Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Travel Thoughts



Katherine today. The photo is Jenny Lake from up on Inspiration Point.

I've been doing travel errands--picking up mosquito coils and suntan lotion, dropping off dry cleaning, and buying a national park pass. Yesterday I wore my "good" jeans and lots of bracelets and actually tried to look okay and ran the errands in our new car and felt as close to being a suburban housewife as I ever have. It was the car. I'm not saying what it is because somebody will ruin it for me with some weird story or safety ranking or ecological guilt. I love the car. I couldn't spend my whole life dressing up and running pre-trip errands, but a day or two is quite cool.

This morning I organized the last bits of laundry. We'll have my mom over for dinner Wednesday and daughterly duties will be done for a while. I'll weed through the garden one more time and visit with the kid next door who takes care of the yard while we go play. I love all this. I love getting ready to go.

While I was sorting through my wardrobe this morning my brain was multi-tasking and thinking through two loops at once. First I was thinking clothes--the Tetons are tough because you need to have all weather possibilities covered and we need hiking, kayaking, and fine dining attire. There is limited space in the car and cabin.

I was also pondering why I like certain places and trying to figure out what I want in my ideal travel spots. Since the chances are great I'll forget all this before J. comes home and I can share it, I decided to write it down here.

Two more background paragraphs and then I'll list my thoughts. My childhood travel was centered on my dad's love of fishing and mom's love of destinations and reservations (she loved getting somewhere and actually having a motel room to sleep in). It was Griswoldish. We once spent half a morning at the Grand Canyon and were home that night. We saw seven states in two weeks on that tour. I was left with a sense that there were some places I'd need to get back to and so I have with Jim and Franny and with Barb and Michael. There are places I didn't need to go back to and for the most part I have avoided them. I'm sorry we were never in a position to take Chris and Nate anywhere.

Since our retirement, Bud and Janet have led us into brave new worlds of travel. They are seeing the whole world and have shown us how to go to brand new places and do brand new things. I love Mayan ruins, Belizian birds and beaches, Chaa Creek, the buses in PV, all of PV, and even snorkeling because of them. I'm pretty sure it was Janet's idea that we do the pirate ship in PV last time. I think it's her only bad call ever. Don't do the pirate ship in PV--really.

Okay, after all that, here's what I want in a travel destination:

1. It should be a bliss station or have the potential to become one. I need daily bliss stations (the den with J. while I knit and drink wine), weekly bliss stations (hiking up Carpenter's Peak, watching a Bronco game), monthly bliss stations (sitting in a booth with a friend at the New Saigon having "lunch special number 1"), and yearly bliss stations (the Tetons, Belize, PV). Bliss stations heal and energize you and balance things out. They are usually far away from the news.

When you visit a place for the first time and it keeps calling you back, there's a good chance there is a potential new bliss station waiting for you.

2. It should help you maintain relationships. For J. and I that means there needs to be something at the destination we like to do together. We hike and kayak in the Tetons. We read, fish, snorkel, and see ruins in Belize. We drink wine and eat out in St. Helena. We eat everywhere we go. Seeing stuff is good (DC is a good place for seeing stuff). We like doing stuff better.

The destination can help maintain friendships as well. We did the Tetons with the Haubens until Michael died (I still miss him and keep him updated with Bronco news--he would have hated the Tiebow thing). We've done PV and Belize with Bud and Janet. It's good sharing places with people.

We're going to Kauai with Franny and Ken in August. Our first trip together and they'll be sharing their bliss station with us.

Sometimes you develop a relationship with the place and its staff. Sometimes if the staff is there for numbers of years, it's a sign that it's a good place because even the help wants to stick around.

We have relationships with PV (we can do both buses and taxis and know five really good restaurants plus a bar that shows Bronco games). We know San Pedro on Ambergris Caye in Belize (don't miss the fried chicken at Elvie's Kitchen or the chicken drop on Wednesday nights). We know Grand Teton National Park better than anyplace. We know when a rock or a log has vanished. We know when a young osprey has made his first nest. We know where to find bog orchids or stony clematis.

We've been lucky to have some wonderful relationships with resort staffs or other guests who return as well. I missed Iris this spring--she's a housekeeper in San Pedro. We're actually driving out of our way to stop in Red Lodge Montana to see the former manager of Jenny Lake Lodge. We'll meet a long time friend from Alabama when we actually arrive in the Tetons. We treasure these relationships.

3. We need nature in our destinations. We'd have to leave Las Vegas to do Las Vegas if we ever go near it again. We like to bathe in the woods and play in the kayak. We are more mountain people than sea people, but the water side is growing.

4. The destination needs the potential to teach you something new with each visit even if you visit a lot. Bud and Janet have made sure we've stayed in a new spot and seen new stuff with each visit to Belize. I like to go to Phoenix to relax or see Bronco games, but we used up about all there was to discover one March when it actually snowed for three days down there. It's a place to find sun; it's not a new horizon.

5. We like a place that is kind of an even-playing field socially. We don't dress or act any differently, but we could be mistaken for rich people at some of our favorite spots. This works because the places demand a different wardrobe. Everybody looks the same in hiking boots. Since I'll never be rich, it's nice to pretend to be now and then.

6. We like a destination that the journey is nifty in and of itself. We go the back route through Lander to the Tetons and Mom bemoans it each year and champions the speed of I80. When she and Dad went to Montana each year so he could fish the Madison, they purposely drove hundreds of miles around the Tetons and Yellowstone because "you always get stuck behind slow drivers trying to see the scenery."

When we went to Lamini, we were driven inland to a river and then took a speedboat up the river to the resort. That was cool. When we left, we took a single prop plane so small we had to hold our luggage in our laps. Very scary and nauseating, but also very cool.

Big planes are never cool, but necessary. I really like DIA though and strangely enough the big blue horse makes me almost as happy as the big blue bear downtown.

I'm done at last. I'm going back to some pre-trip preparations now. Thanks for listening.
Katherine

Saturday, June 26, 2010

My Favorite Things - II


The Kitchen Table

Our kitchen table has, both literally and figuratively, been the centerpiece of our lives almost since the beginning. I'm pretty sure that it is the one object Katherine and I have jointly owned that has been with us the longest.

We bought it to put into our first married residence at Kimberly Woods. Again, I might be wrong about that, but I don't think so. It was a butcher block table we purchased from FB Design. That was back in the days when Fashion Bar was a mercantile powerhouse in Denver and window shopping at the Stage, or Hannah's , or FB Design was one of our favorite pastimes.

On weekends when Chris and Nate came home, we sat together at that table to eat, or play cards, or plan the next day's events. And just as that table has moved from Kimberly Woods, to W. Dakota on Green Mountain, to 3510 Teller in Wheat Ridge, to finally end up in Littleton, so have our family dinners, discussions, arguments, and revelations (both happy and sad).

The table in its current location sits on a hardwood floor in the kitchen. In the past this provided an excellent vantage point from which to watch Chris practice tap dancing, or hear Nate do impressions.

I sat at the kitchen table talking hockey with Alex Depta as we waited for Franny to come down the stairs for her first prom. I remember being in the middle of Alex's explanation when I heard her at the top of the stairs. I bolted up in the middle of the conversation to watch her entrance. I still don't completely understand icing.

The table has always been situated under the two windows in our kitchen, a perfect arrangement for sitting by one of them with a cup of coffee and a newspaper while the kids played outside. If they needed something, or had a question, all they had to do was walk up to the window and ask. Kind of like a drive-up window at the bank, or Dairy Queen.

After opening nights of musical or plays, Kathie and I would wait for the kids to come home for our "notes." I loved sitting at the table, rehashing the performance(s), just reveling in the whole thing: Chris as Grandpa in YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU, Nate as the father in CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN, Franny in CRAZY FOR YOU.

I remember an afternoon stretching to evening long ago when C. Fite and I, both involved to a ridiculous level with North Central, had a long and intense argument/discussion about politics, education, and the way one should ethically approach both, or something like that. I've had students come by and sit at the table for long meandering explorations into the meaning of life.

One year on the traffic cone that my seniors used to sign as a farewell, I noticed a note from one kid thanking me for the great year and adding, "Sorry about your kitchen table." Franny explained. At one of her famous July Fourth parties, Kevin Kroh was beating on the kitchen table with a couple of forks, keeping time to whatever wild and debauched music our daughter had chosen to play. After the song had finished, the group at the table noticed scratches, lots of them, on the table. There was no getting rid of them. When Katherine and I returned that summer from the Tetons, I noticed the marks, but the prospect of an explanation I didn't necessarily want to hear had me ignoring them. I finally got my explanation on a traffic cone.

I make pasta and gnocchi and peirogis on the table now that Katherine and I, with no children and few students in need of table side talk, have moved into our foodie period. As with all other activities in our lives, the kichen table provides the perfect venue for this latest phase.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Brooklyn, Cooking and the Kids



Katherine today.

Last Friday night, we journeyed out to AuroraLand--a shopping venue with an entertainment area. Chris was singing in one of his bands--this time The Jersey Shore. Lots of stuff by The Four Seasons. There was a large crowd, lots of folks danced and it was a good time.

The grandgirls were there in appropriate princess attire (dresses that flow outward when twirling and spinning). They danced--and were just so themselves. Sammi ardently looked at other dancers and imitated dutifully and even joined a conga-line of sorts--she wants to do what everybody does. Brooklyn just twirled and twirled. From Brooklyn's point of view there is no point in wearing a princess dress if you don't twirl and twirl.

At one point Chris picked Brooklyn up while he was singing something that had a na-na-na-musical chant that repeated. It was one of those times when he sings a phrase and then the audience is supposed to echo it back. Instead of cuing the audience, Chris put the mike in front of Brooklyn and she loudly echoed the syllables back on key and in the right rhythm. It was very cool. She's so much like her daddy.

Brooklyn's little dip into show biz has made me think a lot. Why do your kids pick up what they do and not pick up other stuff? Why do they try so hard to please in certain areas and totally rebel in others? Why do only two of our children live and die over the Broncos? Why do none of them drink coffee? Why does one believe so ardently in fairness and the other two see the absurdity of the concept? Why does the one who loves nature the most live in NYC? Why does the one who lives here find nature boring? Why are they all such good cooks? Why are only two what you would call readers? They are all good writers. One of them can spell and punctuate accurately. All are generous. None is particularly good at writing Thank You notes. I certainly meant for them to be good thank-you note writers, but they are not. Something went astray there. Other places too. That's where my mind has been. Why aren't they all devoted to the Broncos the way I intended?

It's odd that among the lessons Jim and I passed on, one of the biggest was unintentional. Somehow or another, all three of our kids are wonderful cooks. All of them like to cook and entertain. I started to realize it when they each left home. The first sixth months of phone calls had more to do with recipes than anything else.

Chris is probably the most daring of the three. He made up snacks in his youth. The lemonade-chocolate sauce drink he created in eighth grade looked and smelled awful, but he drank it regularly. You go to his house now and he will have invented some new way to eat something--scrambled egg won tons were a winner not too long ago. He's playful with food the same way he is playful with everything.

Nate turns cooking into the sort of art that only he can do. The sandwiches he made for himself in high school were masterpieces. He'd grill steak and chop onions and peppers and melt cheese and we would all stand around and admire his sandwich. If we admired the sandwich appropriately, we could have bites. These days he does things with BBQ that make me want him home and manning the backyard Weber right now. He made grilled chili, wings, and smoked ribs for the backyard party before Franny's wedding. Ahhhhh. Nate takes photos of his food sometimes too. The sandwiches he makes are still really impressive.

Franny is probably the most serious of the three when it comes to cooking. She didn't show much interest at all growing up, but after college she was calling regularly with cooking questions. She's the only one who is a student about it--she reads recipes, learns more varied techniques, has incredibly high standards about equipment and ingredients, creates new dishes and imitates dishes she loves in restaurants. I've begun to call her about recipes.


Jim and I have always enjoyed cooking. We were always pretty good at it and we always enjoyed it. It wasn't a chore--it was another way to hang out together. We've gotten better at it and it's still a great way to hang out together. I'm just glad our happy attitude about cooking rubbed off somehow. Maybe the best lessons are never intended.

That's it for today.
K.

Saturday, June 12, 2010

C. Fite and Decorating Gourds


Katherine today.

My house doesn't look at all like C. Fite's house, but her influence is everywhere around here. The outside is peppered with wildflowers I picked up at the Botanical Gardens Sale where we spent a day together each May for years. Our den drips with skeins of yarn I've hung aesthetically that I picked up at the Estes Park Wool Festival where C. and I have taken classes and roamed the yarn barn buying yarn we need because it looks or feels so good. I wouldn't garden without Cindy. I wouldn't knit without Cindy. If I think about this too much, if I start thinking about Cindy, Barb or Bud or Janet or anybody, I get all mushy and my mind wanders off into some odd connection to It's A Wonderful Life where I'm still here, but somebody else has vanished.

This, as usual, is not my point. I'm grateful to all of you who somehow love me and understand that I live in a world of tangents and that I take little bird walks when I talk.

Yesterday C and I went to Estes for our yearly yarn outing. There had been hurdles. We had originally planned to stay in Estes several days and do the whole class/sale thing and our husbands would come and we'd all have a fun time in the mountains. The course selections arrived and there were no real knitting classes for us and we decided to just head up Saturday for the sale. Then C. had to work on Saturday and I suggested we just go up late Friday and crash the sale. This might have worked if C. wasn't a known personality in the knitting world and her clients would be well aware she cheated and that would not be good. It was one of the few pragmatic suggestions I've ever made and C. rejected it--she's the biggest pragmatist I know. Anyway, we decided to take whatever class was still available on Friday and go to the student-only early sale.

After much thought and discussion we opted for "Gourd Fiber Frenzy." It had positives: 1) we thought we wouldn't get addicted; 2) we could probably complete the project and be done with it for the rest of our lives; c) the teacher had gotten positive reviews in the past.; d) the course description was slightly better than the one for crocheting a toilet seat cover. We signed up.

C. has a broader background in offbeat classes. She's already taken the braiding class, knitted a dragon (Esmeralda), and made a small purse from a bouncy ball (she liked that class a lot as I recall). I, however, have been plugging away in knitting classes until now.

Gail, our gourd professional, began by asking us to pick our gourd. I'm very idealistic and trying to select the ideal gourd without knowing what made an ideal gourd was challenging. My first choice was a dark red one with a simple shape (they'd been cleaned, dried and painted before our arrival). I set it down for a second to look at another and a nasty women whisked it away. I regretted that move all day. I ended up with a turquoise one that had swervy edges. Avoid swervy edges--they take more time.

Gail told us we were to somehow stitch fiber to the gourd and go around several times and then we should explode. Really. We were to explode. After about ten minutes of doing nothing and realizing everybody but C. and I were experienced gourders and they were stitching on the gourd and getting ready to explode, I raised my hand and said, "You know, I'm a gourd virgin and I really need to know step one." Teachers need to provide step one if nothing else.

Once I understood the process, I was off and wrapping. Decorating a gourd involves sewing a cord onto the gourd that you then wrap with fibers that please you. Eventually you want your cord to "explode" off the gourd. Gail felt everyone did a good job of exploding, although I purposely avoided exploding and tried desperately to create a restrained gourd. Minimum colors, textures, foo-foo, and beads. Several people said my gourd was "elegant." It did not, however, "explode." I have to say that Cindy's gourd lived up to expectations. She had pearls ands beads and ribbons and glittery spirals and everything else a frenzied gourd should have. She's a good kid.

After class we shopped the yarn barn. This is one of my favorite things in life. The vendors know and remember me. They ask about their yarn and what I've done with it. We discuss the classes and how they went. I told several about our gourd experience.

These folks are artists and their yarn is a pleasure I'm grateful that Jim somehow understands. I have lots of wonderful new silks and wools. It was like Christmas. I just got done going through my stash and marveling at the beautiful stuff I have hanging on walls and settled in baskets around the house that I'll knit up someday.

We drove home after this. It rained some of the time and we chatted happily about the day, about education and politics and our kids. It was nice. We weren't gossipy or anything like that. It was just nice.

That's it for now,
Katherine

My Favorite Things - I


Mornings at Jenny Lake

I love to get out of bed around sunrise and pull back the heavy curtains so I can watch the first purple of the sun color the cathedral group out my window. Then I grab a bathrobe and rush to the bathroom because it is incredibly cold in the cabin at that time of morning. I get warm and awake under the shower, perform a few morning ablutions, and put on my hiking clothes as quietly as I can, even though I know Katherine is fully awake by this time.

I like to sit on the chair opposite our bed as I pull on first the boot liners and then a fashionably slouchy set of socks from REI. If the hike we planned for the day is a long one like Lake Solitude (18 miles round trip), I put on a pair of Vasque high top backpacker boots. If it is going to be a short hike, the low top Vasques do the trick. High or low, but always Vasque. They are light, sturdy, and fit me perfectly.

I love the way hiking clothes feel in the morning at Jenny. The weathered boots and slouchy socks with liners let the other guests know you mean business. Hiking shorts with plenty of pockets are my favorite things to wear and at 6 in the morning the cold air hits bare legs with a delicious jolt. This is all ameliorated by a temporary sweater over a gray tee shirt.

I give Kathie a kiss and tell her I'll meet her at the lodge when she is ready for breakfast. Then it is out the door and into the unmatchable air of the Tetons in July. The sky is invariably bright blue and cloudless by this time and Mount Rockchuck, the only mountain we have an unobstructed view of from our cabin, is awash with sunlight. Sometimes there will be a deer grazing out front. Wild flowers color the path. Smoke curls out of the chimney straight ahead.

The walkway in front of the lodge has been washed off shortly before my arrival and a sign warns me to be careful as I mount the first steps. On the other side of the door are stacks of newspapers that I judiciously ignore and a drowsy eyed staff tending to the European breakfast spread, or tending the fire.

Since I am a sweetheart, I pour Kathie some coffee and run it back over to the cabin, usually placing it on the ledge outside the shower. Then it is back to the lodge to pour my own coffee and sit cozily by the fire. I am almost always the first guest to arrive, so I sit and sip and read which ever book I have with me, but invariably David, or the Monacos, or Edie and Beau, or someone visiting the area for the first time and in need of hiking advice, will come over and join me sitting on the mantel. There we will talk over yesterday's feats and today's adventures.

From my vantage point I can see Katherine walking toward the lodge. She is dressed in the same hiker's chic I described a few paragraphs ago. By the time she joins us at the fire, that morning's host(ess) arrives shortly to usher us to our table, the one with the unfettered view of those amazing mountains.

Monday, June 7, 2010

A Controlling Statement Kind of Morning

It's Katherine today, not Jim. Jim's out working with Bud--handyman time.

When I taught, I liked the way my curriculum made me try on alternative modes of thought. It made me see the world differently for a bit and it was only slightly difficult to manage when I taught two lit classes at once and had to balance two different ways of thinking. I remember a "particular tricky stretch of terrain"(*1) one spring day when Hamlet and Holden hit disillusionment simultaneously. Talk about catharsis.

The composition curriculum forced the issue too. Teaching rhetoric and writing and journalism led to weeks comparing or weeks classifying, or weeks analyzing, or weeks in iambic pentameter, or weeks in couplets, odes, limericks, or sonnets. There were weeks when all of my life was filtered through newspaper leads with all five W's pulled together with magical active verbs. There are still days when I read the newspaper checking leads and lamenting the string of passive verbs. There are still days when everything looks like a free verse poem.

Strangely enough there are even days when everything I do comes out of my brain in controlling statement form.(*2). Though bulky, controlling statements certainly force me to clarify my thinking and since I rarely hang out with cause and effect, it unsettles me to see the world through reasonable key terms. I'm happier leaving logic to Jim and letting my intuition guide me. I'm not sure which of our approaches is more successful because we either agree or Jim goes along with me because he loves me so much. He's like that, you know.

Anyway, this morning the world just filtered through in controlling statements--some quite sophomoric I'm afraid. Anyway, for old time's sake, for the linguistic gymnastics of it all, and just for the heck of it, here's a sampling of this morning's controlling statements:

1. Good soil, water, and compost make a mighty fine garden.

N.B.: It's important to read this one as though it was 6:00 AM and you're really excited that plants are actually thriving. Sophomoric I know, but true to my spirit at the time.

2. Drinking coffee and doing the NY Times crossword puzzle slam dunks going to the gym because I won't worry about my shoulder, I'll take care of our yard, and I'll have time to play after I see the doc.

3. Seeing Morgan Freeman and Jon Stewart together on a rerun of The Daily Show capsulized all I trust in the media given Freeman's narration on every environmental, critter, and outer space show on the Discovery Channel, and given Stewart's ability to attack everything I want attacked. (only two key terms here--oops)

N.B.: Morgan Freeman said he'd always been interested in outer space. This sruprised me. He once wanted to have a channel that highlighted his interests in outer space. He said he once read Cosmos by Carl Sagan as though it were a significant tome. That part worried me.

4. After seeing kindly Dr. Kaufmann, it looks like early arthritis (oh boy, oh boy), a spinal pinch or bulge (I can have an MRI if I want), or a constant stress ("knitting through baseball games?" Dr. K asked with a not-so-compassionate face) all could play a factor in my constantly numb scapula area.

5. Plowing through The Dante Club wears on me because I haven't read more than ten minutes in a row, there seem to be a whole shitload of characters, and I keep wondering if books like this could ever take place at CSU.

6. Kindly Dr. Kaufmann's interests reflect an eclectic personality because he used to raise llamas, he now keeps bees (six hives survived the winter), and The Bible is his favorite book.

N.B.: Dr. Kaufmann knows I knit and thinks I should not do it for hours straight. He does not know that Franny and Zooey is my favorite book. Nor does he realize I'm pretty good with plants and I'm trying hard to speak Spanish to our salsa garden.

7. Healthy people in waiting rooms herald the end of printed text as they stare at blank phones (smart or otherwise), hang their heads and stare at the floor, and check out the "art" in the office rather than read all sorts of available magazines.

Having written some of my morning's fruit down, I'm realizing how inane my morning seems when I really kind of enjoyed it while it was happening.

One last bit of sharing, please. Last Saturday, unlike today, was a day I lived in free verse land. We attended the first dance recital of our two grand-daughters. Sammi, age 5, has been to preschool and knows it's important to be part of the group and to give the assigned choreography a real shot. Sammi gave every effort to make her moves with the others. She understood the concept that they were all in their Princess Dance together. Brooklyn, age 3, was dancing in her own little princess world. It was a joy to watch.

I'll end with a bit of Saturday's free verse lens. It's for Brooklyn, age almost 4.

The First Dance Recital

In the dark the age-four-to-five princesses
found their X's on the stage
and the spotlight shone blue
on their blue princess gowns.

Most curtsied and pointed to bluebirds in unison,
but our Brooklyn only twirled
because princesses twirl.
She knows this
and she twirls and twirls and twirls.



That's it for today.

*1. A phrase from "The Laughing Man" by J.D. Salinger
*A controlling statement was a Jefferson County writing device that functioned like a thesis statement. It consisted of an inferential subject, a critical assertion, and three inferential reasons supporting the thesis--a combination of the subject and assertion. It outlined a five paragraph essay and was mandated by the district.

Sunday, June 6, 2010

Roxborough

There are many times, particularly when I am feeling like a contrarian, that I make stupid proclamations about wanting to live in Manhattan, or at least getting a loft in LoDo within walking distance of some of my favorite restaurants. But when I remember that Roxborough Park is only fifteen minutes away, I realize how miserable I would be in a new location.

About twice a week in the summertime we fill our small Camelpaks with water, gather our hiking sticks, and head out to hike Carpenter Peak. Part of our ritual is to stop at Chick-fil-a on the way for sandwiches to eat at the top of the hike and then it is down Wadsworth as we drive by Chatfield, Martin Marietta, and the housing developments growing with alarming speed along the approach to the park.

We always park in the top lot by the visitor center and make a final, hopeful stop at the public restrooms therein. On good days (Read: days without coffee) that's the only stop we need. Then we put on our packs, set our hiking sticks at the appropriate numbers, and head on down the trail, blithely ignoring the warnings for rattlesnakes, bears, mountain lions, and various forms of poisonous oaks and ivies.

One of the things you should know is that my wife has a self-described case of Wild Flower Tourette's, so most of our hikes are punctuated by her randomly blurting out the names of wild flowers she spots along the path. We might be strolling through the first wooded section of the hike and she will call out "BLUEBELL!" That is my cue to look around to spot the flower growing next to some rock on the side of the trail. "Yep," is my most common rejoinder. It is a good arrangement. I learn a lot about flowers and Kathie gets frequent validation.

The first part of the hike climbs gradually away from the visitor center - "YARROW" -through a beautiful grove of aspens, pines, spruce, and lot of other stuff - "DELPHINIUM (called larkspur in these parts)" - that I don't know the names of. At approximately the half mile mark another trail to the South Rim heads off to the left, but the Carpenter Peak trail keeps plugging straight ahead.

After another tenth of a mile the trail crosses a gravel access road and continues by yet another sign warning hikers of all the perils awaiting them on the trail - "WILD DAISY" -but ignore that. Other than the day when Katherine almost stepped on a coiled rattler, we have never seen so much as a decent sized pile of bear stool to give us pause.

After the road, the trail gets a little steeper as it begins to switchback up the ascent to the top. There are plenty of natural breaks in the trail where devoted spouses have paid to have redwood benches erected to commemorate a loved one's passing. We use these benches as milestones to assure us - "SCARLET GILIA (the first one of the season)" - we are making progress.

As we get closer to the top, we have to carry our sticks because the scrub oak - "SCRUB OAK" - is basically taking over the trail. There is a final fork in the road at the top. Go to the left and you will hook into the Colorado Trail. Go to the right for a tenth of a mile scramble to the top of the peak where you will find a wonderful view stretching from Boulder all the way to Sedalia with the skyline of Denver in between. You will also find a bunch of other hikers resting up for the easy descent back to the visitor center. When we whip out our Chick-fil-a's the envy is palpable.

After a twenty minute respite, it is back down the - "COLUMBINE" - hill.

Another fifteen minutes from the visitor center and we are pulling into our driveway. Whenever this happens we always comment on how lucky we are to live where we do. Tomorrow we might take the kayak over to Chatfield. I mean - "PHLOX" - what else are we doing?