Back to Colorado

My week in Phoenix was full.

It was nice to meet and visit with the members of our small Wednesday night study and prayer group.  Meeting with my old Sabbath School class on Sabbath was a high point, too.  Considering how much I hate to shop, I did an awful lot of it. The 60-90% off sales in clothing was a powerful incentive to fill out my lacking wardrobe and picked up something for my mom's birthday while at it.  Also shopped with Kelly Sue for my Dad's birthday iPad Mini. Wound up not having my group called for jury duty, so had extra time to do what I wanted.  My sister, Susan, blew a head gasket on her old crate early in my stay, so we shared my car until she drove her replacement off the lot the day before I left....wound up spending more time together than we might have otherwise...it was good.  Family celebrated the parents' birthdays on Sabbath because George's work schedule had him busy on the actual days.  I spent most of the day out at their house on each of their birthdays, which was great. We girls took Mom to her favorite restaurant because Dad isn't too keen on Asian food and they hardly ever go there when they go out...so it really shocked us when he decided to go with us!  That's okay, we kind of like that guy and enjoyed having him with us.

Happy Birthday, Mom

Dad and his ladies

Susan's 2007 RED Fusion, she love her new wheels

Flew into Phoenix around noon today.  Here for a week.  Scheduled for jury duty tomorrow, but might not get called in.  The info line says that my group is to call mid morning for possible 12:30pm report time.  We will see.  Mom and Dad's and Mom's birthdays July 27 and 29 ...and George works three days straight over those dates...looks like we will do our family celebrating on the 26th.

Quilt show

Today is the first of the three day 19th annual Black Canyon quilt show at the Montrose Pavilion.  This is a show for the Columbine, Friendship and San Juan quilting guilds.  Karl said, "Let's go," when I told him about it, and go we did!  There were about 150 quilts on exhibit, plus the ones vendors had displayed to tout their wares.  Not a lot of vendors, like we have at the January quilting and craft fair in Phoenix, but not shabby for a rural area.
I was simply amazed.  Mostly I took photos of quilts I thought I might used as springboards for future creations...and a few that just blew me away. 
Karl actually had a good time.  He spent a lot of time talking with and exploring a long arm quilting machine one of the vendors had as demo.  He has never seen one, so had to check it all out so he was satisfied that he knew why it worked the way it worked, etc. He wasn't the only man at the show and several of the quilters displaying their creations were men.  Tomorrow the special lecturer is nationally reknown quilt designer and teacher, David Taylor, who calles his lecture, "The Reluctant Journey of an Art Quilter".  Too bad we'll miss it. Oh, get this! In the acknowledgements in the printed program they recognised "The Men's Auxiliary of the Black Canyon Show, Inc."

Hey, Mom.  Here is another way to use the Dresdan Plate!

I actually think I have enough fabric and scraps in the bin I have in the storage area under our bed here in the RV to do this one!

Karl checking out the "long arm" machine

pick-up handicraft for TV watching

I have never been that excited about plastic canvass craft.  However, when a huge amount came my way for me to find a new home for it, I decided to keep a few pieces before passing it on to the new home (Pathfinder regional director-George).  So, just for the fun of it, I decided to make enough projects with enough stitches to say I'd done it (and earn the Pathfinder honor badge).  I actually had fun doing it, but don't plan to do anymore, unless I need to teach someone else.  The finished product just doesn't appeal that much to me, which is probably why I was never all that excited about learning it when it was popular back in the 1980's.

Sampler bookmarks, coaster and card tray.  The little red tray is a nightstand corral I made for Karl's hearing aids!

busy little geocachers...

My personal project this past week has been doing research on the murals of Delta as prep for registering each with geocaches.  Someone did geocaches with 6 of them a few years ago, but only one remains, so the way is wide open.  Surprisingly, I am finding less than I thought would be available online.  Have reached a stopping place with that and actually have enough information to register all 15 surviving murals commissioned by the city and 5 non-traditional commissioned by private citizens.  I still have questions, though...I am rather curious.  I plan to talk with the people down at the Delta Historical Society located in the Delta Museum before I consider myself done.  I also found one of the artists on facebook and sent a message asking questions (will see if I get any response on that one).  It has really been lots of fun finding out stuff, but also has taken up a lot of time.  Starting last Sunday, Karl and I have been getting the coordinates for each of the murals.  These will be multi-caches, with the coordinates for the mural as first stage and coordinates for a physical cache containing a log as the second stage.  For you geocachers, you know physical caches must be 0.1 miles apart and a number of these murals are not! To see more of our Delta murals check out the June 1 blog post.

July 4th long weekend (Sunday)

Mural on our favorite Chinese eatery

We had a lazy Sunday morning, sleeping in late, huge brunch (creamed asparagus over toast, yum!)

Then into town to start plotting the coordinates of the multiple murals in the interest of some day planting geo-caches to commemorate many of them.  Then out to the back country to check out some of the Gunnison Gorge.  We hiked the Cool Rock Trail, found a few caches, and set three of our own.  Now all I need to do is get them written up and published on geocaching.com.

July 4th long weekend (Sabbath)

We visited Cedaredge church this week.  It was great to renew some friendships and worship with this small group.

We continued the rest of the way up the side of the mesa after church to spend the afternoon enjoying Grand Mesa.  It reminded me of summer days in Minnesota, bright blue skies with huge fluffy clouds, white barked aspen reminder of the northern paper birch, cool breezes, mosquitoes whining and the smell of insect repellent. We even found some orange columbine like we have in the north woods.  We did only one longer hike, back to Lost Lake.  It was a great trip over fairly good trail and a neat little lake at the end, tucked away at the bottom of a hollow. 

patches here and there of old dirty snow

Karl geo-caching

Karl at dandelion lined road

Lost Lake, worth the hike

orange columbines along the trail

waxy blosoms

water cascading down into Mesa Lakes

Evening found us back in Cedaredge for a evening of laughter and music with Gordy Pratt at the Apple Shed.  It was a memorial concert for his aunt and a fund raiser for humane society.  A very accomplish musician, he also made us baby boomers laugh at our aging.  An evening well Karl enjoyed roaming the Apple Shed Gallery which is owned by the family of the deceased.  They also showcase the wines and hard ciders with their family label.  An interesting and fun evening.

Gordy Pratt: the fabulous One Guy (Victor Borge of guitar)

July 4th long weekend (Friday)

No sleeping in for us... we were up and out early.  Planted a new cache in the cemetery featuring the veterans' monument.  Then off to Paonia to catch the Cherry Days Festival events starting with the parade on main street (all two blocks of it).  It's been a long time since we've seen a small town parade and it was great!  From the Fire Department trucks leading to the Rotary Club at the end on a flat bed trailer pulled by a pick up, it was small town at it's best.   Apparently, the high school holds its reunions at this time and the milestone classes rode together on flatbed trailers...the fifty year group were the classiest because they departed from being pulled by a pickup and had an old tractor do the honors! Karate school, local "oldies" radio station, Ambulance Association, dance school, Stockmens' Association, riding club, sheepdog group, old dudes motorcycle club, vintage cars club, select tractors from a tractor show going on in town, etc. etc. made up the 50 some entries of the parade.


As the last entry passed the appreciators lining the street fell in line and followed the parade 6 blocks to the city park where the rest of the day's events took place.  Vendors lined one edge of the park and concession wagons lined the area between vendors and the ball field where fun stuff was set up for kids (mobile zipline to bouncy castle) and the firemen shot a stream of water skyward to provide a do-it-yourself mister system.

In the main park 2,000-3,000 people (we weren't the only visitors in this town of 1,400 population!) set up their lawn chairs and settled back to enjoy the day. From crowning "royalty" to Middle Eastern dance troupe to musical group concerts, entertainment from the gazebo was on going all afternoon.  We didn't stay for it all, but discovered people we had meet while doing our Guatemala project as we made our way out of the park. What are the chances of doing that in a crowd that size.  The Conrads have been all over doing virtually the same type work we have over the last 25 plus years and though they once lived in Paonia, were just there for the weekend to visit friends.

We visited the local museum, picked up a few caches in the area, hauled a guy and his dog out to the highway in the back of the pickup so he could hitch hike to where ever, then did the same thing taking a couple to the gas station due to their running out of fuel before we headed back to Delta.

After a late supper, we kicked back before heading out to see fireworks after dark.  We (and hundreds more) used the Ace Hardware/Dollartree parking lot rather than drive into the park.  Some stayed in their cars, but more brought lawn chairs or sat in the bed of their pickups. (We set up lawn chairs in the bed of the pick up and enjoyed floats from the A&W which sits on the edge of the parking lot.)  Nice...we were home within 10 minutes of the last burst of the finale!  What is not to like?!

Motorcycle over the hill gang on a couple dozen fancy bikes

Smokey leads the 1st place award entry National Park/Forest

National Park/Forest celebrates 50 years in the Southwest

Very impressive looking National Forest pack train

Ambulance service little engine that can!

55 gallon barrel "cars" with the caboose behind

Check out the retractable "ladder"

1916 tractor from Big Four manufactured in Minneapolis, MN

Tractor attracted lots of attention, of course Karl among them

Cool vest!

Gazebo Stage with Sultan's Pride dancers

Oh, yeah, we had to indulge in ribbon fries and funnel cake

Ace parking lot view of fireworks to end the day

July 4th long weekend (Thursday)

July 3 found us running errands in Montrose, of top priority, get 3 large rolls (total 400 pages) of building plans from the print shop.

We are still using the loaner vehicle from the mechanic shop, and decided to put some money into getting it detailed as a thank you. During the three hours that took, we found 3 geo-caches on foot (all within a few blocks), Karl bought a pair of tennis shoes at Payless and I got some patriotic flip flops on sale for $4.99 (reg. 14.99), plus we got the Delta Independence read cover to cover in the car wash's nicely air conditioned waiting area.

The pickup finished, we finally got our chance to eat at Chang Thai Cuisine.  It was a bit pricey, but very good--- Tom Yum soup, Cashew Tofu, Jungle Curry, and fried bananas for dessert.

We ran out to grab some lawn chairs at WalMart. Since we decided to stay for the fresh air patriotic concert presented by the Montrose Community Band on Centennial Plaza in front of City Hall, comfort seemed a good plan.

We were glad we stayed in town for the concert; it was a great way to kick off our July 4th weekend!

During final selection, "Stars and Stripes Forever", audience was invited to get up and march, if so inspired.  40-50 adults, kids, people walking their dogs, parents and grandparents with infants/toddlers did just that!

June 28, 29 rambles

June 28 found us on the primitive rocky semi-road called Pipeline Road.  It more or less follows the pipeline that brings water down to Delta from the reservoir just below the edge of Grand Mesa.  Hours of bumping along at 1 or 2 miles an hour in low range four wheel drive, we occasionally made it into second gear for a few seconds. When we made it near the reservoir, the road stopped for regular vehicles, only quads, dirt bikes, horses, and hikers.  It was a pleasant hike up to Doughspoon Lake (reservoir).  We had told Konrad and Starr where we were going, because if something happened up there we would have been waiting a long time for someone to come by and find us.  What we thought would be only 4 or 5 hours wound up being nearly 10. We had told Konrad to notify 911 if we didn't contact him by 9 pm.  He started to get a little nervous when we still hadn't contacted him at 9:10.  Thankfully, we were in cell range to call him a few minutes later to let him know we were on our way out of the wilderness.  He was a little put out with us, don't blame him.

End of the road for the pick up; shank mare the rest of the way.

Delta water supply at elevation of 9,835 ft.

The rocky path on the left is what we used as a road.

Love those aspens

looks like the last of this year's wild iris

Roses!

The 29th found us up and out a few hours after sunrise...unusual for us on a weekend.  There were three new geocaches that had been set a week ago that no one had yet found and we wanted to be the first to find!  So we headed out on a road that took off from US Hwy 50 north west of Delta.  The first few miles were fairly decent gravel country road, then it got primitive and we got slower and slower, then finally stopped all together due to road width, incline, and large loose rock. Then started what wound up being a three hour round trip on foot.  The trip up with an elevation gain of 600 ft. took a couple hours with lots of water breaks that also served as breathers.  We felt so sorry for anyone who came later that we wanted to make it worth the trip and set two additional geo-caches to be found along the trail.  We found all three previously set geo-caches and were indeed the first to find them.

We tootled out of the wilderness with only enough time to run straight up to Cedaredge for the Sunday evening concert at the little chapel located at the Pioneer Village Museum.  We slide into a couple chairs set in the aisle to accommodate a few extras before it was standing room only.  We were a bit hot and sweaty, so it was a good thing we weren't sitting too close to anyone! Performers were a couple local guys that have started playing guitar and singing together and are now playing gigs at area events, festivals, and supplying live entertainment at a eatery or two calling themselves the Solar Brothers.