May 2010 - yes this is all about LAST year!!!
We went to nephew Taylor's H.S.
graduation in Orlando, FL. His graduation present was "The Richard
Petty Experience". Uncle Ron drove, too!
En route to Leadville,
CO, we stopped in Moab, UT. Our friend Brent arrived there ahead of us
and scoped out great boondocking sites.
We went to Arches National Park
where we dragged Brent up the trail to Delicate
Arch. He’s forgiven us, I
think. We spent a lot of time at Canyonlands National Park and Dead Horse State Park. We’d been to all of these before but this time I got my Junior Ranger badges
at each park and, because of that, I
was eligible to earn a Red Rock Ranger badge!
How cool is that? So I did it and
I now have a beautiful patch to prove it.
Did you know that you can get 25 cent wings at the brew pub in Moab?
 | ||
| On the road to Moab |
  | ||||
| CANYONLANDS and 3 Jr. Ranger badges and one Red Rock Ranger badge! |
  | |
| Hwy. 91 into Leadville - yes...in MAY! AND Distant Hatchery under Mt. Massive |
 | ||
| LABYRINTH AT LEADVILLE NATIONAL FISH HATCHERY |
When
we left you last, we had just arrived in Leadville,
CO for another action-packed summer at 10,000 ft. altitude at the Leadville National Fish Hatchery. The 122-year-old Colorado sandstone building
continues to be returned to its original glory.
Last year the front door was completely disassembled (40 pieces),
stripped, reassembled, repaired and adorned with reproduction brass
hardware. Ron worked
on what he called the Sonic Death Project (you can ask him about it) and I reworked the hiking trail signs and honed my freehand
routing skills some more. Ron, becoming
a crazy Coloradan for the summer, hiked Mt.
Elbert, the highest peak in CO and the second highest in the lower 48. I, not being quite so crazy, only hiked the
local Highline Trail which only goes
up to 11,000 ft. and together we hiked to Douglass City, a ghost town abandoned
with the demise of the Midland rail
route and up to Timberline Lake…only
12,000 ft. Of course, we maintained the
fabulous Nature Trail at the Hatchery and built some more steps on the steep
parts. Also, I decided that we needed a labyrinth up in a quiet, level, sunlit,
section of the picnic area near a pond and a waterfall, so after some web
research, we built it! Our friend, Burn,
was visiting and helped gather rocks for it.
It’s an architectural masterpiece of course and we’re pretty darn proud
of it. We
had a small Summer Solstice celebration up there but no one got naked, as
threatened. Maybe next year? Oh, and I
also wrote some brief articles about the hatchery for the Leadville Herald Democrat and actually got bi-lines! Being published is a kick.
  | |||
| FLOAT - BOOM DAYS 2010 |
One of the best parts of the summer was participating in the Boom Days parade. Ed, the
boss, designed a gorgeous float with a silhouette of the hatchery building and
a collage of vintage photos which I had the privilege to edit in
Photoshop. Ron and I decided that that
wasn’t enough so following that float, we had Paige, the biologist, dressed as
a Fish and Wildlife mermaid, sitting
on top of the small fish delivery truck and Mark, a Friend of the Hatchery, fly
fishing with a training rod off the back of the truck, which was decorated with
two “Zillion Bubbles” machines. The rest
of us walked behind the float wearing Greenback Cutthroat Trout hats which we designed
and fabricated. We were a hit and won
second place in our category!! If we’d
had little kids on the float, we would have come in first for sure. Ron wants to put the little truck in the
parade again next year…with new hats which he thinks we could make into
collectibles.
AND,
once again, crazy people biked 100 miles and ran 100 miles, straight through,
for the Trail 100 events. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leadville_Trail_100 And, once again, we directed traffic and fed
runners and their pacers for 22 hours.
As exhausted as we were after the race, I’m sure the runners had the
right to complain more than we did! We
recruited friends (Brent, Burn, Diane and Brad) to help us out and next summer,
Linda and Jim, our North Ranch neighbors will come for the whole month of August to
help!
A LITTLE DIVERSION HERE:
PEOPLE STORY:
A
couple of Hatchery visitors found us one afternoon and wondered if there were
any volunteer jobs available because they were working at a state hatchery
about 40 miles south of us and were NOT happy about their set-up there. Turned out that they were also Escapees (the
RV club we belong to) so we were quick friends.
They also were from Louisiana, Ron’s home state. When we went down to visit them and tour
their hatchery, we met their co-workers and had a discussion about food (since
we were headed out to dinner). The
conversation turned to shrimp and oysters and crawfish and this woman told us
that they were not food! According to
Deuteronomy…(she lost us right there)…the only real food is/are ungulates.
Cows, deer, swine, horses, and elephants (I just looked that up!) It’s always good to learn something new.
2010 SUMMER VISITORS:
 | ||||
| CHAFFEE COUNTY RODEO |
When Burn was in the area, we went to the Chaffee County Fair which had a small
but mighty rodeo…and dramatic weather…and good BBQ….and a tractor pull. Our friend Jim, from MN, came for a visit,
too, so we explored the old mining areas around Leadville and tested our new
Subaru on the dirt road over Shrine Pass. We drove over Independence Pass, too…the only way to Aspen, a town waaaay too ritzy for our taste though we do have a favorite pizza joint
there. We continued on to Maroon Bells which was gorgeous…worth
going back for a longer visit. Our
friends Stephanie and Don who were vacationing in Santa Fe, drove up to surprise Ron for his 60th
birthday. With them, we drove over Cottonwood
Pass and lunched in Crested
Butte and then went to visit their friend, Debbie, at her fishing “camp” in
Gunnison.
AFTER
LEADVILLE - SEPTEMBER 2010
 | ||
| Jones Hole Fish Hatchery - Vernal, UT |
 |
| Tasty results of crabbing with Liz an Russ |
BACK
TO NORTH RANCH (our winter roost)
I'm going to stop here because I'm frustrated. There are so many more photos that I want to attach so I'm going to go ahead and put them into an album on our Picture Trail site...when i get around to it. I'll let you know when that happens. For now, we have some touring to do....
