Hello and welcome to the land of plunging temperatures, wood smoke on the air, and decay in the refrigerator. It's good to be home, sleeping in our own bed, that wonderful king-sized pillowtop that we inherited from B's dad, after five nights out west. But if only we could spend nights at home, and still spend our days out among the spires, fins, arches and canyons of western Colorado and Utah.

We wanted to leave already Thursday night. That, of course, did not happen, because we fell badly behind schedule, partly because B has so much running around to do, lining people out and assigning work and fixing last minute issues, and partly because I was babysitting a friend's three children until five-thirty, then still went to work for several hours afterword. Friday morning, we got up and packed the pontiac with every blanket and sleeping bag in the house, our tent, clothes for living outside the next several days, hydration backpacks, hiking shoes, and of course, our bikes on the trunk rack. Then, as we were wondering where our destination for the first night should be, since the best vacations are only planned about a day out, a light bulb went off, and we decided it would be fun to do a little exploring on this side of Grand Junction. We formulated a plan that involved hiking up to Hanging Lake in Glenwood Canyon, then returning to Eagle for the night...and begging for a night's lodging at Grandma Rose and Grandpa Bill's. I called them and gave them a little advance warning (not much), and they said if we showed up by four, we'd go out for a drink together before dinner. We said we'd do that.

Then, on the way out of town, we stopped at the office. Our first big mistake. I sat on the edge of the chair in B's office as he made phone calls, contacted owners, gave estimates, gave his dad a list of jobs to do while we were gone, answered the phone, gave schedules to realtors, and proceeded to work a half-day. I tapped my foot, read and re-read the newspaper, sighed loudly, cleared my throat, and generally got ignored. Finally he looked at me and said we would push off our return date a day, to make up for it. We got outa there, sat in road construction on Vail Pass, sat some more just past Vail, and finally pulled into Grandpas at four o'clock, still coasting on the hurried few bites of breakfast we had managed to stuff down between carrying armfuls of camping gear to the car. We said hello, and got settled in our room that Grandma had finished just before our arrival, newly painted, newly sheeted, newly towelled, newly everythinged, it looked like. Then we rode with them down to Brush Creek saloon, and they treated us to a drink, while some of their friends treated us to a plate of nachos. Afterward, we were treated some more to dinner, and desert back at their place. All in all, we recieved some seriously royal treatment, especially royal since we had been prepared to rough it a bit this vacation.

We stopped at my uncle's place after dinner, and asked about recommended activities in the area. Long story short, we left their place armed with a map and five flashlights, and driving directions to Fulford Cave. And a trepidatious Bobby, and an excited me.

I was in Fulford cave once, years ago, but I was following my uncle, who knew where he was going, and I was seriously underdressed, soaked with rain, and shivering already by the time we had made the twenty minute hike to the mouth of the cave, and was shivering even harder once we had made our way into it's chilly, muddy bowels. Since that was the general state of the whole group, we did not stay long. This time, we were prepared. We descended down the culvert opening, switched on flashlights and headlamps, and began spelunking our way to the end of the subterrainian labyrinth. B had never been on an unguided cave adventure, and he admitted to a bit of unease and claustrophobia, as well as a fear that one of us would slip on the treacherous footing and break something, where a rescue would be extremely inconvenient, not to mention costly.

But we managed not to break anything, and got through exactly half of the cave before deciding to call it enough for a day. We had reached the end of the lower level, by which time, every corridor looked more or less the same, and we were getting a bit tired of crawling, crab-walking, climbing, scooting, hunching, and all the contortions one must perform in tight passageways carved by water, much more flexible than things with skeletal systems, namely, us. We probably would have had an easier time had we recognized the tumbling underground stream , cascading down from far above, as the waterfall, a landmark inside the cave, and had not climbed it, balancing on rocks in the middle of the icy cascade, straight into a dead end, looking for said waterfall. The upper level has much larger rooms, but we were becoming a bit loopy and disoriented, proof that spelunking is probably not one of our strong suits, so we passed the tunnel leading up into them and kept going, met a whole gang of oncoming headlamps right where we needed to turn, got disoriented and accidentally turned the wrong way, back tracked again ten minutes later after we realized we recognized absolutely nothing, kept on, and suddenly found ourselves staring at daylight far above us, through the opening of the culvert entrance. After we climbed out, B admitted that he had fun, but until that point, the scowl had been deepening the longer we spent underground. Ten minutes in, pretending to be Batman stopped being fun, and his wife was much more enamored with the dripping water and calcium formations than he was, but he was still game until the last several hundred yards, by which point he was ready to be back on the topside and could not scramble fast enough.

We sped back to Eagle, filthy and soaked, grabbed a sandwich, and took showers at grandpas, then re-packed the car and headed west, scrapping the Hanging Lake idea as we passed the exit for it, our muscles beginning to stiffen from the two hours of contorting inside the cave. We had planned on maybe doing a little riding somewhere that evening yet, but sunset was well under way by the time we decided to camp in Fruita. Our former landlord and next-door neighbor had made the suggestion once that, if in Fruita, Highline Lake State Park was the place to stay. We headed out to it, but the signs announcing it was full, no campsites available, and that we should not even enter without reservations poured cold water on our plans, and we began processing alternate arrangements. Sometimes, a lack of planning can really come back to bite one.

We sneaked in anyway, to take a look around and determine if it would be worth coming back the next night, after the weekend crowd died down. As we made a u-turn in a parking lot, we recognized a familiar Ford truck. Upon closer inspection, we recognized a familiar face as well- that of our former landlord and next door neighbor's wife. We pulled up to say hello, and they immediately invited us to share their ample site. We, of course, wasted no time taking them up on it, since we had no idea where else to camp and we really did not want to pay weekend Fruita motel prices.

As it turned out, they were there with about five other families, three of whom we knew slightly, all from Summit County. As we were setting up camp, one of them came charging out of his camper, ready for a serious confrontation, since he did not recognize us, and was rather affronted that we would just pull in and set up camp in the middle of their circle of pop-ups and fifth wheels. It took only a moment to explain ourselves, but man, am I glad we were there rightfully. He was one scary dude, mad.

We spent the evening downing campfire beers and s'mores, once again the only couple without kids. Late that night, after the moon was high and the embers burned low, we crawled shivering under a heavy pile of blankets and sleeping bags, and were glad we had not left even one of them at home. Though chilly, it was an absolutely beautiful night. At six a.m., we both needed a bathroom run, and we made our way through the sleeping park under a moon so incredibly bright, illuminating the few clouds, reflecting and refracting around us.

The next morning, we finally got to use the bikes, the whole purpose of this vacation. We rode a loop on the Kokopelli side of Fruita, actually two loops. It was an incredible ride, as one of the campfire seatees had put it the night before, "if you're into that sort of thing, incredible views of the river, edges of canyons, hugging the cliffs, ya know, all the usual stuff." Oh, we are into the sort of views presented by Mary's and Steve's loops. There was a time or two, I was so entranced by the sight of the river far below, I found myself dropping off small ledges that I had not even seen approach. They really should post a warning- "scenery can be harmful or fatal if viewed for longer than a glance".

We got back to the trailhead fifteen miles and three hours later, having carried our bikes over several portions of trail, and having stopped for pictures too many times, according to B. He has, so far, refused to spend the money on padded bike shorts, which if he would just try, he would never ride without again. It limits his rides to a few hours before he gets a bit squiffy and loses patience for things like pictures and side trips.

As it turned out, that was the last time we rode our bikes. The next morning, as we lay in our tent and tried to muster up the courage for the cold, the rain began. We pulled the covers over our heads. It stopped raining. We poked our heads out, and began preparing for a ride. It began raining. We crawled back inside and pulled our heads back under the covers. Finally, even the few patches of blue sky had turned gray, and we gave up, accepting that by now, the trails would be muddy anyway. We weighed our options, and decided we should drive to where it wasn't raining, rather than wait fir it to quite in Fruita. So we packed up camp, fast and sloppy in the rain, and drove west.

In Moab, we reserved a cabin in the Moab Valley RV Park for the next two nights, conceding that $50 a night for a heater would be the best option considering the forcast for wind and an approaching cold front. We chained our bikes to the cabin, then drove to Arches Nat'l Park, purchased another year pass, and made our way to Devil's Garden, at the very top of the park. We have never hiked the entire primative loop, back to Double O Arch before, but let me just say, it is well worth your time. We found a new favorite hike. One has to do a bit of scrambling over slickrock ledges and a bit of sinking in soft sand, but the views are totally worth it, as is the arch at the end. It is one of the few arches that one can walk across if one has the cajones to do it. We did not, we merely climbed to the highest point, just before the span begins, and stretched out in the sun for a bit, enjoying the cool desert breeze and the hundred mile views.

That evening, Bobby finally got to do the one thing he had been babbling about since the trip started, and (I suspect) one of the reasons we scratched off for Moab instead of waiting for the rain to subside in Fruita. He got to eat pizza at Zax. (Oh, I don't know.) Yeah, it's good pizza. Their beer cheese soup is good, too. Zax was the reason he has been postponing beginning a diet until after this trip. Oh, don't you even start with me, I already know we do not need to lose poundage. But we really do need to start eating a bit healthier again, since we fell off the wagon this summer. He is back on Mountain Dew and fast food, which leads to his body becoming a major roller-coaster of sugar buzzes and crashes, and I am back on cheese, and even occasional meat, which... well. There are unsavory side effects. I am finding that veggie really is the diet I do the best with, but it takes cheating on it to remind me of that.

We slept like the dead that night. And late into the next morning. It was noon before we finally dragged out the maps and began plotting our day. I wanted to ride bike, but B gingerly prodded his backside and announced that we would be hiking instead. I scowled ferociously and gave him another lecture about needing to peruse the bike shops for some fall sales, to buy a pair of padded bike shorts. He gave me a lecture about how men should not wear spandex. I filled him in on the fact that the spandex would be under his outer shorts. He filled me in on the fact that he would not be riding anymore this year, and would rather spend his $60 elsewhere. I gave his sore posterior a tap with my foot just to make a point. He grimaced, point made.

We then hit the road for Canyonlands National Park, driving sixty miles to the Needles District. Canyonlands is tri-sected (is that even a word?) by the Green and Colorado Rivers and their confluence, dividing canyonlands into three districts- Island in the Sky, Needles, and the Maze. The Maze is remote, home mostly to cougars, coyotes, and the occasional backpacker, the farthest from town, just getting there requiring seven hours of unimproved, bone-jarring roads, the last seven miles not doable withouth a high-clearance 4-wheel drive (or so we're told). The Needles is more accessible, though a long drive from Moab, thus limiting the day-hikers. And Island in the Sky is busy, just a short drive from town, crawling with rented RV's, small cars, and screaming, outa control children, running over fragile soil and dropping candy wrappers, all it's features being views of the other two districts, no great formations of it's own. We spent the afternoon with the lizards, occasionally annoying each other, occasionally agreeing on something, hiking in the sun with a cool, dry breeze making it an absolutely idyllic day. I was amazed by the sheer, pristine expanse of the Needles. Here, the cryptobiotic crust lies undisturbed except for a narrow, respected trail, black mounds of slow-forming fungus carpeting the sand, soaking up the rain and preventing run-off, holding it in place. Obviously, those who make the trip to the Needles care about a fragile desert ecosystem, unlike the millions who tromp through Arches and the Island in the Sky district of Canyonlands, churning up crust that takes decades to form, destroying it with a single misstep, a single footprint leading to future wash-outs and gullies. We crept through it, feeling isolated, more like we were owned by the land than the sense of owning the land prompted by the obvious over usage of Arches. We stopped at Newspaper Rock, on the way into the park. I have been wanting to go there for several years, admitting to an obsession with prehistoric peoples that poor B just does not get. Newspaper Rock is a portion of canyon wall, black with desert varnish, into which is pecked an entire story? series of prehistoric doodles? poem?, with pictures and symbols, the means with which to translate them long since lost. The picture is included somewhere in this post.

It was late, and beginning to get cold and windy by the time we made it back to town. We grabbed a noodle bowl and found the hot tub, then began craving ice cream, so we dried off and drove downtown for a Wendy's Frosty and a promise that the diet would start upon our return home. And by 10:00pm, we were deep into REM. I began dreaming that we were somehow in the wrong cabin, but I was fighting to stay asleep because if i woke up, i would need to acknowledge it and then we would have to move, and an annoying blue flashing light kept creeping into my consciousness, but then the dream changed and I was living in the house I grew up in out at Pence, and I had discovered a stash of sports equipment, a real score, in the crawlspace, only to discover a squatter living there as well, and having to give it all back to him... and still that annoying blue light, only maybe they were just there to arrest the squatter... and then there was a knock on the door, and I climbed out of a long tunnel of sleep to hear voices on the porch. Another knock. I managed a sleepy, "what's up?" and heard a long sentence, and caught none of it except the word "fire", and "cabin". Somehow, still half dreaming, I decided that the neighbor's cabin must be on fire, and since people knew about it, ours was not in any danger, and began to stumble back to bed. Then I worked through the rest of the jumble of words out on the porch, and heard "marshland", and "headed this way" and "suggest you leave". I peaked out of the small, diamond shaped window on our door, and realized the entire campground was lit by an orange glow. And finally woke up. By that time, the men on our porch were long gone, but we began groggily, mechanically scooping up armloads of dirty clothes and stuffing them into suitcases on top of clean clothes, and when the suitcases overflowed, put the clean clothes we had lying out into the laundry bag with our long-dried muddy cave clothes. We did not even make a nod to packing, we just stuffed and crammed, loaded the bikes onto the trunk rack, found some shoes, and joined the stream of evacuating fellow tenters, RVers, and cabiners out of the park.

After a bit of muddy-minded consideration, we drove to the cheapest, dingiest motel we knew of, on the side of town not threatened by the wildfire, to inquire about rates. The lobby was locked, and we decided that even if it was cheap, we maybe did not want to pay for the night's lodging twice. We tried to call Wendell, although we would not arrive at his house until 3 am, to see if we could crash there, he did not answer because he was working, and his phone doesn't ring when he is several miles underground in a coal mine. We thought about driving to Grand Junction, but decided against it. Finally, at 1:30, we pulled into the trailhead at Negro Bill's Canyon, and hunkered down to get some sleep. Half an hour later, we were freezing, all of our blankets in the trunk, held down firmly by the bike rack and two bikes. We reluctantly unloaded the bikes and got out our sleeping bags, reloaded and locked the bikes in the dark, with the same wind that was feeding the fire howling and whipping around us, chilling our bones, crawled into the car with blankets and sleeping bags, cocooned ourselves and slept fitfully until 6am, at which point B started the car and drove our bed to the outhouse on the other side of the parking lot, did his business and woke up considerably in the cold, and got back inside with no inclination to sleep any more. We drove back to town, past the wildfire that had come within a hundred yards of the campground beside ours before being deflected, but was still raging and had grown to over four hundred acres. B bought coffee at a gas station, and we headed for Junction.

As we drove through Fruita, I finally climbed out of my sleeping bag and pajamas, thankful for dark windows as I found clean clothes and put them on. A phone call confirmed that there were chain restrictions over Vail pass, and us with our bald tires... we stopped in Junction and bought four snow tires, something we had planned to do upon returning home.

And just as we were coming through Eagle, I remembered that Grandma had offered us some tomatoes. That was last Friday, and they said they would be gone when we came back through, but she would leave them sit out. Yeah, right, we smirked. We barely remembered. What were the odds that we would both remember? But, just in case, we took a last-minute exit and drove up to their place. Sure enough, a bag of tomatoes and a potato, sitting on the table, waiting for us. I'll be danged. She thinks of everything.

Vail Pass was treacherous, but we pulled it just fine with our new snow tires. We got home in time to unload the car into the entryway of our house and shovel six inches of snow off the front deck before going to a friend's house to "carve pumpkins, eat pizza, and play guitar". I ate the pizza and carved a pumpkin, but for the sake of everyone involved, left the musical instruments to those who knew how to play them.

And now, it's morning again, back home, and back to work. Actually, B thinks I am at work right now. But seriously, it was four degrees this morning. Since it has climbed to 33 degrees by now, I guess I will pull on my snowboots and make my way to Keystone, where I have a full day of work ahead of me, and all I want is a long evening in front of the fire tonight, and the longer I sit here and type, the shorter my evening becomes.

Hello and welcome to a world of having your cake and eating it too.

Thanks, all, for checking out the Gathering Place! In case you are having a huh? moment, the address is www.agatheringplace.webs.com. It is a virtual refrigerator door, a family and friends status report, and if I know you, or if anyone I know knows you, you are invited to join us over there. If you think I might be fuzzy on how I know you, add a brief note in your profile, so I don't knock you off the website. But, fuzzy or not, we want to hear what you have to say!

Ahh, yes, cake. Not literally, of course. I am talking about the perfect place, the perfect day, the holy grail of mountain sports fanatics. I am talking about those few days, those few places, where one can do all of one's favorite things in one day. Of course, the truly perfect day would include an epic powder day, followed by killer, dry singletrack, finished off by a bonfire on the beach. But a close second is a morning spent snowboarding, and an afternoon spent mountain biking.

Last night, while driving to a friends house for dinner, B turned to me with a scowl, and said, "I suppose you want me to snowboard with you tomorrow." I was my turn to have a huh? moment, before he explained.
"A-Basin opens tomorrow." I had no idea. But I heard my voice gain an octave as I began babbling about how I had not been expecting it so early, how cool was this, just when I was settling in for a long wait, my wait was over. All evening, I kept feeling my cheeks raising, high and firm on my face, and realized I was grinning uncontrollably.

He gave me permission to go, because he knows me. But he refused to set the alarm clock so I could get first chair. Because I did not want to oversleep, I slept fitfully. I woke up at 2 a.m., I woke again at 3:30. Again at 4:15. Again at 6:30. Each time, I sat up so I could see the alarm clock over the pile under the covers that was B. Each time, he grunted, annoyed even though not awake. Finally, at 7:30, he loosed me from under his annoyed elbow, (his semi-concious way of keeping me in bed, since once I am up, I will make so much noise he will not be able to sleep) and I shot outa bed, and landed in my boots before he had a chance to pull me back.

I dragged my snowboard from behind piles of other sports gear, didn't take the time to scrape the ice off the windshield, shut my bootlace in the door, and sped ten miles to the Basin. Once there, I grabbed my still-trailing bootlaces and hurried for the lift line, gloves and board in one hand, bootlaces in the other. I finished dressing in the lift line while waiting for the lift to start, waited while they sent up first chair in honor of Edna Dercum, who, along with her husband Max, poineered skiing in the area, and didn't make first chair, but possibly twelfth chair. I made three screaming runs, dodging a couple hundred skiers and snowboarders as excited to feel snow under their feet as I was, before the corderoy was completely scraped off and large patches of ice began to form, and by the end of the third run, the single's line stretched beyond the end of the maze. Then, back in my element, I made my way back down the hill to Keystone, and went to work far a few hours. Went back to the office and looked for my phone, missing since yesterday. (If anyone calls my phone, my voicemail will tell them to call B.'s phone) Then, I drove home, increasingly aware of the noise my jeep was making under the hood, and dragged the Stumpjumper out of the shed. I took a last ride to the back ranch, down and back up Blair Witch, crunching over the last few remains of last week's snow skiff. Stream crossings were edged in ice. Several other mountain bikers were out, especially friendly, because anyone biking anymore most be very dedicated to it.

Ok, so it maybe it wasn't the perfect day, because the perfect day would have begun in eight inches of fresh powder instead of man-made snow, concrete and icy. But it still felt so incredibly good to be back on the snow.

Even though the noise under the jeep hood turned out to be a cracked exhaust manifold, and B's new pickup truck is sporting a fresh dent from a random act of vandalism, and we are beginning to wonder if we will get our vacation this fall (if we do, it will be a flying trip, at the last minute), we sit in our living room, fire blazing, and indulge in a sense of well-being. The world may be crashing around one, but it is hard to remember it when one is warm, well-fed, and has just spent a day doing exactly what one likes best.

Hello and welcome to the world of... unrealized anticipation. It still has not snowed. It gets colder and colder, and with every gust of wind, the aspens let loose of their leaves, sending them away with the wind, until they stand naked and ready for winter, and still, it does not snow. In church on Sunday morning, the most oft- asked question was "are you ready for snow?" Since it was addressed to the group in general the first time, there was much cheering and fist-pumping, a tribute to how many either depend on the snow for our livelihoods, and how many winter-sports fanatics there are, just waiting for these last few weeks to pass before it returns. I know for one, I am ready to hit the trails on my cross-country skis. As I have heard several times, "If it's gonna do this (insert descriptive word), it may as well just snow!" But at the same time, I have been spending long periods of time staring at my Moab and Fruita mountain bike guidebooks, scheming a few days away yet this fall, in the warm weather, before the snow falls. I want to do a long-distance ride, but BBD has been poo-pooing the idea. There is the 142 mile Kokopelli's trail, stretching through the canyons and mesas between Fruita and Moab, and there is the White Rim Trail, the 100 mile loop that hugs the edge of the canyons hom to the Colorado River in Canyonlands National Park. The white rim trail is a jeep trail as well, which makes it a ride for novices, and not my first pick, althought he scenery might be better than the singletrack Kokopelli's trail. BBD always poo-poos my ideas when he thinks they might involve nights on the trail. Of course, the problem with taking even a cheap vacation is not the money we would spend, but the money we would lose by not being home and working. Once MrB starts calculating that, he makes a vacation sound like something so impossible expensive, even I begin to see the folly in it.

I occasionally get the question from a short-time blog-reader, who is B? Mr B? BBD? D? My dearest's name is Bobby, and his middle initial is D. The ways to shorten his name to something fast to type and catchy to say are nearly infinite, and our most opportunistic friends are often immediately aware of it. Most of them did not come from me, but from other friends. He has been called Bobbydee, and BBD, ever since the first year or two we were married. BBD occasionally got shortened to D. My mom often calls him B. Mr.B is my name for him, especially when I must give deference to his wishes. As in, "I would love to go skiing with you today! But just a minute, let me ask Mr.B." He takes it all stride, but he also almost never reads my blog posts, so when a near stranger comes up and shakes his hand, looks at me and says, "so this must be (insert favorite title or letter sequence)", it causes a bit of head scratching for him, and a quick aside to me-"Why are they calling me (insert favorite title or letter sequence)?" After i explain, he usually nods, then mumbles something to the effect of, "dunno what you must be writing about me, guess I should read the thing." Of course, this does not mean that he is seriously taken aback by it, nor that my blog readers should stop adopting for him whichever variation of his name they like best. After life with me and my nickname-loving friends, he knows it is a sign of affection. As a side note, he did sit down to read my blog once, and skipped over the posts without pictures. "Your writing is bit too rambling for my taste", he said, "but looking at the pictures reminds me of the good times., so then I read them to see what you had to say about them." Poor man, doesn't know the good stuff when he sees it. Just kidding... I know I could embark on fewer tangents. But back to nicknames...

Back when we spent much more time with that set of friends than we do now, we all had entire rodent and amphibian alter-egos built around names given to us based on particular aspects of our personalities, and impromptu, hastily composed comic books, poems, and limericks to support them and make their bearers squirm. We had Squirrelly with her constant busyness and manic planning, we had Mousie with her involuntary squeeks and under her breath sputtering when deep in thought, we had Hamster with his wish to be buff, thus spend hours at the gym on his wheel, although it was his laugh, a somewhat rodent-like ha-ha-ha, that earned it for him in the first place, and Frog, who wore a green stocking hat every day and apparently did a lot of hopping around, and who (again, apparently) has a such a wide mouth and freaky green eyes, that such a nickname was inevitable. Since she also wore her hair in two braids under her green beanie, the name often got lengthened to Pippy Frogstocking, and the beanie became known as the Frog Helmet. MrB never got to be an animal, but he was quite often the zoo-keeper in those days, back when we all had each other to encourage each other in each other's antics. Even back then, he was so responsible we had trouble assigning anything but grown-up characteristics to him. Bless his heart. He's had to put up with a lot.

MrB is, however, looking forward to winter with his new snowmobile. Since we we have a window at the head of our bed, he rolls over each morning and peers through the slats of the metal blind, and reports no snow. Then he gets out of bed and looks at his new thermometer, the one that records outside highs and lows as well and indoor temperature, and sighs. It coulda snowed, if we had had moisture. Another freeze wasted. I know what he is thinking. If we could get an early season snow, he would have time to go enjoy it. A mid-season snow means turning down friends when they call and ask if he wants to join them on Rabbit Ears or Vail Pass, and then going by himself later in the day. Of course, add it to the list of things we do not necessarily agree on. I am happy he is happy, but I do not see the need to burn tanks full of precious gas, in foul clouds of acrid smoke, leaving a haze hanging on our clean mountain air, just to race in circles and frighten wildlife. Now, if we are talking a bit of necessary touring to get us to where the skiing is good, then turning the machines off and carving up the fresh powder on human-powered equipment, I can totally see it. (He cannot see how muscling ones way through snowdrifts, utilizing large muscle groups and gaining only inches is preferable to exploding through them at thrity miles per hour, utilizing thumb muscles and those used for balance on a bucking machine.)

We have recently had to stop and laugh, because if we don't laugh, our heads may explode at how completely different we are. I suppose we are proof that it is ok and marriages can still work with almost no common denominators. Since election is looming, we were bored one day and began taking quizzes to determine just where we would be classed on our political views. We now know that where one of us is on one side of the graph, the other is on the exact opposite of the graph. Every time we go out to eat, we must just laugh, because there is so much compromising to do. How does a vegetarian and someone who hates vegetables compromise on a restaurant? Then we go home, and...how does an ordered, neat person and someone who is perfectly comfortable with disarray coexist? We leave for work...what about someone who would rather walk to work to do a tiny part to save the environment, agree with someone who refuses to acknowledge the existance of global warming, since last winter's cold broke records? We plan time off...someone who thinks vacations should be relaxing, and someone who thinks vacations are for all the activity denied during the rest of the year?

But, there is one thing we do agree on, and I suppose it saves us. Two things, actually. Our views of life may differ, one being that life is not a bed of roses and we must get through it as best we can, and one being that a bed of roses is totally lame and lacking in excitement. But while we may not agree on how life is to be lived, we do agree on the meaning of life. Our philosophical views are amazingly similar, as are our views of God and religion. And we agree that we must laugh so our heads do not explode, and it is ok to be so different.

I hope, after this post, that you know BBD a little bit better. He is my ballast. He is the reasonable one. He lives with me, which is a major accomplishment. Sometimes, he scowls and says I make him sound boring, or worse, like an ass when I talk about him, but that is not my intention, swear. It is he who smooths over my mistakes, repairs friendships broken by my impulsive behavior, understands that how I feel now will not be how I feel in tomorrow morning, but still refrains from telling me so. This one's for him.

And now, i must run along and go down to town. I am not sure how it happened that I got nominated for dinner tonight, but I am bringing a pot of chili to our group that meets Wednesday nights, under the guise of Bible Study. Oh, we do study, but that is a part of the evening. It is mostly a group of good friends who reconnect once a week for food, and tales of our lives, feet close to a fire, a large dog curled in the middle, as we converse about whatever it is that happens to come up, often with Bibles close by for reference. Since there are two vegetarians in the group, both with husbands who they try to force into healthier habits, it is one place where we know there will be a healthy, hearty meal at least once a week. Tonight, we will be having butternut squash and black bean chili, courtesy of the new crock pot my parents gave me. But first, I must make an ingredient run. I had thought I would do that when I went down to the office this morning, then swing by the house and start it when I drove back to Keystone, but suddenly this morning I had nothing to do at the office. Now I must make the trip down to Dillon anyway. So the best to you all... I hope every one else's lives are well under control and you are not just reading my blog because you are procrastinating all the pressing matters around you (no, of course I do not post to my blog because I am doing that very thing myself...)

Hello and welcome to the world of early winter. It is supposed to snow here tonight. We shall see... on the bright side, we now have a wood stove sitting under the stovepipe in the corner of our living room. We have burned two fires in it already, and they have been warm, but have not had the comfortable ambiance of a fire on a nippy fall evening, because the stove is brand new, and when heated, emits fumes that make our throats close and our eyes water. But it should pass, we just need to burn it a few more times.

Yes, I am still a little wishful for snow, but one always forgets that it is usually accompanied by slate gray skies and howling wind. It is just the childish delight of waking up to a magical, white world that I want, not necessarily all the things grown-ups have to deal with when it snows.

Last week I stumbled across a free web-hosting site, and decided to create a website, mostly because I had never done it. A day later, a friend called, wondering if I knew anything about setting up websites, so I sat down to figure it out. That idea came about two days before I was snapping the pictures on my previous post, and suddenly an idea for a virtual, interactive community center gripped me, a place where everyone I know can mini-blog, share them selves and their ideas, their artwork, their poetry and prose, their memories of simpler times... whatever it is they like to share. If you know me or anyone I know, stop by. You will need to register and become a member of the site, a fairly painless, two-step process, and log in with your email address and a password. I have started a collection of people already, so you may be surprised to find yourself featured there. The place to go is: www.agatheringplace.webs.com

I know you just sat down with your coffee and thought you were going to be here for a while, but that is all for now. If you want to spend more time, do more reading and more catching up, you'll have to go to A Gathering Place. It is late morning, and our Mr.B. is in Denver today. I am working "so that at least one of us can make some money today". My words, spoken with air quotes back to him, before he had the chance to say them as we lay in bed and plotted our day this morning. Mrs.B can be that way some times. But that means I should actually go to work. My Ipod is finally charged, so I suppose that means now...

Fall foliage tour

I took my bike and camera on a jaunt yesterday, back to Keystone Ranch. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.