The weekenders

I am sorry, it has been a while. Fall aproaches with heavy, forboding footsteps, it's icy hand touching all the green things and turning them, well, dead. We are still experiencing some beautiful days, today being one of them, but it gets cold enough at night to warrant turning the heat on. Giant clearances of last year's ski and snowboard stock are popping up outside various retailers, making space for this year's stock.

On the bright side (not that I care to be one of those people) Summit county will chiefly be inhabited by Summit Countians for the next six weeks. This weekend, being labor day, is the last projected rush until Keystone's opening weekend. We will be busy getting ready for the season, endless pre-season deep cleans, inventories, mainenance, purchasing... but no guests except for our long terms. True to Summit County tradition, we will always have the long term renters who must be asked two or three times for a check, be served an eviction warning, then eviction notice, before they can finally cough up the rent that was due last month. We give them a weeks rest, even though this month's rent is already due, before we start the process over.

One reallises how much money actually goes for rent when B. finally gets them to pay, in wrinkled $20, $50, and $100 dollar bills, and he brings home a bulging envelope which is then opened and it's contents spread out over the dining room table to make sure it's all there. One starts thinking about all the things those bills could buy, then one reallises that just that much of our own money gets paid to the guy down the street, then one makes the connection in brutal clarity that life really is one big pointless scramble, we are all just little hamsters on a wheel, not really enjoying life because of all the effort it takes just to live it, and suddenly one feels one's own mortality in a way one should not until one is staring old age and death in it's dripping fangs. And then one asks one's family members if anyone is up for a couple of shots, and offers to slice the lemons, because we all know life gives us plenty of those, and in half an hour, the ice cream is softening, the pop corn is popping, the music is playing, and everyone is relaxed, except for those who get very sleepy when they drink, well, they're asleep. And we know we are contributing to everything that is wrong in a gluttonous society, drowning the threat of depression, then packing it even further down with high calorie foods, but we are comfortable, and we have enough, even though we arent ahead by any means, but we've got to be on the right track, or we we might at least reach that conclusion if we felt like thinking about it...

And this one time- we even took a weekend. That's right. Mr. B. figured, not counting the day he took off when my parents were here, it had been 45 days since he last had any "B. time". We took Friday and Saturday off and drove to Delta (that's Grand Junction area for anyone not so well acquainted with those little towns out in the middle of the orchards and sweet corn patches, on the edge of the adobes which effectively turn the area into no-mans land.) We had it in the back of our minds that a certain 14er, Mt. Sneffels in the San Juans, would need to be scaled at some point during the trip. B's cousin, who, coincidentally, is married to my cousin, just moved to the area, and was more than glad to act as tour guide. Our plans for leaving at the crack of dawn, in time to be back down to a safe 12,000 feet by the time the afternoon showers moved in got nixed by a two o'clock a.m. bedtime (a family of sore losers= a nightmarishly long evening of poker) and the clouds were looming by the time our trusty jeep had growled it's way up to the trailhead. We signed into the registry at 12:30 p.m., and set off through a seemingly endless, sloping field of jagged, moss speckled granite toward an ominously socked-in peak. Half an hour in, the mountain reallised we were there and decided not to be climbed. We turned our backs to the howling wind and pelting rain, looking for hopeful patches of blue in the gray-white of the angry clouds. Lightening struck a peak much lower than the point we were standing on, and the rain turned to slashing pellets of ice. In order to find a tiny measure of protection, we split off the trail and crouched behind a granite ridge until the ice turned back into rain. As it let up a bit, we made our way back to where we thought the trail was- the only indication of a trail was that the moss was rubbed off the rocks- and after a few false starts, found it again and made or way, soaked and shivering, back to the jeep. Of course, my cousin and I took the backseat to allow the men the front, and in a jeep with no windows, only a windshield, they got the full advantage of the heater. We got what felt like an arctic gale for the several hours it took for us to make our way over the 13,000-some ft. Imogene pass and drop down into Telluride on the "scenic route". Other than our honeymoon, when we were admittedly somewhat distracted, B. and I have never spent much time in that area, and we were blown away by the rugged majesty of it. From Ouray, where the four-wheel drive trail started, to Telluride, where we finally hooked up with pavement again, we were completely immersed in the discovery of it. Jagged peaks behind delicate, quivering aspens, cascading falls into deep pools, the road (or trail, depending on your definition of road) winding through open meadows, fording streams, kissing the edges of precipices so sheer as to make one's imagination simply refuse to picture what "could happen". By the time we got back to Delta, we were warm and dry again, but so exhausted from shivering and jostling in the jeep all day, we barely managed a dinner of leftovers, turns in the hot shower, and a few hours of monosyllabic conversation before bed. Saturday, we actually managed to get out of bed only an hour later than was planned, threw some water bottles into Bob's cousin's car, and drove two hours to Moab. After a quick lunch, we shouldered our backpacks and drove into Arches Nat'l Park to "do the tourist thing". We hiked a portion of the Devil's Garden primitive loop. True to form, soon the place reallised we were there, and that this could not be allowed to continue. Right in the middle of a water break, while we were all perched on the ledge beneath Partition Arch, fully planning to hike a whole lot further, the clouds came boiling in from the west, the thunder boomed, and a few sprinkles dropped on us, just suggesting that it was time to scoot. No rain in the forcast, in the middle of a dry spell, but hey. How could it resist the arrival of the rain makers? By the time we got back to the vehicle, the wind was howling between the massive rock fins, flinging sand in our faces, almost as stinging as the ice the day before. We hightailed it out of Arches, and wondered what there was to do, now that it was raining. We drove to Canyonlands Nat'l Park, to the Island in the sky, and enjoyed (from the car) watching the clouds and sheets of rain move across the canyons, allowing brief shots of the magnificent view of the Green and Colorado Rivers far below. Everytime the rain stopped, we jumped out, dodged puddles, and ran to overlooks, to snap our pictures and find landmarks. As we were heading back to the car after one of these scrambles, a pickup truck pulled up next to us and the driver suggested we quickly drive over to the other side- there was a rainbow down below, over the edge. I was the only one who got out, and got completely soaked, but came away with one of the more memorable pictures I have taken. (see the top of this post)

When we got back to town, we dragged our once-again bedraggled selves into Zaks, home of THE BEST pizza. If you are ever in Moab... you know what to do. It's on the main Street, you cant miss it. We discovered it the last time we were there. Beer cheese soup, honey-garlic crust baked in a stone oven, all you can eat. A bit of heaven after a cold, exhausting day. And sustanance for our four hours home. After Grand Junction, I thought I needed to keep my eyes open out of sympathy for B., who must have been a sleepy as I was, but it proved to be completely impossible. Days off are wonderful. Two days, and it was as rejuvenating as a week's vacation used to be for us, back when we were part of the real world, before our lives got so weird and we worked 8-5 and had weekends.

And we get another weekend this weekend. What is this madness? A reunion in Kansas, although our superiors think we will be here in case of Labor-day crowd related emergency. They are a little jumpy about being short-staffed, since the last time we were running on two employees in-county was the busiest weekend of the entire summer. Rather than try to convince them it's ok, we are not nearly so busy this time 'round, we will just keep our phones close, and our commitments few, so that if there is a crisis, we will be in the county within five hours. And after we get home from the reunion, a week of work, then we get our actual vacation- two whole weeks of it. The plan is to pull the boat to Table Rock Lake for a week and enjoy the last kiss of Summer before winter frenzy hits in the high country. If there are reports of unexpected severe weather across the midwest around that time, know that we made it there as planned.