• Tag Archives Denver

  • She Went Over the Rivers and Through the Plains

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring                                                                                       Planting Moon

    We set our first new low temperature since 2004.  Probably another one today, too.

    Kate’s been in Denver since a week ago Thursday.  Long enough time for Grandma to settle in and be part of the day-to-day.  Last week she went to Ruth’s school and ate lunch with her.  A big deal for Ruth, an even bigger deal for Grandma.

    (one of the lamer attractions on the road to Denver)

    She’s had 8 inches of snow.  Then quarter inch thick ice on her rental car.  Later, she picked up a bolt in the tire of her rental and had to rely on the kindness of strangers.  Has not dulled her enthusiasm although that flat tire coincided with some crankiness on the grandkids to make a not so very good, if not exactly horrible day.

    For those of you who wonder, we travel independently largely because of the dogs.  It’s very expensive for both of us to travel and board the dogs.  We have a mutual travel fund, but it’s modest.

    Though I would not describe us as living on a fixed income, we have much less flexibility than we did.  This is a reality for most retired folks.  (I can hear Kate.  Sell that book.)

    (the trail to Denver crosses all of Nebraska)

    Revision is the first order of business each day except Fridays, so I’m on it, sweetheart.  Fridays (or Thursdays) I retain for art related matters.  Ovid is in the afternoon.


    📂This entry was posted in Family Travel 📎and tagged

  • Pacific Northwest On the Front Range

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter                    First Moon of the New Year

    The Denver Art Museum (DAM as it describes itself) has a wonderful Pacific Northwest gallery.  Undergoing reinstallation when Kate and I visited the museum last year, I saw its bones and wanted to see what I though was a new gallery.  Turns out it’s an old gallery newly installed with several new works added.

    There are two sets of two large story poles (totem poles) which have hung between them on a braided rope a puppet by Richard Hunt, creator of the MIA’s raven/sisuitil transformation mask.  A wall between them has many masks, some from the late 19th century, but many from latter decades of the 20th.

    A bear clan living space partition is huge and has the usual womb located space for the chief to enter through wearing and carrying clan regalia.  The collection also includes several bent wood boxes and two story poles from the 19th century, weathered and furrowed, haunting in their quiet presence.

    If you’re ever in Denver, this is a real treat.

    The new DAM buildings, I’m afraid, are not so fine.  Now three years or so old, they include many dark areas with little natural light, oddly shaped galleries that draw attention to themselve rather than the art.


    📂This entry was posted in Art and Culture Travel 📎and tagged

  • The Triangle Hotel

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter                        First Moon of the New Year

    Worked this morning on the novel.  Finally finished editing all the stuff I’d written before and got back to actual writing.  A bit of stop and go, flushing out the pipes, reorienting the fiction side of my brain, but a page or two got put into bytes before lunch time.

    Kate was over at Jon and Jen’s helping Ruthie clean her room.  Lunch at the Renaissance Hotel, a ziggurat inside with open balconies narrowing as they get toward the top.  Plants dangle from a few planters, the paint is an egg shell gold.

    Gabe and Ruth refer to the Renaissance as the triangle hotel, a landmark visible when returning from Ruth’s gymnastic practice.

    In the gift shop you can buy Stetsons, belt buckles, items carved from deer antlers and many accessories decorated with large flared crosses, studded with rhinestones.  This is Great Western Stock Show memorabilia and disappears when the horse and cattle trailers pull out headed for Wyoming, Montana or Texas.


    📂This entry was posted in Family Travel 📎and tagged

  • Jon, Jen, Ruth and Gabe

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter                   First Moon of the New Year

    Sunny and 54 here in Denver today.  Heading out to the zoo with grandson Gabe and daughter-in-law Jen.

    Ruth and Jon drove into the mountains to A-basin at 5:30 this morning.  Ruth has an all day ski lesson while Jon will try to find runs not crowded with newbies.  Not much snow here so the existing runs have become clogged.

    Jon moved out here ten years ago and has taken full advantage of the location.  He skis as often as he can, which means weekly at least in most cases.  He climbs mountains and skies down rugged terrain.

    He’s no youngster, either, at 43. He’s stayed in good shape and manages his chronic illnesses with grace.  He has diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and addison’s disease.  Any one of these would give most folks an excuse to sit in the easy chair, but not Jon.

    He’s an artist, a teacher, a father, an athlete and a home renovator. Pretty impressive.


    📂This entry was posted in Family Travel 📎and tagged

  • Playing Cards

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter                                 First Moon of the Winter Solstice

    Oh.  The card gods had it in for me tonight.  And about time, too.  I got cards that were almost good enough, but not quite.  And I kept playing them.  And playing them.  And then some more.  I had a great time.  It’s fun playing with these guys, win or lose.

    On the way back from the game I felt great.  Realized at this point that this feeling lifts me up and the serious, more work ahead feeling after political meetings, not so much, and I want more lift me up in my life.

    Driving back there were snow flurries, the temperature was either 17–the truckometer, 12–the sign on 35W just after 694 going north or 28–HOM furniture, which always runs hot.  Around 13 by my educated ears.  Windy, too.  Downright chilly.

    Felt great.

    Off to Denver in the AM.  The Great Western Stock Show.  Grandkids.  Time with my honey.


    📂This entry was posted in Family Friends Weather +Climate 📎and tagged

  • Sunday, Sunday

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Mid-Summer                                                                            Full Honey Flow Moon

    More fun with the alarm system.  Back and forth with ADT.  On the phone, pushing buttons.  Still the chirping.  Service call.

    Business meeting.  Scheduling a Denver trip for sometime in September.  Looking at buying some more mulch for the vegetable garden.

    Practice tai-chi.  Sand and varnish for coat number three six honey supers.  They need to go on tomorrow morning.  Mark put foundations in the frames today, so we’re ready to go.

    Out to tai-chi.  I’m still the slow student in class, but I’m learning.  Slowly.  A challenge for this guy to connect body and mind, but a challenge worth keeping after.


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Asia Family Health Travel 📎and tagged

  • The Cheeky Monk and The Irish Snug

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter                                                          Waxing Moon of the Cold Month

    And so it is.  The cold month I mean.  -7 last night here in Denver.  Not Minnesota cold, but still, it counts.  The snow though has mostly disappeared from the city streets and will be all gone by the weekend when highs in the 40’s hit the high plateau.

    Kate and I went to the REI flagship store yesterday, a large brick building that used to be a tramway (don’t know what that is) now stuffed with ice axes, mountaineer boots and more fleece than you shake a sheep at.  It has a very Colorado feel with many young, hyper fit folks looking for the right gear for climbing a 14’er and then skiing back down.

    Denver has a young persons feel with many interesting bars like the Cheeky Monk and the Irish Snug.  Gastro pubs.  Kate and I stopped for lunch at the Cheeky Monk, a woody homage to some form of Belgian culture with Belgian waffles on offer as a dessert item.  Kate had a beer sampler that included Stone’s Lucky Bastard and Avey’s Czar.  Potent stuff.  More so than Kate anticipated.

    We’ve both eaten a bit too much fried and fatty with corresponding complaints from our digestive systems.  You’d think at our age…

    In spite of its proximity to the mountains, the Rockies loom on the western horizon, Denver is a flat city, very Midwestern in that way.

    Since this is the time period of the Great Western Stock Show the restaurants have many cowboy hats, cowboy boots and the occasional sequined Rodeo Queen.  It all gives Denver that Western feel that it sometimes lacks in the summer.

    OK.  Off to the Denver Mint.


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Family Travel 📎and tagged

  • Happy Grandpa

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter                                             Waxing Moon of the ColdMonth

    When Kate and I arrived down south here in Denver, we got a 40 degree temperature swing.  At 8 am this morning, my weatherstation recorded -14.  When we got to Denver, it was 26.  If we’d left Minnesota at 50 degrees amd gotten a similar bump, it would be 90 here.

    Now, there are school closings here with a snow that would only bring out the sanding trucks in Minnesota.  Strange.

    After a nap, the grumpy traveler became a happy grandpa, taken upstairs by granddaughter Ruth to see her princess walkie talkies and her changeable Cinderalla doll.  Back downstairs grandson Gabe carried his toy train, Thomas, and came to me, “Up.”  So we did.

    Gabe and I looked at the Dreidel lights Jen had strung over the window sill.

    After a Mexican meal at the restaurant next to our hotel, the kids went home and the grandparents walked through the snow a short way to the hotel.  This snow is finer than most of them we get in Minnesota, light, but not fluffy.

    Bedtime here in the Mile High City.  With snow.


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Family Retirement Travel 📎and tagged

  • Home Again

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer                                           Waxing Grandchildren Moon

    The grandkids have returned home to Denver.  Their parents only have a couple of weeks now before they return to their teaching jobs, Jon in elementary art and Jen in EFL elementary work in an experimental school.  Ruth and Gabe will return to child care at Humphrey’s, across the street from their house.  Ruth will only be there two weeks because she starts pre-school this year.  Watch out pre-school.

    (Denver at night from space)

    Gotta go.  The weather’s reasonable and the bees need attention.  See you on the backside of the hive inspections.


    📂This entry was posted in Family 📎and tagged

  • Another Warm January Day

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter                             Waxing Cold Moon

    It’s 52 today here in Denver, sun shining, blue sky with a few cirrus clouds nearby and some cumulus off in the distance.  The Rockies have snow caps and grace the western horizon with a view that makes any nature lovers heart race.  This is a great state from an outdoors perspective.

    Today Ruth and I hop on the shuttle and go to the stock show.  Again.  Third day in a row.  We’re gonna see the super dogs.

    I read an ESPN article that analyzes New Orleans vs. the Vikes the same way I do.  We match up very well against them.  If our defense, especially Jared Allen and Ray Edwards throw Brees out of his rythm, and if Peterson can smash the Saints center, we should go on to the Super Bowl.  I believe those things will happen.


    📂This entry was posted in Family Sport 📎and tagged