with the city that raised me through my adolescence. As I hate the idea of “puppy jails” and asking friends to watch my two could always lead to trouble (and the possible loss of a friendship) I decided to embark cross-country and take the pups with me. So I packed the car and headed out on my journey. A journey from Atlanta to Denver that has yet to feel settled to this day, as I still feel I’m trying to find my place here. Kind of ironic since this is where I grew up!

So anyway… two days prior to leaving I had to have all four wisdom teeth extracted, so not much of my mind took in the sights on the way out to Denver but was more centered on the pain and getting to my first night’s destination pop a percocet. A brief stop over in St Louis to see Mike and Kevin was too brief and I headed out first thing the next morning to get to my ultimate destination. Having heard the joys of traveling through west Kansas I had prepared myself with purchasing a few books on cd. I like variety in life so I had a broad selection of books to listen to. “Marley and Me” seemed to do the trick (Earnest Hemingway’s Short Stories were starting to put me to sleep)... although I had not been warned of the ending. Tears ran down my face as I heard the author and narrator tell of his beloved labs last days as I passed by the “Welcome to Colorful Colorado sign.” Suddenly I felt like I was home again, and in some strange way felt a new appreciation for the lab of my own curled up in the back seat with his ‘sister’ Cloe, my Weimeraner.

Soon mountains came into view and I knew that a new chapter of my life was about to begin.

Catching up...

I know I have neglected this blog for a while. Sorry guys... but the move... trying to get a job off the ground and running... launching a new website (that I had to learn most of myself)... and well making up for lost time in the Colorado Mtns has kept me busy the last several months. But the snow has started to fall and now I'll try to get you caught up!