Leaf Peeping

This past weekend was the peak of fall colors in the nearby mountains of Colorado and I wanted to go for a drive on Saturday to go soak in all the glorious colors. However, on Friday, my grandma called me and asked me to drive her to look at a couple of apartments (she's looking to move and is having a flare up of her rheumatoid arthritis so she's having trouble getting around these days). I love my grandma, but every time I go over to do something that would normally only take a couple hours at most, I get sucked in for a whole day.

On Sunday, my sister and I had planned to visit the local museum because it was having a free admission day and we hadn't been able to hang out for a while. She stopped by the house on Saturday evening to pick up her dog who had been staying a couple nights here while she worked long hours and she just couldn't wait for me to bring him home Sunday, so we decided to go leaf peeping instead (seriously, that's what it's called).

I don't regret going to see the leaves because in some areas, the leaves were already mostly falling off the trees or gone altogether, the museum will have other free days. Most of the trees though were a gorgeous golden or red color in their full fall glory. Also, yesterday it rained so hard here that the green-leaved trees were stripped in some places. The first half hour of our drive, it was raining moderately, but when we got to where there were large groves of aspen trees, it let up.

Poetry Time

I don't know if I'll make this a regular occurrence (and I mean regular as in every week), but I think I will make the occasional poetry post. If that's not your thing, please feel free to skip, I won't be offended. I have written poetry since I was in middle school and recently rediscovered a lot of it. A lot of it, as you might suspect, is not really any good. Some of it though, I'm still happy with, so at some point I'll definitely post more of my poems.

For today's post, this is a new poem (as in I wrote it about ten minutes ago). The main purpose of this blog as a whole is to get back into writing more. I used to write all kinds of things regularly and have fallen out of the habit for years. I still enjoy writing, but sometimes feel like there's nothing to write about, so I skip it. By writing a blog, I feel like there will be some sort of motivation to write at least somewhat regularly and have also felt the need to write some more poems.

I even started a short story, but about a week after being struck with what I felt was a brilliant idea at the time, it quickly petered out. I'm not saying I'll never get back to that story, but it's been shelved for now. It was a sci-fi story about colonization on Mars, which in itself is not so unique, but I had a different angle based on a story that really happened during exploration and land grabbing in the western United States. I'll say no more on that subject just in case anything further ever happens with that story. It was mostly spurred by a combination of reading some sci-fi novels and the story I heard on a history pocast.

Anyway, before I ramble on for another half a page, here's the poem I wrote:

Tap, tap, tap.
I look up from the book I'm reading,
Hoping to find the source of the noise.
Tap, tap, tap.
I can't determine the source,
Back to reading I go,
When again there comes the noise:
Tap, tap, tap.
This time I get up from my chair, 
To make sure that I really am home alone,
That this isn't some prank. 
Then, as soon as I pick up my book,
Tap, tap, tap.
I begin to ponder nervously,
What could be making this soft noise,
So intermittently and yet so persistently.
Tap, tap, tap.
Finally, a flash of movement catches my eye,
I glance up at my aquarium,
One fish is swimming rapidly.
Then I hear it again,
Tap, tap, tap.
I see my fish has decided to redecorate,
He's piling up the gravel,
Spitting it at the glass,
Tap, tap, tap.
Back and forth he swims,
Scoops up the rocks in his mouth,
Then piles them in the front of the aquarium,
Tap, tap, tap.
The mystery is solved,
So back to my book I go.
While in the background, 
My fish continues to redecorate,
Tap, tap, tap.

And for proof, here's a video of the mound of gravel he's got built up, while he's in action (unfortunately, when I get closer to the aquarium he stops, so this is taken from across the room and you can't hear the tapping):

Update: In my previous post, I detailed how I managed to burn my tongue with a molten marshmallow. The good news is, mouth injuries heal quickly. Today, there's almost no pain, but there's a slight loss of sensation where the taste buds were burnt. I suspect that in another week, I'll be on the path to forgetting I ever did this.

Beware of Molten Marshmallows

A week and a half ago, I happened to get a three day weekend scheduled off from work and I decided that I had better take advantage of going camping one last time before the weather turned too cool for that. Of course, Friday of that weekend it was chilly and possibly supposed to snow in town so it was probably going to be even colder in the higher elevations where I like to camp. My favorite local camping spot is Rocky Mountain National Park (hereafter referred to as RMNP because I can't be bothered to type the whole thing out repeatedly).

In preparation for this camping trip I went to the store to buy hotdogs and large marshmallows because what else would you eat with a campfire? On Saturday morning, I woke up and packed my tent, sleeping bag and some firewood into my car. I took the scenic drive up through Boulder and into Estes Park before entering RMNP.

At the entrances to the park, they have signs posted stating whether or not the campgrounds are full and it said all of them had vacancies, so I paid the entrance fee (because my annual pass had expired) and headed in. The first campground I came to had a sign on the roadside stating that it was full. I was concerned and headed on to the next closest campground, which had a full sign up as well. I wasn't extremely disappointed at this point because I figured I could at least get out and take a hike in the nice, warm weather.

All of the parking lots near (and even the ones not so near) the hiking trails were full. At this point, I had two options: I could drive over Trail Ridge road (the park's main road that connects the east side and Estes Park to the west side and Grand Lake) and hope the campground on that side of the park had openings or I could just head home. I weighed my options over a picnic lunch and opted to head home. I really didn't feel like making another long drive (probably about 2 hours because I like to stop periodically to take pictures) and find the campground was full. Even if it had vacancies, there weren't really trails on that side of the park that I wanted to hike, so I'd have to wake up really early the next morning and drive back to the east side to find parking to hike.

All of this now brings us to why molten marshmallows are very dangerous. I was disappointed to not get to camp and to have basically wasted my park entrance fee, but I still wanted to have some roasted marshmallows. Cue the newly installed gas stove that I have at home and I figured I'd try roasting some marshmallows at home. Sure, it's not the same as roasting them over the fire, but I wanted some gooey marshmallows, dang it!

The good news is that the stove did a nice job of toasting the marshmallows and while it was not quite satisfying, things were going well. As I roasted my last marshmallow, I let it go a little longer than the previous few because I wanted it golden brown all the way around instead of just at the top where it would catch fire and blacken quickly. I let it cool off for what I thought was a reasonable amount of time, it was cool enough to the touch on the outside, but I quickly found out that it was still molten inside.

I've burnt my tongue on pizza that was a little too hot to eat before and that was painful, but I walked away with maybe a small blister. I suspect molten marshmallow goo is probably one of the worst things you can burn your mouth on. Not only was it hot, but it was stuck to my tongue! I was fortunately standing near the sink so I ran my tongue under cold water for a few minutes, but not before the damage was done. The whole tip of my tongue was burnt and I was quickly googling remedies for tongue burns.

It looks slightly more red in person, but you can see all that whitish discoloration at the tip that's burnt. Also, I'm sorry for making you look at a close up picture of my tongue, I feel like it's a little gross for some reason.

Today, my tongue feels like one gigantic blister basically. I am sucking on as many ice cubes as I can and using Orajel and pain killers to try and keep down the pain. I have to be really careful when I'm talking so that I don't accidentally scrape my tongue against my teeth. I'm also making sure not to eat food that's too hot (in both the warmth and spicy senses of the word). It will probably feel a lot better in the few days, but leave it to me to get hurt eating a marshmallow. I guess I was just not meant to have my roasted marshmallows.

And a quick appearance from Jonesy to update you on his nose progress. He's looking almost 100% again (still missing the fur, but his dark skin makes it look less obvious from a distance).

Last Days of Summer

The weather over the last week has definitely had more of a fall feeling to it. Sure, the temperatures during the day have been pretty warm, but in the evenings the air definitely has a bit of a chill coming into it. Summer doesn't officially end for a couple more days and I got to enjoy a cookout and bonfire last night.

One of my friends grew up on a farm north of Denver and his family has an annual pig roast. They invited a couple hundred people and asked folks to bring either a side dish or a dessert. There was no shortage of food with dozens of different pasta salads (including the one I took) and about 20 different kinds of desserts.

The evening started out with a tour of the farm (which used to be a dairy farm, they only have a handful of cows that they no longer milk). They keep a couple of donkeys, which are actually friendly enough to let you pet them and a dozen chickens. There were also several friendly dogs around and a trio of barn kittens who they took in after the mother was hit by a car.

There were several horseshoe games set up...what do you call a horseshoe playing field? Arena? Pitch? Not that it really matters I suppose. I avoided the games anyway, klutz plus throwing a heavy metallic object around dozens of people doesn't strike me as a good idea. In the barn, they had lots of long tables set up for meal time.

When the pigs were finished roasting, a long line formed (seriously we stood in line for about half an hour to get food, but someone brought a plate of pork down the line for sampling). The pork was delicious and barbecue sauce and buns were provided. I loaded up my plate with a couple of types of pasta salad and some delicious baked beans and veggies. Then afterwards I had a pumpkin spice cupcake, a small piece of brownie and a thin slice of root beer float cake. I had never heard of such a thing, but it was pretty good (I assume the cake itself had root beer in it).

After the meal a large bonfire was started and everyone got to hang out and enjoy music (and alcohol if you wanted). There was a wide open view and to the south a thunderstorm was producing lots of gorgeous lightning. For some reason, there was also a nearby fireworks display for a while too. All in all, it was a pretty fun way to spend one of the last few nights of summer. Now if I can just figure out a way to delay winter.

13 Years Later

I find it hard to believe that it has actually been 13 years since 9/11. Of course, I generally am terrible at realizing how much time has passed. In my brain, the 90s weren't that long ago (but they were actually quite some time ago, heck I know people who were born in the 2000s). Still, it doesn't seem like that terrible day happened 13 years ago.

I still remember very specific details about where I was and what I was doing on that fall day in 2001. Some of the details are starting to fade, but I don't think that I will ever completely forget it. In September 2001, I was in high school, tenth grade specifically. We had just moved into our new house 2 months prior and gotten a German Shepherd puppy the month before. I walked to school because my high school was about 2 blocks away from home and even when I was old enough to drive, there wasn't much point in driving such a short distance.

My normal time to leave for school was about 6:45am to get to school and have a little time to socialize before classes started. So on that fateful day, I left my house about a minute before the first plane hit the first tower. The world was changing right as I walked to school, but I had no idea. My first class of the day was Geometry, which was held out in the trailers the school had set up in the parking lot to account for growing student populations. One classmate was always a few minutes late to class and that day when she came in she announced to the class that an airplane had crashed into the World Trade Center.

At the time, we had no idea what was about to unfold, so a few jokes were made about how could you miss such a big building. Terrorism was not high on the list of possible things that could happen in our minds as us teenagers had no real reference point for it then. The one drawback to classes in the trailers (other than the heat early in the school year) is that there are no TVs. The rest of the school had TVs in most of the classrooms and cable hookups as well.

My second class of the day was Biology and when I arrived the TV was on a news channel. I watched and still couldn't exactly comprehend what was happening as I discovered the second tower had been hit as well. My class watched in silent horror as the first tower collapsed, I couldn't help but think of all the people who were dying. It was later, during my third period class that an announcement was made over the intercom to the whole school with a basic summary of what was happening.

I remember walking home during my lunch hour to check in with my brother (who had just graduated high school the previous spring) and my grandma (who at the time lived with us). They had the news on, but my grandma was trying to just go about her normal business and not focus too much on the terrible images on the TV. Some point later in the day, I remember we watched President Bush address the nation and announce that it had been terrorist attacks. One teacher refused to turn on the TV, feeling that we didn't need to stare at that kind of thing endlessly.

For days, the TV carried nothing but wall to wall coverage of the aftermath of the terrorist attacks. Then, at some point, the coverage slowly diminished and normal programming started coming back on. I remember watching the first comedy program since the attacks and thinking it felt weird to laugh again. I remember how across the country, people came together and vowed to never forget the events of that day.

Now it has been exactly 13 years since that tragic day. Things have changed a lot in the intervening years. I still remember the events as though they happened much more recently than that. I haven't forgotten what happened, maybe some of the small details, but not the way that things changed forever. Thinking back on it still brings strong emotions too.

Sunday Drive

As summer slips away and we dive into fall, my mom and I decided to take a drive through the mountains yesterday before the snow season starts. It was a little early for much fall color, but it was a pleasant day for a drive. Part of the day was cloudy and rainy, but mostly the views were open and typically glorious Colorado. We opted to go south through Fairplay (considered the center of the state and the place South Park is loosely based on) and into Buena Vista.

We stopped in Buena Vista and had lunch at a local pizzeria. The pizza was really pretty good and the view was nothing to complain about. In fact, it was pretty obvious why the town got its name (Spanish for beautiful view). The main peaks to the west are named the Collegiate Peaks because they are named: Mt. Princeton, Mt. Harvard, Mt. Yale, Mt. Oxford and Mt. Columbia.

Collegiate Peaks

Fall colors starting on Mt. Yale

 After lunch, we drove up Cottonwood pass, which wound slowly up through the mountains and ended at the top with a continental divide and sweeping views.

Looking down the road that leads to the top of the pass

Top of Cottonwood Pass

On the way up the pass

I've lived in Colorado for the majority of my life, well over 20 years at this point and there are still many corners of this state I haven't yet visited. This trip was not a disappointment, even if the drive was a little long (and made me miss half of the Denver Broncos regular season opener...not that I was bitter about that or anything). Also, the sunset on the drive home was pretty colorful.

Sunset, moonrise, small rainbow.