Category Archives: weather

rockies, weather

Summer Cold Front

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The thunder and lightning and rain of last night foretold the arrival of something rare out here on the high plains: a summer cold front. After weeks of daytime highs in the upper 90’s and lower 100’s, today it barely made it to the mid 60’s. Sleeping weather as I like to say.

It was cool enough that when Molly and I took our walk tonight, I actually wore a jacket. Of course I had to shed it a few miles into the walk because it wasn’t that cool. {*grin*}

I’m off to enjoy the sleeping weather while it lasts, but I cannot resist … How about them Rockies? Bottom of the ninth homers to win two nights in a row!

(Picture courtesy School For Champions.)
altitude, corporate spouse, vail, weather

Trip Report

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The weekend was spent in Vail playing corporate spouse. Accommodations were nice:

 and the hotel had some nice sitting and conversation areas:

 with typical Vail village architecture surrounding us:

The weekend went as expected.

  • Leisurely late breakfasts with the other spouses.
  • Walking and perusing the hideously over-priced art and craft show going on in the village. 
  • Odd discussions with the other spouses, ranging from the difference between military service in the Korean War and Iraq and Afghanistan to the joys and pains of raising kids of all ages.
  • Mandatory oh’ing and ah’ing over all little ones less than a year old. Seeing little ones always pulls the heart strings, but then you remember diapers and poop containment system failures and …

The spouses divided 23 and 7, female to male. Much better than in previous years. Ages ranged from mid-20’s to late 70’s. (See war service discussion above.) Makes for a diverse group, with everything from retired military to former ballerinas. Rabid Republicans to raving Democrats. Parents of kids ranging from close to 40 to not yet a year old. I.e. a general mixed bag thrown together while the spouses went through the meetings.

Saturday afternoon a lot of us headed out and drove up the mountains on an old dirt track for about 10 miles to get to Piney Lake, a little lake in a valley at about 9,300 feet. You can tell the the group is mostly mountain based – we all had pickups or other vehicles with adequate clearance to make it over the rocks and holes in the path. Those that were using regular vehicles had to hitch a ride.

We spent the afternoon hiking and picnicking, etc. L was able to get her canoe fix, canoeing around the lake with another attendee and her son. (Her husband was another spouse named Dan and neither one of us canoe – so it worked out well to send the spouses and offspring out on a canoe.) Here is a poor quality cell phone picture of L and her fellow canoeists out on the lake:

Anything better will have to await the emails of those with digital cameras. {*grin*}

Of course, Saturday evening was the big banquet and awards ceremony. Everything from absolute formal to casual dressy. Ties and coats for the men and dress plumage for the women. Sunday began the journey back home. Over Vail Pass and back to Breckenridge where L’s office is, then me heading up to the tunnel and then down to the high plains. I was early enough to beat the traffic, so I got home about 5pm.

One anomaly that struck me was the difficulty the lowlanders from corporate had with the altitude. The group L is a part of are mostly mountain based at altitudes ranging from 7,000 to 10,000 feet. So the altitude at Vail (8,022 feet) isn’t a problem, but the corporate people came from near sea level, so they experienced much of the standard tourist version of altitude sickness.  Out here on the high plains, we are still at more than 4,000 feet, so it isn’t nearly as much of a transition.

Time to check and see if the temperature has dropped enough to open the house up. It reached 105 today and was still well above 80 at 10pm. Forecast is for more of the same all week, typical July 4th type weather. Ugh!

friends, funeral, weather

I’m Back

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I got back from playing corporate spouse last night. More on that later.

Just before I left, I learned of the death of my life long friend G’s mother. (G was my wing man when I first went out with L and one of the groomsmen in our wedding, amidst other things.) Since G and I have been friends since 4th grade almost 45 years ago, it also meant that I spent a lot of time at his house and around his mom as we grew up. In any case, her funeral was this morning and I got back in time to attend and then spend time with G and family.

The service was interesting because, rather than the usual sorrow and loss, there was a great sense of relief that Shirley (G’s mom) had passed on to better things. She suffered from aggressive Alzheimer’s and had reached the point where she no longer even remembered how to feed herself. As G’s sister, who had cared for Shirley at her home for the last several years said, “I lost my mother years ago, I just followed my nurse’s training and took care a body that reminded me of her.” So it was a bittersweet affair. We all had memories of the person who was Shirley, but had already gone through the loss of that person.

The burial was at one of the local rural cemeteries.  Of course it was already 95 degrees and the sun was blazing on the treeless prairie around the cemetery at the time. Then there was a lunch at the Masonic Lodge for family and friends. (Shirley was a 50 year member of Eastern Star.) It was there that I got a chance to do some visiting up with G. On top of the death of his mother, tomorrow he finds out if he still has a job. He is an engineer on the NASA booster project that has been used as a political football of recent months. Think positive thoughts for him.

Good night for now.

music, phantom of the opera, weather

Wet and more Wet

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It was sunny until this evening – a real rarity given the rain we have had for the last four days. Nothing like getting inches of rain in the desert to bring on the flash flood warnings and sucking mud in the fields and gardens. At least Molly and I got out for our walk before it rained again this evening.

It has been amusing weather. Last week Molly and I were walking after 10pm so that it would be cool enough to get our 5 miles in without sweating to death. This week we are walking mid-afternoon to stay warm enough not to shiver in the cool. L reported that they even had snow up in the mountains this morning. In a few words, really strange weather of late. At least our melons and squash in the garden seem to be liking it.

Today as Molly and I walked, I listened to “Phantom of the Opera”, the original London cast recording version. I have never heard another version where the voices of the phantom and Christine are so piercingly perfect. It gives me goosebumps repeatedly as I listen to it. (I also like it because the full soundtrack is just about the perfect length for a 6 mile walk – the music ends just as I hit the front door step, arriving home – no jarring letdown of other music in mid-walk.) “The Phantom of the Opera” is the best music Andrew Lloyd Webber ever wrote – at least in my opinion.

So here is “The Phantom of the Opera” theme sung by Sarah Brightman and Michael Crawford, the original cast members from London:

Enjoy!

June bug, weather

June It Is

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Yesterday was a typical day except …

The severe thunderstorm warnings started in late afternoon.
The tornado warnings started in early evening
Blogger had troubles that prevented posting and/or commenting

In any case, Molly and I headed out for our walk after the storms passed at 9pm. And then it became clear that this was indeed June. Every patch of lighted ground we walked on was covered with spastic june bugs, natures proof of concept that intelligence is not needed for survival. For those unfamiliar with these beetles, they look like this:

They spend the first couple of years of their life as grubs underground looking like this:

Then they emerge from the ground in June as beetles to feed and mate.

June bugs are really stupid. They and fly to any lighted area and make amazingly loud buzzing sounds as they try to use their wings while laying upside on the sidewalk or up against your window screen. They are so dumb that they often crash on landing and end up upside down, buzzing like mad as they try to get turned back over.

Likewise they like to mate on the ground under lights. Exhibitionist? Maybe. Stupid? For sure. Every bug eater around gorges on them to the point that they won’t touch them any more. And so the rest are safe to mate and propagate the species, continuing on with no evidence any intelligence. They make bugs like cockroaches look like tiny Albert Einsteins.

But the real reason I dislike them, beyond the fact that they fly directly into your hair and face, is the the horrible crunching sound they make as they sit on the sidewalk and you walk on them. They are so dumb they make no attempt to flee – they just sit there and get crunched. At least Molly dog is smart enough not to eat them. Our previous dog, a Basset hound, used to snuffle them up and come home with his jowls full of beetles. Nothing worse than a dog laying on the floor with beetles crawling out of the mouth. Ugh.

Time to listen to some music to get that horrible crunching sound out of my head.