Winter Biking

What is this picture you ask?  Well, it is a picture I took at the halfway point on one of my favorite road bike rides.  Mounted to my handlebars is an alligator squeaky horn given to me a couple of years ago by my youngest sister.  I am on a concrete boat ramp looking out over a partially frozen reservoir.  It is 5 days before Christmas in Colorado.  The temperature is 38F.  I had a beautiful ride.

Road biking has become something that I really enjoy.  I started doing it several years ago and it gets easier all of the time even though I am over 60 years of age.  I am not a hardcore road bike person by any means.   I typically ride around 8 - 10 miles a few times a week, weather permitting and the roads are clear of snow and ice.  Sometimes I ride on paved trails in town and then the miles increase to 15 - 20.  Riding established trails is easier so racking up the miles isn't difficult.  The paths are smooth, there are generally no traffic issues and usually any hills encountered are small.  

My favorite time to ride is in the fall.  I love the dry grasses and scrubby vegetation, the bare branches of the trees and cooler temperatures.  I always stop to take in and contemplate the scenery.  I find biking alone allows me to do this without interfering with the exercise expectations of fellow biking friends so I make a point to do solo riding sometimes.  

I have a couple of girlfriend biking buddies and go with one or the other upon occasion.  We always have a good time.  They both work jobs and I don't, so I have a lot more time and freedom to bike.

Winter is a challenge, though.  I have recently joined the health club where my husband goes and will do the stationary bike thing there when I can't be outside.  It's not pleasant.  I do not like indoor exercise, but I have to do it if I want to stay in any sort of physical condition.  Winter has just begun so I had better get used to it.

Me and my biking shadow

Sunrise Sunday

This morning a little before dawn I woke to the sound of the wind blowing.  At first I was thinking how much I disliked the wind especially when it interferes with my biking activities and this type of wind does do that.  Yesterday also it kept me indoors for most of the day.  However, once I got out of bed today and looked out of the window, I saw the sky and forgot all about the windy wind.  This sight greeted my eyes and said "capture me forever".  I did.


Now the windy wind day stretches before us and challenges me to say "the heck with you wind, I will be out in your windiness anyway - you will not keep me indoors on this day".  Possibly a walk in a forest would be a good thing.  Somewhere where the wind will not blow us around too much.   Wind in the pine trees is a good sound. 


The person I have been married to for over 20 years is drinking coffee and strumming his guitar in the other room.  It's a peaceful and soothing sound with the wind outside in accompaniment.  He cradles the guitar next to his body, leans over it slightly and plays variations on the handful of chords he has mastered.  


I watch out of the ground level window by my desk and see the tough little birds pecking at the bird seed I threw into the brambles for them.  They fight over their various  patches and occasionally I hear a thunking sound as in their aggressiveness with one another one of them will land against the window.  It makes me laugh.  They are not flying hard enough to hurt themselves.

13 years later................and still going.

We returned last evening from what we estimate is about our 20th vacation to the Moab area in Utah since 1998. Obviously we love to go there.

At first, when gas prices allowed, we both drove our Jeep Wranglers there. Here's a typical picture from when we did that (date on picture is in 2004)

We would both drive the four wheel drive (4WD) trails that are in the area, some easy, some difficult. We made many acquaintances and friends during the years with other folks who also enjoyed driving on the trails.

However, gas prices did go up dramatically and so the past few years that we have gone, we have taken either Merle's Big Red Wrangler or, as on this recent trip, my newer four door Wrangler. We pull our little T@B trailer and we camp. We don't 4WD much but tend to hike and bike more.

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Highlights of this most recent Utah adventure:

Merle created rock "sculpture" at our campsite but had to sadly dismantle them before we left.

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Ravens are very intelligent and they are very big and they can unzip soft sided coolers. We know, because they unzipped ours. Luckily there was no food in it, only a couple of old candy wrappers in the front pocket. We drove up to the campsite as two of them gave us the evil eye. Angry, no doubt, at the lack of edible goods.

The next day Merle was sitting at our campsite and saw one fly by a few times. Each time it had a hot dog in its beak. Turns out our absent camping neighbors had left their styrofoam cooler out.

We wrapped the mortally wounded cooler in a gigantic ziplock bag we had and Merle put it in their tent. The campers (two guys) returned shortly thereafter and became new inductees into the "Ravens Can and Will Take Your Food" club. Not just your food. I had a roll of tin foil sitting on the table and a raven hacked it to death. Foils chips were everywhere. I had been sitting about 20 feet away hearing a hammering noise, wondering who could possibly be hammering something in the campground. Campers beware.

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We hiked from the campground to the point viewing area at the end of the mesa and back one morning (about 4-5 miles round trip). As we arrived at the point we saw a guy with a radio controlled helicopter. Everyone got to watch him take off and fly it around in the canyon air. He did a few aerobatic moves that were impressive. It was quite the treat. No pictures - it wouldn't have done the tiny helicopter justice in that wide, deep expanse. Here's a picture of Merle on that hike later, peering over a precipice. I stay back at least 15 feet from any edge like this. They drop really far down as you can see in the background.

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One afternoon, driving back to our campsite in the opened topped Wrangler, we raced a rainstorm and lost. Big drops plastered us as we rushed to secure the camper and the car. In his haste, the husband somehow jammed the Jeep soft top into the open position. It rained for awhile into the car until after much grunting, pulling and soft cursing, it was un-jammed. It was not the first time that we have had weather adventures in an open vehicle in Utah..............or Colorado. On the way home as we drove over Loveland Pass in the open topped Wrangler, it rained/snowed on us until we could pull over and put the top back again.

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We are Jeep Wrangler lovers and any sunny day with the top down is a good day.

This tremendous view is everywhere in Canyonland.

December - Colorado High Country

The Yurt

This past week we stayed in a yurt for the first time. Here's a video I made with music soundtrack.

From Wikipedia:

A yurt (üi or kiz üi in Kazakh, ger in Mongolian) is a portable, felt-covered, wood lattice-framed dwelling structure traditionally used by nomads in the steppes of Central Asia. A yurt is more home-like than a tent in shape and build, with thicker walls. They are popular amongst nomads.

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Ours was not as primitive and it was constructed with more modern materials. There were three layers on the walls consisting of heavy plastic inside and out with something else in between - couldn't see that. It was built on a concrete pad, was very sturdy and probably not useful for the typical nomad as it was all put together with hardware and such. It did have three big windows. They unzipped on the outside and had screens. We opened them all after it warmed up outside. Our day weather was perfect, sunny and a high of 65F.

The rest of the time, the propane stove kept the inside very cozy. When we woke each morning there was frost on everything outside, but we were just fine inside. Cooking was done on our little Coleman propane grill/stove outside on the picnic table. Each morning, after the sun came up over the hill and warmed things up a bit, we made a crackling fire in the sturdy fire pit outside of the yurt and sat beside it wrapped in blankets with our coffee.

The yurts were in Sylvan Lake State Park southish from Eagle, Colorado. I made the reservations online. Cost was $60/night and a maximum of two nights.

What a beautiful area. Although we visited a little late to see the aspen in their full glory, there were still many that were still shimmering with their golden leafy disks. Aspen leaves in the wind are delightful. They dangle and the slightest breeze sets them dancing to and fro.

We hiked a little. We drove to a old mining town called Fulford that was a mishmash of old, ratty shacks and brand new cabins. We had a little trouble understanding why anyone would want to build a new cabin there, but as we all know, there are all kinds of lifestyles and all sorts of different tastes.

As I was driving us down the mountain road on our return trip from Fulford, my eye caught a movement at the right edge of the road. I slowed. Merle opened his window and looked down. Right next to our Jeep was a little weasel with a big mouse (deceased, thank goodness) in it's mouth. Our little weasel was quite cute, even with a mouthful of mouse. It couldn't decide where to go with it's meal, so it loped down the road in front of us for about 20 feet before veering off to the left into the brush. I had the camera, but was so fascinated by this first time viewing of a live, in the wild weasel, that I didn't think to capture it digitally (I almost wrote "capture it on film" - not). Here are pictures of long tailed weasels that I think are the same as the one we saw. I got them off of Google Images. It had a black tip on it's tail. It was very small, about 10 inches long including the tail. Teddy bear ears. The mouse was so big that the little guy had a hard time seeing over it.

I'm so cute!

Sylvan Lake itself was around the mountain about 10 miles away. We went there both evenings of our stay to take showers at their well kept campground. We sleep so much better if we can get cleaned up before bed. The lake was small, but lovely. Cabins around the lake were very intriguing and I imagine that we will go back sometime and stay in one of those overlooking the lake. This time of year, there were very few people around.

There are all sorts of beautiful places in Colorado that we have yet to discover and we've lived here a long time.....