Old Man Winter- the cool old geezer we're ready to spend some quality time with.

Hello and welcome to An Altitude Problem, where there is winter. Just as suddenly as summer left, winter arrived. Last week, bike rides, albeit bundled-up ones that left cheeks bright pink and toes a bit numb. Today, snow blowing in sideways, power failures, a wood burning stove that is never allowed to go out. Loveland ski area opened yesterday, A-basin opened this morning. We actually woke to rain, no snow, but about twenty minutes after crawling out of bed the cold front arrived, the temperature dropped ten degrees in twenty minutes, and within twenty more minutes, I shovelled the deck for the first time in the 2010/2011 season.

My parents were up here for my mom's 6th chemo infusion- halfway through round number one. They left early and crawled over Vail Pass, the roads slick. Arden and Michalle, who stayed with us over the weekend, left about the same time and spent a half hour waiting for I-70 Eastbound to open so they could drive the opposite direction, over Loveland pass to Denver and beyond.

My mom stayed here while my dad went home to work this week. She has another appointment with a specialist tomorrow, then a six day gap until the next chemo appointment. And of course, I am scheduled to work at the ski shop tomorrow, so I cannot drive her over- either she will drive herself or B will take her, depending on the weather. I swore my working at the ski shop would not cause B undue stress. Oops. I had at least hoped it would be later rather than sooner that it would cause a scheduling conflict. At the moment, we are all (B, mom, and I) relaxing in front of a fireplace filled with glowing coals, and wondering into the kitchen periodically for another bowl of chili. In a little bit I will go clean the kitchen, but right now, I am in a state of relaxation that I am loathe to interrupt.

I say ski shop because this weekend was the weekend the staff (except for me, who was on a mountain biking trip in Fruita- more on that later)swapped the space in the back from bike shop to ski rental shop. I am going to have to have a moment of silence when I see the shelves lines with rental gear where mechanic's stands and tools usually live. It will not be a bike shop, except for possibly a tiny closet in the basement with one mechanic's stand, for nearly six months.

Our much-anticipated trip to Fruita was not exactly what we expected. Drizzling rain turned to pouring rain turned to cloudy skies with no sun to dry the trails. The soil in Fruita is absolutely impossible when wet. It is clay that turns to gooey grease and sticks to everything in giant clumps and pulls shoes from feet and sticks to chains so thickly that it breaks fragile parts like derailleur hangers off of bike frames. We did not ride on a single trail. We camped in the rain, sat around campfires wearing hats to shield our faces from the drizzle, shared beers and biking tales and peered at the gray sky. Finally, we did go out to the trailheads, knowing that it was stupid, but wondering if anybody else was stupid enough to ride in such muck. Turned out, there were plenty of nice, clean riders on nice, clean bikes heading out, but we all liked our bikes too much to subject them to the trails and too conscientous to subject the trails to our bikes. A group of four of us, the four who were really bothered by not riding at all in Fruita, took our bikes up on the Colorado National Monument and did a mountain bike road ride, which was beautiful and scenic and a good workout. And that was that. We said goodbye to our fellow campers, a group of about six other couples, all from Summit County who had rented a large block of campsites in Highline State Park together, and came home.

My house is still cluttered with all the camping stuff that we dropped just inside the door and I have been slowly working on washing and putting away. It was good to spend a day at home, but I did not get much accomplished, what with all the reveling in just spending a day at home. I did get a cross-country ski in with Andy, a three and a half mile out-and-back through meadows full of drifted snow. About halfway back to the house, i began to feel that familiar slipping, stinging sensation that is a blister forming and remembered that I have to stick gray tape to the backs of my heels when I wear my XC boots. I forgot about that minor detail. Now I sport big fluid filled bumps on the backs of my heels. Just like last winter.

And now it is time. Post prandial (look it up) relaxation is over. The electricity is back on and it is time to make hay while the electric light shines.

Blog Action Day: Water

Hello and welcome to An Altitude Problem, where we are a day late blogging about a very important issue, but better late than never, right? October 15 was Blog Action Day, a day in which concerned bloggers everywhere discussed this year's topic- water. Water usage, contaminated water, polluted oceans, water sources, Waterworld. Okay, maybe not that last. Let's leave Kevin Costner out of this discussion.

For those of us who grew up in Western Kansas, the flat, dry prairie, water is a complicated issue. We vacation at lakes and at the ocean and marvel at how much of it there is. Then, we go back home and turn on irrigation wells, sprinklers, and take long, hot showers, because to us, clean water from the seemingly endless supply in the Ogallalla Aquifer is our right as much as the air we breathe.

Sticky mud under rustling corn plants, tassels high above our heads, the legend that if you stand in the middle of a field and hold your breath and make no sound, you can hear the corn grow. Running through it in large-scale games of hide and seek, arms shielding our faces, yet still emerging with red lines across our faces where the sharp edges of the leaves slashed us. Laying irrigation pipe. Corn-fed cattle, the benchmark for the last 20 years of quality beef. It all takes water- enormous water. Market glut because of overproduction. The price of grain. And most recently, the introduction of chemfallow farming practices, which allows for dryland crops but infuses our food with even more substances for the chemical-savy consumer, those who are willing to pay more for food grown without chemicals of any kind, to be aware of. It all goes back to water- water that used to run in creeks and rivers, cutting through limestone beds, carrying and depositing rich, black soil. The Smoky Hill River, once miles wide, now only runs sporadically on wet years. We dig in the limestone bluffs and uncover fantastic sea creatures, 25 foot-long fish who's bones have turned to stone, a shark's tooth here, a partial tail fin there, and we marvel that it was once all under water, and unless we are the curious type and believe the scientists, geologists and paleontologists, that it was an ocean until the uplift of the Rockies, we marvel at the havoc Noah's flood left behind. The signs of water are everywhere but the water itself has retreated underground, and like an opaque pitcher, we will just keep pouring, never believing we are to the last drop, until the water stops coming out. The Ogallalla is not refilling as quickly as we are draining it. That much is proven. But yet it remains, in the minds of many, a myth, like the myth of global warming and the myth that our beaches are turning to plastic and the myth that petroleum products are silently killing us.

I hesitate to reveal the side of me most likely to be labelled as a radical. But some causes are worth it. Landfills have become my personal pet rant, because they are the most obvious sign of the way we as a society have stopped caring. So much waste. Have we really evolved so much from our hunting and gathering ancestors that we now blatantly disregard their mantra, "waste not"? But there I go, on my landfill rant. We could live on a pile of trash and be quite a functioning society if we all had access to the juice that makes us go- water. We were raised in the land of plenty, as much as we like to make it sound as though we have it rough. We have water. We have food. We have any opportunity we want, and let's just take a look back at how we got there.

Grandma Chris once repeated a conversation she had with a local old timer. They were discussing which of the modern conveniences was the most useful to them. Microwave? Electric light? Cars? No, the old timer said, shaking her head. The thing that most simplified her life was running water. Grandma admitted she had taken that one for granted, but it was true- without running water, one's life consisted of carrying it- carrying it to cook, carrying it to clean, carrying it to drink, carrying it to bathe, carrying it until one's spine was permanently bent from the weight, one hip was higher than the other, one shoulder slumped more. One had to boil it to prevent sickness. A woman's entire life was spent in the pursuit of water, and most settlers even had a well in their yard. When running water became available, women began to demand equality. They had the time to raise children properly, cook in sanitary kitchens, learn to read. We got readily available water, and our evolution as a society speeded up.

And now, we sit here in our comfy cotton shirt that took 400 gallons to grow from a seed to a tee-shirt, in our faded, favorite blue jeans that took 1,800 gallons to grow and produce, munching on Doritos that come straight from the Ogallalla, and we chose to ignore that just over the pond, where we could be if we had not been so fortunate to have been born in a water-rich country, people are dying. We think we are unlucky because we bought a lemon car or got a flat tire or hate our job, but to them, we win the lottery every time we wake up, take a shower, and fill the coffeepot. They are stuck in the same time period as our pioneer ancestors, spending hours, weeks, years of their life wearing a trail to the nearest water source. They are raped and beaten as they walk a predictable path every day. They have no time for reading, no time for self-improvement or learning. They are carrying the water back in old plastic gas cans, bending young spines, crippling young knees and hips. And when they lift it to their lips, it is liquid death- murky and filled with bacteria and disease, and parasites that cause malnourishment that impairs a child's ability to learn and develop like the healthy, hell-raising kids on our street.

One well. That's all it takes. One well for a village to begin to heal itself. One well to provide young mothers with access to clean water, water for washing her hands and drinking and feeding her children, for the time it takes to stop by a classroom, pick up a pencil, and make her mark. One well with water that comes up clean and clear from underground. We have had such luxuries for years. Why is it we can't share just a bit of ourselves?

I have stumbled across the mindset, as we sit in our luxury, of wondering why we should help those who won't help themselves, or of caring and understanding, but being so overwhelmed by the help that is needed that we find ourselves ignoring it. We wonder why they cannot dig their own wells. Why they cannot take charge of their own lives. Why they can't stop fighting each other with machetes long enough to create solutions for the fact that their kids are starving. We feel for the pot-bellied, undernourished, dirty orphans, but we assume that once that orphan survives to adulthood, he should learn to become self sufficient, so we send our feel-good donation of $1.00 per day to the orphan, whom we know is helpless and who is used by charity organizations to wrench our emotions, so that when we give we can feel less haunted by muddy tear tracks and bloodshot eyes in an ebony face too small for them. Which is good. But it isn't enough. They need something that is free to most of us- water.

Do we honestly think that we could do better than the adults in these villages? We have institutions for people who grew up with less hardship. We don't give them shovels and tell them where to dig. And we don't take them the Good News of the Gospel while they are vomiting because of the mud puddle they drank out of that morning. I must say, I am a bit miffed by those who call themselves missionaries. There should be not be a distinction between missionaries and humanitarians, there should only be humanitarians on missions. There is no greater statement of love, the love we are so eager to tell about, than feeding, clothing, bringing water to the thirsty. And believe me, I am feeling like a small, mean little person as I write this. I am not writing from a position of do-as-I-do, but from one of I-know-what-is-needed-if-only-I-weren't-so-selfish.

I won't provide you with links to charity sites. That is up to you. According to an online search, an average well project by Charity:water costs $5000 dollars and provides clean water for 250 people. That's a splurge purchase for many of us- a motorcycle, a camper, a snowmobile, a high-end mountain bike, a car with over 150,000miles on it, a bathroom remodel, granite countertops.

If 250 people were framed and ended up on death row in a federal penitentiary through no fault of their own, and I knew they were innocent, and all it took to free all 250 of them was $5000, I get out my checkbook. I'd call everyone I know. I'd work around the clock, overtime and a second and third job to keep them out of the electric chair. I wouldn't be above selling drugs or a kidney to get the money on time. I would pull all the strings and tug all the heartstrings I could to free them and somehow, I would get the money. I would not rest until they were free to live their lives again.

Hello and welcome to An Altitude Problem, where we fly by the seat of our pants. At least that's what it feels like I've been doing lately. My new job, all two days of it so far, has been a long series of faking and bluffing because the truth is, I really know nothing about what I am selling. The store is no longer a bike shop, but a winter sports shop. I was not there for the flip, so I have no idea where anything is, or what is there, or what is lurking in the back. When someone comes in looking for bikes or bike gear, what little there is left, I am all over it, but that only happens a few times a day. The rest are looking for ski gear, which is my department and I know nothing about, or snowboard gear, which I know about but is down a flight of stairs and staffed by it's own group of gearheads. Yesterday was a sink or swim sort of day. I managed to dog-paddle my way through the murk that is my basic knowledge of ski boots, skis, bindings, snowshoes, gore-tex, fleece, polarized lenses and helmets, plus navigate a computer system that is, to me, rather convoluted and relies on shortcut keys that are not exactly clear to me. Plus learn a language that was developed long before my time, pet names for certain areas of the store or certain display cases that make absolutely no sense to me.

I commuted via rollerblade yesterday because of a scheduling conflict- B wanted to leave for Denver after work and I did not want to get back to the county and have to pick up my car from down in town and drive it home after we got back. I could have ridden my bike, but then I would have had to lock it up somewhere in a store already bursting at it's seams and hard to navigate, and find somewhere to stash it when we went to Denver. Rollerblades are a great solution for that problem. Much more compact (not to mention less of a loss in the event of theft). They are also great for preparing for ski season- the hip flexors and quads are used in ways they do not get used while mountain biking, and are more similar to skiing. My brakes are shot, so I have to spend a lot of time making s-turns down long, steep, curving hills. Two miles of downhill takes as long as four miles of rolling terrain. I do love that at least one of my jobs does not demand that I drive to work, then drive all day long. I am finally able to go an entire day without a car.

Moab and Fruita were 75% fun. This was one of those vacations where we did not truly relax and start to enjoy ourselves until almost our last day there. It started out great, B wanted to ride bike, I wanted to ride bike, Andy wanted to run. We camped up on 18 Road in Fruita, on BLM land. The camping is nice up there, fire rings and nice, level campsites and maintained roads, and free. We found a cozy campsite, a small patch of land over a dry wash with a view of the town of Fruita, a green oasis behind miles of dry grass and rolling hills behind which rose the Colorado National Monument in shades of reds and purples. Our campsite was right in the middle of the Bookcliffs trail network. Andy and I did two loops a day to run off his excess energy, then B and I left him in the camper while we rode a loop, then B hung out at the camper while Andy explored the dry streambeds while I did another loop. It was good, but after two days we had ridden all of the 5 mile loops that we thought we could manage with out technical skills, and B was not interested in starting on the 20+ mile loops. We moved down into town for a night so we could ride some trails on the other side of town in the Colorado River canyons.

That night we got back to camp after an amazing ride just as a violent windstorm swept into town. We spent a half-hour frantically scurrying around chasing our campsite, then assisting neighbors as they did the same, holding corners of flapping, ripped awnings, taking down tents as tent poles bent and fabric tore, keeping an eye out for live embers flying out of fire pits.

The next morning, we left for Moab, driving past highway signs flung into ditches from the wind the night before.

Once in Moab, our moods got foul. B absolutely, positively did not want to ride bike. (We have this conversation often. It is true, I am a bit more manic about biking. He is more like a normal person and enjoys campfires and long walks on the beach.) I was antsy because we were in Moab, for goodness' sake, and trails were calling, and we would not be back to ride them until next spring. Andy needed exercise, and B did not want to hike the same trail we hike every time, but it is the only dog-friendly hiking trail in the area. He didn't want to climb hills on his bike because his legs were sore from Fruita, but the only flat riding was through environmentally sensitive areas so Andy would have to be on his leash. We finally settled on a bit of a hill-climb, up Gemini Bridges, a well-maintained 4wd road a little way out of town. Turned out, we rode about 12 miles- much farther than we had planned, and through deep sand and standing water which was more red mud than water, which Andy delightedly rolled in and emerged covered in muck, which made us have to stay out even longer so he could dry before we drove back to camp. And then B got mad. When we got back, I gave Andy a bath, then asked B when he wanted dinner. He thought I should start on it right away while we still had daylight, so I heated canned beans and set out the toppings for haystacks and called outside to tell him it was ready. He was busy on his computer (we were in a campground with wifi) and did not come in. I called again. Nothing. I sat down and waited. Nothing. And then I got mad.

It took us a while, about a day, to simmer down. B had been checking his email and answering his phone, which made it impossible to leave Seymour Lodging behind, I just wanted to bike or hike, he did not want to, I offered to go by myself, he did not want me to, and he did not know what he would do in the campsite all by himself, I did not know what I would do if I had to stay in camp and do nothing, I had finished my book, he didnt want to spend $20 on a new one. Andy wanted to go swimming in the river, which we camped beside, we would not let him, he wanted to explore on the other side of the highway, so he had to be tied up, and when we walked away from him, he howled.

B finally compromised by taking me out to the 24 Hours of Moab venue, where the course was already marked for the race the next day. I rode the 15 mile race course with about 30 other riders, most of them registered for the race. I now know what I am getting myself into if I race it next year. I thought I was going to do it this year, but it fell through. I was almost relieved, since I knew nothing about the course. While I was riding, B took Andy to a lake and let him swim, then came back and picked me up and we were all three in better moods.

The next day, we hiked the same old trail with Andy, Negro Bill's Canyon, which is delightful in spite of the fact that we have done it so many times and it has a lot of poison ivy along the trail. Andy splashed in the stream and thanked us with a wagging tail and big doggy grin. We slept for several hours that afternoon, then went out to the race and cheered for the riders we knew, then found a sidewalk sale outside a bookstore. That evening, B dropped me off at Negro Bill's Canyon and I ran it, enjoying the shady cool in the bottom. We were finally on vacation- no cell service, no internet, no angst and miscommunication. Just us and a fire sending shadows to dance in the leafy canopy above us, the river whispering below, the last of the sunset glowing on the canyon rim.

The next morning we went home. I started juggling a new job and my regular job. Grandpa Weldo and Grandma Gladys brought my parents up for my moms monday chemo. It was good to see them. Things have been a blur ever since. And now, here I sit in my pajamas in a house that somehow has become a disaster area since monday. I go to work in an hour and a half for a 10-6:30 shift. I have no idea what I am going to wear, since all my clothes that conform to the dress code there have been worn and are dirty. I must start swimming again, because I have a sinking feeling that I am not going to get everything done I want to unless I get off this couch.

Up is Down

Hello and welcome to An Altitude Problem, where up is down and black is white. I don't exactly know what that means, the up/down/black/white thing, but I have heard it several times recently. But it kinda makes sense- nothing is as it seems, nothing is as we expect it to be.

A few flashes of life for you, and then I am off to bed. Fall is still here, with beautiful days that any day will be replaced by rain, snow, wind. The aspens are turning slowly this year. It has been colorful for three weeks already.

I decided today I have spent too much time in my local bike shop, harassing the mechanics. Every time they see me, they ask what I have broken. And today, over yet another wheel truing, the manager slipped an application on the workbench in front of me, telling me that since I already live there, and seem somewhat knowledgeable about gear, both snow and bike, and they need a "fun, friendly personality" around there, I may as well get paid for being there and be a part-time sales person. I haven't decided yet about that. Or rather, B has not yet decided. I have never worked in retail, but it couldn't hurt to have a little experience, and, as the manager pointed out, it would be a good way for me to get my foot in the door in the back next summer- he'd let me hang out and bug the mechanics and learn by osmosis in the slow times, and maybe-just-maybe we'd see if that led to anything. If nothing else, it might lead to their mechanics getting more work done for paying customers, since they rarely charge me for my "quick" fixes and the small random parts I need such as spoke nipples or valve cores or brake fluid or tire sealant, brushing off my reaching for my wallet with a "You've spent money here before, and you will again. Go ride." If I could learn to do my own wrenching, it might be beneficial for everyone. He didn't say that last bit, but I can only assume. As much as they like me, they are, after all, a for-profit organization.

I got out my snowboard this morning to see if I needed to get a base grind on it while the shops are running early-season specials, and practically paralyzed Andy. As soon as I carried it into the room, buckles clacking against each other, he turned into a quivering pile of yellow fur and tried to climb into B's lap, his ears back and his tail between his legs. It caused us a bit of puzzlement, since my snowboard has never been a source of fear for him, until I remembered the incident on closing day last year, when I loaded my snowboard into the back of my car since the ski/board rack had already been replaced with bike rack, put Andy in the back, and took off. I opened the back window for him, since it was a warm day, and as I slowed for the first stop sign all of my cargo- boxes of light bulbs, extra linens wrapped in plastic, etc, shifted and the snowboard crashed down, nipping Andy's ankles. In less time than it took for me to turn around to see what had happened, he had launched out of the half-open window of the still-moving car. I slammed on the brakes, stopped and comforted him, rearranged all my cargo, and convinced him to get in again, and this time we made A-basin without incident. I had forgotten about it, but not Andy. Poor boy. He has been traumatized a lot lately. He has been so barky we finally got to our wit's end and bought him a bark collar. It only took one zap. He hasn't worn it since, and hasn't needed to. One WOO-WOO-WOO-arrr-arrr-arrr! took the wind right out of his sails and turned him into a mama's boy for two days.

We spent Thursday in Denver, put snow tires on my car and took my bike down for it's one month birthday tune-up (a month late), although it really did not feel as though it needed it. They adjusted the cables, took apart the brake housing and oiled it and somehow, magically, got it to stop one pad from it's slight rub on the front brake rotor, and trued the wheels, since they were custom built in the bike shop and spokes had loosened in the hundreds of miles it has been ridden since I bought it. We did a bit of winter shopping and ended up back in Golden, by the bike shop, wondering around town and falling in love, as we do every time we hang out there. If I had my choice, I think I would choose to live in Golden. It is close to Denver, has a charming downtown with brick facades and yoga studios (even hot yoga!) and bike shops on every corner and a river through the middle of it, crawling with kayakers surfing the rocks below pavilions with live bands and patio bars, dominated on one side by the School of Mines and on the other by the Coors brewery. Small brick houses with shady front yards line steep, leafy streets and just outside town, mountain parks and hillsides cris-crossed with singletrack lie in wait, begging to be ridden. Bike season is long there, March through November, skiing is only an hour away, Denver with all it's employment is a ten minute drive, Boulder is close, with it's outdoorsey trust fund culture and outdoor events. Unicycles and townie cruisers and carbon fiber fully rigid single speed mountain bikes and high end road bikes all share the bike racks along main street while their owners hang out in bars and restaurants, sporting attire from business to spandex, kids and skateboards are everywhere, as are big dogs with wagging tails and slobbery smiles. We hated to leave. It would be a good place for B and I to compromise my love of historic, sundrenched mountain towns and the crazy, diverse people who live in them with his uncompromising criteria of needing to be close to a Home Depot.

Kari is bringing my mom up tonight for her third chemo infusion tomorrow, and we are leaving for a few days in Utah tomorrow morning. Momm and Kari will hang out and have girltime while we are gone. So far, the chemo has not generated horrible side effects, nothing she can't live with. After monday, we will have three down, nine to go on the every-week infusions, after which we will switch to twelve weeks of every three week infusions.

And now, it's time to clean my house. Next post will be in a week or so, with a report of trails through big red rocks and camping in the desert.