It's Not About Me

Morning Has Broken

On my way to work, May 8, 2012

Second Storm

After the warmest September I remember, our autumn leaves were tricked out by a second snow storm - all before Halloween. I hear the East has a treat in store this week as well. Enjoy my friends!

 

October Tracks

Big Sky

Achtung, Baby

Three week countdown to U2 at Mile High! The last time Bono and I got together was April '87 at the Cow Palace (with 13,000 of our closest friends). I'm already considering my attire ...  Will it be the yellow ski parka and brown Inca hat or should I wear the blue Under Armour and wool hunting pants? Brrrrrrr, it's cold here, but it's all right, it's all right - we just might end up with a beautiful day!

6/7

We may not have had a winter, but we had a white Easter. That would make it six out of the last seven!

 

Who Woulda Thunk?

I frequently find it hard to enjoy the good fortune of others without jealousy. And so it was last week as one of my colleagues told me of his ski day that reminded him of why he lives in Colorado - light powder and blue sky. I thought, "Maybe next year..."

Well, Old Man Winter barely visited the Colorado Front Range this year, but the mountains got hammered with epic snow. Still it's always dicey skiing spring break. You might be lost in a white-out or be schussing in slush by noon. It looked doubtful for this week after a 55-degree hooky day last Wednesday. Then the weather report started to look promising for March 26th, but wouldn't it be a zoo on a Spring Break Saturday? Somehow it all came togther, an overnight storm that left up to 12 inches of fluff, kept fresh by cold weather that even at 11a rewarded the photographer with burning hands in the 10-degree temp. And the crowds? They were a no show. Didn't wait longer than three minutes for the lifties to deliver our chair!

Walking around church this morning it was easy to identify those who had a similar experience by the sun burned tip of their noses and the red, white raccoon goggle-faces. What a day!

Chilly Chance @ -13 F

Last night at dinner we were randomly discussing the life of my friend Doug Agnor who has made his life as a missionary in Siberia. After dinner I find a letter from him in the mailbox. He says they don't close schools there until it hits - 30 degrees F. The kids there have to walk a couple miles to school.

This morning, my house is cozy, but the drapes are all down and a thick coat of ice covers the inside of our windows. The Weather Channel says it is -13 outside. My random, morning Psalm reading is Psalm 147:

Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem!
  Praise your God, O Zion!

For he stregthens the bars of your gates;
  he blesses your children within you.

He makes peace in your borders;
  he fills you with the finest of wheat.

He sends out his command to the earth;
  his word runs swiftly. 

He gives snow like wool;
  he scatters hoarfrost like ashes.

He hurls down his crystals of ice like crumbs;
  who can stand before his cold? 

Pow-Duh Day!

To be able to enjoy these days on any kind of regular basis you must either a) be unemployed; b) live very near a ski resort; or most likely c) all of the above. Today Jo & I got to enjoy a 2-foot feather-weight (not quite champagne) dump. It was easily the second best ski day of my life. The first being a similar event at Winter Park some ten years ago when bone and muscle could take better advantage of the fluffies, not to mention being able to retire to a mountain house for the evening. Tonight, instead of a fire place and a zin, we enjoyed a 17-mph blizzard crawl across Hoosier Pass when I shoulda been eating my dinner! But hey, that sounds like complaining...

Halcyon Days

The best of autumn is wrapping up here on the Front Range. Pikes Peak was white last week and the cold front that blew through took most of the leaves off unsheltered limbs. It was a mere two weeks ago that I took this photo of an intensely yellow maple, deep in its interior, where some chlorophyll still remained.

As I mentioned in "Glory" maples are not native to Colorado, but I once lived in New England where maples and the big oaks are king. There were two particularly magical afternoons when the light was so filtered by the yellow canopy that the very air glowed in yellow aura.

One of those times was walking down a dirt lane after a day spent on the Appalachian Trail in NE Connecticut. The classic New England stone walls on either side, cool fall air, an arc of maples covering the road until it disappeared into a turn and the lurking promise of dinner not too far away...

The second was a solo hike on the Mad Tom Trail, an approach trail that winds from the valley at East Dorset, Vermont high up to the ridge where the AT/Long Trail heads north to Canada. It was a particularly warm day and as I walked along Mad Tom Creek I came to a pool deep enough to swim in.  Typically I’m a cold water wimp, but the temperature was tolerable and the yellow glow gave extra added warmth. In I went for a short dip, drinking like a fish as I swam under water, knowing there was nothing above me but forest.