A Joyful Paradise
A week in my heaven on earth
I’ve been away for a while. I went to Crested Butte for the Seventh Annual Meeting of the Towandas. It was a fun week packed with trail adventures, wildlife sightings, wildflowers, long steep relentless climbs at high altitude, over the top scenery, garbage disposal repairs, and two Towandas watching murder mysteries and catching up on everything that can be discussed in life.
Crested Butte is surrounded by hundreds of trails, with names like Oh Be Joyful, Rustler’s Gulch, Paradise Divide, Block and Tackle, and so many more. It was our seventh annual meeting of the Towandas and even though we are seven years older than when we started this annual tradition, climbing steep stuff day after day is still fun. I have not lost nearly as much fitness as I thought I did.
The scenery is beyond belief, even in the rain. It rained one day, which was a pleasant break and tamed the dust on the roads, and all the other days were perfect. Photos do not do it justice, but I’ll share some of them below, flowers first, then each day’s trail adventure views.
I drove up Monday and the subsequent days were one fun trail after another, some steep and rocky climbs, some less so. We got up early each morning and chose our routes. We hiked together some days and hiked/ran separately on other days. Towanda is much more into running than I am these days, so we did our trail runs and hikes in the mornings and got together in the afternoon and evening.
One night the garbage disposal broke in Towanda’s kitchen, so I called Dennisto see if he could talk us through fixing it so Towanda wouldn’t have to wait days for a repair from Gunnison and it would be expensive. Dennis talked me through it and we fixed it!! Woohoo! Sort of like David Puddy talking Kramer through installing a garbage disposal in his bathtub, if you’re a Seinfeld fan.
I left on Saturday, driving through Leadville to I-70, observing the insane traffic going both ways!, made a stop at H Mart in Denver, and then came home to Dennis and the girls. It was so good to be home, despite the heat and hints of smoke hellscape that was drifting over the mountains from the fires in Utah and western Colorado. I hope they get those contained.
When I checked my mail on Sunday morning, there was a surprise package from a subscriber who knitted a pair of socks and sent them to me! She also ordered some cards. Thank you so much, Jane!
The garden looks like it doubled in size in a week’s time. Beets like softballs, lettuce going to seed taller than me, arugula on steroids, and the first of many tomatoes and peppers to be harvested all summer.
I was having so much fun I pretty much ignored politics. This week the Supreme Court wraps up, and tomorrow is the primary in Colorado, we already dropped off our ballots. I hope Phil Weiser beats Mike Bennet in the Democratic primary for governor. Bennet puts me to sleep. We cannot afford to lose the governor’s race to a Republican. That would be a disaster.
I have not kept up with the daily drama in DC. I skim over the headlines and that is all, so I barely break the surface in the latest WATB antics of this death cult administration. Katie Phang suing the Department of Justice over the release of the Epstein files has been the only story I followed.
I go back to my normal work routine tomorrow, which I enjoy very much. I have a lot of projects to complete in the next couple of weeks before I start to prepare for the Art in the Park festival in Loveland in early August. I plan to get a hike in every week the rest of this summer except for my show weeks.
I’ll be back to posting more regularly as things unfold here. Thanks for reading and subscribing!
Wow, Alene! This sounds like heaven on Earth indeed! So glad you got much-needed time with your friend doing the things you both love. The photos are simply amazing, and the wildflowers -- gorgeous!
Good for you for taking that break. Oftentimes, such a break can lead to even more artistic inspiration.