Halloween? Really? I’m still waiting to enjoy summer.
You might be wondering what we’ve been doing? Well, you aren’t alone. Summer flew by and not much of what we’d planned on doing actually happened. Well, the eclipse happened, as you may have noticed.
The last part of summer (and early Fall) was overtaken by work, travel, and work travel. Happily, we like what we do, so work isn’t anything to complain about.
We ran out to California for some client work. California rarely sucks, and as long as I’ve lived far away from my hometown, the smell of salt air and eucalyptus makes me kind of nostalgic. I can close my eyes and I’m 20, driving my TR3 on Pacific Coast Highway. And gas is 25 cents a gallon. However, when I open my eyes, I’m fatter, slower and “working out” by slowly plodding past UCSB students going to class.
At any rate, we also attended a great wedding and was able to spend a few hours catching up with longtime friends and watching a gorgeous Central Coast sunset. Note to self: We have to visit Ojai. Soon. Last time I was there I was camping with my parents, and was probably 14. Surprisingly it hadn’t changed THAT much.
Nancy has been painting like crazy as she had two shows this summer/fall. She hung some work at Aspen Street Coffee here in town. More recently she opened a show at Salto in Nederland. We drove the Little Truck over the hill and stayed for the better part of a week. The time flew by fast, and visits with friends and meetings with associates went by way too fast. No matter how much time we spend on the Front Range, it seems we leave with a long list of people we missed seeing, while zig-zagging all over town trying to meet up for meals, coffees, and the occasional bike ride.
Nancy’s opening was really good. Despite dubious weather and Boulder Canyon, friends came from all over the Front Range to see her work, catch up, and eat some of Salto’s delicious tacos. We were really touched to see so many friends and former neighbors make the drive up to Ned. Nancy sold some pieces and was able to show off how much her work has grown in the last couple of years.
When we left Boulder to head back over the hill it was snowing a good bit. We drove into the Eisenhower Tunnel in a near-whiteout; and came out the other side to bright sunshine. It’s always so cool when that happens. Our trip home was uneventful, other that seeing an Earthroamer headed east on I-70…I waved, then realized I wasn’t in our Big Truck, and whomever was driving probably didn’t see us.
We have continued to do some local exploring and not long ago hiked into the Dominguez Canyon Wilderness. If you’ve driven from Delta to Grand Junction and remarked to yourself what a boring and desolate stretch of road Highway 50 is….you’ve driven past some amazing canyons. Just to the west, on the other side of the Gunnison River is a huge wilderness area filled with deep canyons, arches, ruins, petroglyphs and more. We did a 10 mile hike back to some petroglyphs that were pretty cool. Unfortunately, they weren’t so far from civilization to prevent some cretin from an attempt at defacing them, but said cretin missed quite a few that were scattered around.
We continue to be amazed at how much cool stuff is within such a short drive from our home base in Fruita. There is years of exploring to do just on the Colorado Plateau, between Hwy 50 and the state line.
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