{"id":55207,"date":"2022-02-05T09:24:06","date_gmt":"2022-02-05T15:24:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/?p=55207"},"modified":"2022-02-05T09:24:06","modified_gmt":"2022-02-05T15:24:06","slug":"why-i-stay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/?p=55207","title":{"rendered":"Why I Stay"},"content":{"rendered":"

Imbolc and the 3\/4 Moon<\/p>\n

\"\"Saturday gratefuls: Award Winning Pet Grooming. Beautiful Rigel. Shaggy Sheep’s carnitas taco. South Park and the Continental Divide. Beautiful with Snow. McKesson Biologic. Erleada. Happy Camper. Cheeba Chews. Making dreams come. Driving on a Snow packed highway. Like old times. Park County. The Mountains. The Valleys. The blue, blue Sky. Warmer. Getting stuff done.<\/p>\n

Sparks of Joy and Awe: South Park, the High Plains<\/p>\n

Tarot:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"
This was home though<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Rocky Mountains. My chief complaint about Andover was that there was no there. Until I got on our property. Meaning: whenever I drove into the Cities, I’d come home via I35 or I94 to Hwy 10, then up Round Lake Blvd. It was businesses, homes, industrial buildings, four lane zipping here and there, sometimes six or eight lanes. I never left the comfortable built cocoon of human habitation and its concrete and steel support system. Uninspiring. Deinspiring. Blah. Bah. Humbug.<\/p>\n

To be fair Anoka County was wonderful. An (relatively) undiscovered gem of the Twin Cities Metro. Boot Lake Nature Reserve. Oak Savannah. Rum River County Park. The Cedar Creek Nature Center. But even these existed as cordoned off chunks of the natural world. Protected. And the protection was necessary. Exurbation.<\/p>\n

\"\"In a very real sense I don’t live in Colorado, I live in the Rocky Mountains. Colorado is the Denver Metro, the big ranches on the Eastern Plains, and the even bigger ranches in the Western part of the state. Here the dominant reality is Mountains. Streams. Valleys. Pines and Aspen. Mule Deer, Moose, Elk. Mountain Lions and Marmosets. Sudden changes in weather that can breathe bone chilling cold, bursts of vehicle covering Snow, hot and dry winds, and glorious clear blue Sky.<\/p>\n

I go down the hill as little as possible. Not because I hate the city. I love cities. But because I love the Mountains more. One of the coolest parts of living up here is that ordinary tasks, like taking Rigel to the groomers is an adventure. A drive most folks would buy an airplane ticket to have. Kate stayed here until her death because, she said, “I felt every day like I was on vacation.”<\/p>\n

With the exception of certain medical appointments and the occasional outings with family, I have no need to leave the Mountains. Just changed my primary care provider from Littleton to Evergreen for that reason. Well, ok, I’d grown disgusted with the care from New West Physicians. That provided an incentive.<\/p>\n

Here are a few photos from today’s trip to Bailey and beyond.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Lazy Bull Ranch, west of Kenosha Pass<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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South Park, a Park in the Mountains is a large flat section, High Plains, surrounded by Mountains. In this case the Continental Divide. This is BTW, The South Park. Hundreds of square miles. Looks like Minnesota west on Hwy 12<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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A ranch further West of the Lazy Bull<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Kenosha Pass. 11,000 plus feet. Living here the Mountain Pass has become an important feature of driving. Did not understand how important before I moved here.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Imbolc and the 3\/4 Moon Saturday gratefuls: Award Winning Pet Grooming. Beautiful Rigel. Shaggy Sheep’s carnitas taco. South Park and the Continental Divide. Beautiful with Snow. McKesson Biologic. Erleada. Happy Camper. Cheeba Chews. Making dreams come. Driving on a Snow packed highway. Like old times. Park County. The Mountains. The Valleys. The blue, blue Sky. … Continue reading Why I Stay<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2040,4390,56,4314,4330,4317,1885,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anoka-county","category-denver","category-dogs","category-jefferson-county","category-park-county","category-shadow-mountain","category-us-history","category-weather-climate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55207"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55215,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55207\/revisions\/55215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}