Must we stimulate soul?

To fully live, is it necessary to stimulate soul?

...love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place...

Zora Neale Thurston

Eight months in Denver and I have officially turned in my POB key in Frisco. My address has been PO Box 1382 for 5 1/2 years. Though it's a small rectangular box, it was my home. Because there is no home delivery in Summit County, it is a social event to go to the post office. To have had a ZL license plate in the 80s and a POB in Summit County was a badge of honor.

I am grateful for my sister's home in Silverthorne. It is my 2nd home, my family home. I am here for four nights, and alone because they are in their heaven-world of rivers and rafting in Idaho and Montana. I sit here content and glance up to the beloved Rocky Mountains.

I am here for another wedding: two LGBT weddings in a row. Last weekend I was in Seattle for the wedding celebration of long-time friends (I met Emma when she was four at Cary Presbyterian in NC). Now a second celebration, I was pregnant with Kaylan while Anna was pregnant with Charles. Fantastic families, friends, and people. I am privileged to attend both gatherings.

Yellowstone Kathy and I visited in Avon/Beaver Creek as wekk. Kathy and I were hiking buddies in YNP. Great to see her and catch up on our kids, lives, and work... We both accumulate work in whatever fashion it comes. Elder care, pet care, childcare, asundry jobs since our "careers" ended with the demise of our marriages. We both like the colorful and unexpected ways our lives have unfolded.

More hikes. If I do not hike twice a week, I plummet. I cannot even explain it. Often I think I have no "happy hormones" unless I'm on trail. The 24 hours after a hike, I am high, literally HIGH. Guess it also means I need to add something else into my life...

Where else but Pike's Market Seattle?



We had five large grilled salmon from Pike's Fish Market
for the wedding celebration.
Nothing is more Seattle!



Wedding Site at the Grandmama's House
Vista includes Mt St Helens
Gorgeous Gardens Tended for 60 Years

CO Vail Shrine Pass Hike
July 26, 2012

On Trail with Friends
Shrine Pass
Range-Full Vista

Near Vail, Next Time I Keep Walking...

WA and OR Hold Good Family Memories
11-day Camping Trip with Girls and Steve
With Fondness to the Past.....

For spirit to expand, I must stimulate soul.

Stagnation is the opposite.

I do not want to taste death while living.

Sometimes we are fallow

for periods of time.

Because of age,

I feel haste

to absorb

incorporate

include

self-saturate

LIVE.

Black Lake and Henderson Mine Spur



Two hikes and repeat profile pic (sorry!)



Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP)
Black Lake Hike
9180' to 10,620'
10 mile roundtrip
July 14, 2012



Hiking Buds
I was afraid we'd have a "deck collapse".
There were 24 of us on Black Lake hike.
 A GREAT LAUGHING DAY

Frequent Hike Buds
He is climbing Kilamanjaro at this moment!

I have met two young women on these hikes who moved within the last year from D.C. to CO.
Both have dogs and knew Friendship Hospital for Animals where oldest daught is working.
Each commented what a wonderful reputation the clinic has!
150 on staff
27 doctors
6 interns
Parental Pride!



Streams and waterfalls abound in RMNP

 

Natural Water Slide on the way to Black Lake

Henderson Mine Spur Trail near Berthoud Pass
Horizontal line at peak is a road.
The mine sits at the Trailhead.
 (they mine molybdenum as does Climax where I worked in the 70s as a mucker)

As anyone who knows me knows, I DESPISE TELLING MY AGE.
It is the ugly age for women because men don't consider it.
Try online dating with 62!
I've had hits from 70 and 80 year olds.
p-l-e-a-s-e
Those who know me KNOW this is NOT RIGHT.
Give me 53 or 51 or 49.....!!  :)

However...
the absolute best thing about my age is:
I purchased a National Park Lifetime Pass for $10
and
camping in a National Park is half-price.
I love my age!

Caribou Ranch - Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

[I've been having issues with posting pictures from Picasa.

Sorry for the blankness. Hopefully, these are visible.]

Another hike is never just another hike...
It rages, roars, and teaches.

This hike took place at Caribou Ranch Open Space near Nederland CO, approximately 8200'.

Nederland has an annual frigid fun festival called The Frozen Dead Guy Days.

4000 acres of river, willows, vista, meadows, streams, wildlife, and sky

Caribou opened a Recording Studio in 1972 in a converted barn. Artists such as Dan Fogelberg,
Elton John, John Denver, Carole King, Stephen Sills, Phil Collins, Earth, Wind & Fire,
The Beach Boys, Joe Walsh, and Blood, Sweat, and Tears recorded at Caribou.

The barn burned in the mid-80s and was not rebuilt.
John Lennon recorded here as well, contributing to an Elton John album.

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

The City of Boulder and Boulder County own the ranch and administer the Open Space.

Also on site is the Blue Bird Mine. In the late 1800s, silver and blue azurite were mined.

Blue Bird Mine - entry shaft to mine was locked (in background).

1904-1919 the Denver Boulder and Western Railroad ran through the property,
carrying tourists on what was called the Switzerland Trail.

The miners' bunkhouse later became a boarding house for the travellers.

Bunkhouse for miners.
Later a boarding house for tourists.

In the 1940s, Warner Brothers shot portions of two movies here:
Arabians of the Rockies and Sons of Courage.



Portions of the 1965 remake of Stagecoach with Ann Margaret and Bing Crosby
were also made on the Caribou Ranch.

4000 acres
The land is exquisite and extensive.

It was an easy hike. Six miles with little to no elevation gain. Six of us hiked and the rain waited until we were sitting in the Pioneer Inn cafe/bar where the musicians mentioned strummed and sang.
The Pioneer Inn still delivers music seven nights a week.
The names not quite so famous...

Today was train, mine, movie, and music history.
Accompanied by ever-present Mother Nature,
the melody that endures.



How are you? How am I?

January 12, 2007, I landed back in Colorado - a mess. Amid tears, I took on adventure as an alternate to what I had known. With each new choice, I resurrected. I took on new jobs, skills, and locations.

In 2011, I recognized it was time to settle down again. Living in one place was the new adventure: learning roads, trails, making community, finding work, establishing a routine. Denver has been home for seven months. I didn't write on the blog for six of those months.

How are you? How am I?

I am 88% good. The new adventure is better than I anticipated. I've met the most wonderful people: men and women, but mostly women. (where oh where do the men go? are you all dead or boring or scared?)

I've hiked or snowshoed 340 miles since Thanksgiving, been to 88 Meetups, and camped three times. Why do I keep track? To know what trails I've been on. Greater than half of the Meetups are hikes.

I am privileged to know young moms and their children. I watch children and they bring more laughter and innocence and honest questions than I sometimes know what to do with. A child asked me why my upper arms were so flat. I am thin but have muscle. My upper arms did look flat as I waved, but did she have to say it outloud?! They've asked me about it all: age spots, veins, wrinkles, eyes, bruises, cuts, thin skin, if my children are dead because they cannot see them, if I go home to my mommy, if I am an adult or child, if I am 14 years old...

They draw pictures of me and want to write the age. I have them write it like this:

Then we laugh.

Single friends ask me if I date. Married friends rarely ask.

The answer is not since I've been in Denver. Guess I could have but I don't pursue and don't give indicators. Do I look for that bit of magic? Yes, the bit of poet, the taste of trail. openness, honesty, and the undefined right connection. But I'm real and not needy. I never in a million years thought I'd be one of the 40 women and 6 men at a gathering. I actually hate it because it makes me feel lonely and hopeless and I refuse to take that seat. Give me a trail, my home, my friends. If the other comes, it comes...

Thus, the 88%.
The 12% remains.

I exist as hopeful...

Square Top Lakes and Little Scraggy Trail

I hiked in my 20s. I did not hike in my 30s, 40s, or half of 50s. I am having make-up hikes, like having make-up sex after a disagreement. I was displaced in the South for twenty-five years where I loved the people but did not fit. It was too smooth and rounded and safe, and I made from the thumb of glaciel imprints, infused with pine and dust. 

My former spouse thought it was him I did not like but it was far beyond, where soul lives and spirit births....



One of Two Square Top Lakes

My idea of dining out.

High Alpine Meadow at Square Top Lakes

Little Scraggy Trail
Colorado Trail

Forever



And beyond...

Guanella Pass, Georgetown, CO



Colorado Burning



High Park Fire plumes from Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP)
Darker plume on right was new on Saturday (June 23).
Homes burned in Estes Park, the gateway town to RMNP.
The entry station at Beaver Meadows closed
and to exit the Park we were detoured around town.

Sustained gusts describe the winds I've experienced camping and hiking this season.
It seems impossible for the firemen to get a handle on the burns.
At summits, I've had to brace myself against the wind.



High Park Fire
from trail to Sky Pond

Sky Pond
10 mile hike, 1700' elevation gain
Stunning Stunning and Stunning
One arrives and smiles.
Is it a shock on the senses every time?

Who is at the Pearly Gate?
It's me!

Loch Lake
Lakes, Rivers, Waterfalls
One Day
One Hike
One Woman's Life


We scaled a waterfall; the trail went up it.

I love climbing rocks.
Rocks are my friends.

Mountains = Vistas with No End
Another summit
Another trail

Snow in summer
104 in Denver
80 on the trail

Alberta Falls
The Loch
Lake of Glass
Sky Pond

Snow
June 23, 2012


Since December 1,
I have put 330 miles on my Keen Hiking Boots.



This lake seemed to edge over the world
like the fancy pools at resorts.

Trails lead forward.

Hell's Hole

I hike.
I work
...by caring for kids in their homes.
I have the best families, the best moms.
It is privilege to spend time with them.
I learn. They learn.

On being a vegetarian,
one child said about animals and eating meat,
"I hear them crying in my mouth."

Is there not anything more aware than a child?

It's like touching curiosity and innocence
before we turned into grizzly adults.

Hell's Hole
The tag doesn't fit.
9 miles
2000 elevation gain

Old Bristlecone Pine
2000 years old
This tree is the reason for my email address (bristlecone).
I exist because it lives.

Lunching at Hell's Hole
15 of us on a mid-week hike
Even with 90 degree heat in Denver
and fires raging,
the high country can blow cool wind
with snow in sight.