November 3-5, 2006: A Nice Fall Weekend in Colorado

One of many trip reports under the SilGro home page for Alan Silverstein and Cathie Grow.
Email me at ajs@frii.com.
Last update: March 29, 2024
(Previous trip report: 2006_0924_GraysQuarry.htm)

Adapted from email I sent, saved as a random snapshot of life:

From:  Alan Silverstein <ajs@frii.com>
Date:  6 Nov 2006 11:18:01 -0700
Subject:  a nice fall weekend!

Just for fun, because it was a fuller and better weekend "at home" than most, here's the short story... From my point of view, of course, not from my wife Cathie Grow!

• Thursday night, decided to join friends Friday night downtown at the Lincoln Center for the 6:30 pm show of the 57th annual Warren Miller ski film (was now $15, but you got some Copper Mountain and Winter Park discounts).

• Friday night, rushed over from work without time for dinner, and two hours short on my 40 for the week, oh well. (I had three evening events the previous week.) Nice movie, loud (earplugs). Passed by Sunflower Market on the way home at 9:02 pm, to discover that this week they started closing at 9 pm not 10. (groan)

• Saturday morning, sleep in. As usual it was impossible to spend all week working on this tedious software stuff without a certain amount of Saturday downtime to recover. I was usually tired, apathetic, whatever. My new job was low-stress, but high-concentration.

• Lifestyle maintenance at home, can't even recall now what all it was. Oh yeah, helped Cathie with phone calls to fencing companies and renters regarding her house in Aurora; she decided to pay $$big to have the old fence replaced soon, there were at least five broken posts. I sorted some more rocks from summer hunting. I went up on Cathie's roof and cemented/nailed in two partial shingles found recently on the ground. Our roofs were 16 years old and starting to wear out, now into patch-up mode to defer replacement. Used up the rest of a quart of roofing cement.

• Helped Cathie unpack and bring inside her new 7-in-1 gym. You get a lot of exercise moving and assembling exercise equipment! She cut up all the cardboard... 4 pm, load up the car. Head for Sutherlands to drop off a dull 20", 72-tooth chainsaw chain (from the cabin) for sharpening. What's this, even though I called yesterday and was told 8-5, they closed today at 4 pm? But someone inside was nice enough to take the chain anyway for processing.

• Major recycling offload at the city site.

• Continued northwest to the north Home Depot. Bought a 4x4x8' cedar post to replace one in my back yard discovered that day broken at the base. (Inspecting fence motivated by Cathie's recent issues with the rental house.) Was now $14 for the post! Yikes, I recall when they were $5. Oh well, at least it was relatively easy to stick it in the Subaru. Bought more roofing nails, also some cheap gutter guards to try out on one section. Oops, no small containers of roofing cement => continued to nearby Walmart supercenter for that.

• Dinner at Woodys Woodfired Pizza buffet (yum, but not a healthy or routine event!)

• Attend 7:45 pm movie at the $3 theater, enjoyable; then home for more chores and to bed.

• Sunday, an even prettier late fall day, cool and calm. I really wanted to get out to the prairie (Pawnee National Grasslands) with Cathie's dog for exercise and rockhounding, but "shoulds" abounded. After breakfast, blew out the sprinkler systems for winter, both of them... That took 1:15... I looked forward to when we only had one house to maintain. Back up on Cathie's roof, repaired one more shingle, also did some caulking. Cleaned gutters on both houses. Installed gutter guards on my driveway section, to see how they'd do over the years. ($1.06/3', needed nine sections.)

• About 1:30, loaded up the dog. Drive-through at McDonald's and on to the prairie! It was 45 minutes each way to get there and back. Stopped on a very quiet Weld County gravel road (WCR 102 between 45/47) on a hill with a great view southwest, crossed the barbed wire fence, and meandered half a mile south to a windmill (cattle water-tank pump) marked on the US Forest Service(!) Pawnee National Grasslands map.

  Gorgeous, cool, calm. Nice rocks here too, in spots -- agates, epidote, even one blob of magnetite and one bit of fossil wood. Gunshots in the far distance... Other people rockhounding nearby, first time I've ever seen that. Shared a burger with the dog while sitting by the windmill.

  A huge wave of dark cloud appeared across the sky west to north. Hmm, it's going to get windy soon I bet! Yup, within a few minutes a strong, cold breeze picked up and it got cloudier and darker. Meandered back to the car. The dog was doing well and really enjoying her freedom. No chasing pronghorns this time. Arrived back at the car with lots of rocks (maybe a gallon) about sunset (about 4:55 pm)... Nice. Split the second hamburger, watched a few sunset colors, admired a gorgeous orange full moon briefly visible between horizon and clouds.

• Back home, helped the aging dog limp out of the car and into the back yard. Cathie gave her another aspirin at bedtime. Drove over to Avago to work two more hours and make my 40 for the week. Lots to do, and it was quiet.

• Back home again at 9:15 pm, the tire tumbler needed dumping; also sorted and admired the day's collecting, most of which were bound for the tumbler.

• Snack, read, to bed!

Funny how when the weekend was over, going to the prairie was a highlight and I wish I'd had more time -- no surprise. But it was hard to tear away, leaving chores unfinished when the weather was nice on the weekend... Like replace that broken fence post, start painting the trim on my house. Fortunately it was too soon for a final leaf cleanup, and cutting back the raspberries could wait.

(Next trip report: 2006_1202-09_TampaBayAgate.htm)