The Christmas Diaries, Part Last

The End of the Year, and of the Diary


[With our departure date for summer at the cabin fast approaching and before this becomes a Christmas in July story, here's the final chapter of our Christmas trip.]

Snowshoes!

There was a nice shift in our mood this morning.  Bob managed to get on the Internet last night at the Ranch House and a review of his email confirmed what we’d expected -- that there was nothing urgent that had been misguidedly sent via email while we were essentially off-the-grid.  We noted that watching the fire behind the glass front of the wood-burning stove is far more interesting that most of the things you see on TV.  And realizing that we’ll be gone from here in just a few days had a way of sorting us out too.

We had a really good visit from a neighboring family (mom and dad and three youngsters, two of whom were part of the home school Bob helped out with last summer) this morning.  It was fun to put the apple juice on the stove with the mulling spices and pull out the cranberry loaf.  While the boys played upstairs in the loft, alternating between working on the current jigsaw puzzle, playing a game of Sorry, and perusing The Dangerous Book for Boys (a great favorite of my husband’s grandsons), we sat downstairs and chatted, delighting in their tow-headed two-year-old daughter.  They had happy news of expecting another baby in August, and we were all glad that we’d be here for that addition to their family.  It was a good visit, and visits are so important up here where you can go days without an interchange with anyone except your husband or your dog.  Living in such a remote location, especially at a time of the year where there are so few others around, can be challenging, but the challenge is tempered by the pleasure in solitude.

After lunch it was my turn to try the loaner snowshoes.  Bob had given them a go the day before and was quite enthused about them.  I parked myself at the end of the deck, a perfect chair height, and Bob helped me into them (a pleasure in itself).  I had a brief case of the Uh-Oh’s as they were being strapped on, a short case of dejavu from my brief, and miserable, attempts at skiing -- first husband (ski patrol) sending me off with no lessons, finding my attempts at the rope tow hysterical, my falling as I tried to ski off the chair lift and being unable to get up while those behind us basically skied over me sidesplitting, and then sending me down alone while he, off-duty, attended to two women with broken legs, my mission to get the ON-duty patrol to come do their jobs.  

The climb up with the tube;
mind the stump...

I had what was probably a quite moderate and very wide slope to navigate down a couple hundred feet.  As I snow-plowed as carefully as I could, back and forth across the slope, making little downward progress, something went wrong and I found myself in a huge face-plant with my legs crossed and my skies, which hadn’t released, doing a deep face-plant of their own.  I couldn’t move and couldn’t see.  At least I’d had my poles appropriately strapped to my wrists, so after a minute or two of trying to twist out of the position I was in, and failing, I began stabbing wildly with my pole for the ski releases.  Just about then I heard someone ski up, stopping with an experienced swooshing sound, and say with a slight chuckle, in the most gorgeous male voice I’d ever heard, “Do you want some help?”  And I will never understand this, but I said “No”.  Humiliation?  Fearing that he’d be Robert Redford?  That I’d rather die?  He said, “Are you sure?”  And I, of course, said “yes”.  So.  He skied off and I kept stabbing wildly and finally, mercifully, I got one ski off and could untangle myself and and remove the other.  I tucked those skis under my arm, walked down the hill to the ski patrol booth, completed my mission, and never, EVER, put them on again.  

Wheeeeee........

So it was a bit unsettling to have Husband Number Two affixing some different, but just as implausible looking snow gear onto my feet with which I was going to have to get up and move.  But these were shorter and fatter and were for anything but going fast.  In fact, I found them pretty darn easy to walk in as we headed down the drive and up to the saddle.  Heading off-road, down the slope and into the forest, was wonderful...we were in one of my favorite parts of our land, heading back towards the benchmark that I always seek out whenever we near that corner of the property.  I took two tumbles, the first probably tripping over a piece of downed wood under the snow -- or maybe over my own snowshoes, and the second near the benchmark as I tried to turn around.  The good news was that it doesn’t hurt when you fall down in a couple of feet of snow.  The not so good news was that it was reminiscent of trying to get up with skis on, but not quite as difficult.  But for the really great news -- this husband didn’t laugh.

A kid again...

With this snow sport success (well, not a failure anyway) under our belts our walk the last day before leaving found us in the meadow.  Huge fat inner-tubes lay at the bottom of a steep embankment, the "sled" run we'd been told about.  Our 60-something selves gave in to our inner child and we each, after wondering about the wisdom of it, took a turn trudging up to the top of the hill, plunked down in the tube, wondered if we were completely mad, and scooched on the snow until gravity took over and the thrill unleashed joyous whoops (mine was more of a scream).  Those few seconds of pure joy was the pinnacle of the Christmas trip for me, and will inspire other slightly risky, slightly imprudent, but inspiring decisions in the year to come.  A good way to end 2011 and start 2012.  

It can't get better than this!

And summer is not that far away.

The Christmas Diaries, Part 8

Late afternoon sun streams in on Christmas baking fresh from the oven

Christmas Eve, December 24th

Christmas Eve.  Baking.  Obviously.

We’re hoping to get some company during the next several days, both the just-dropping-by variety and friends for dinner.  Christmas is tomorrow and I was feeling festive and decided to lean into a bit of vegan baking, something new for me.  I made Cranberry Walnut Oatmeal Spice Cookies from Vegan Planet...pretty tasty through they didn’t flatten out like cookies.  I use a cookie scoop and the second two dozen I flattened with a wet hand before baking and they looked more like you would expect of cookies, though they make me want a cup of tea when I eat them.  In keeping with the cranberry theme, and much more successful, was a Cranberry-Orange Walnut bread -- almost as wonderful as the Silver Palate’s recipe (though that one had a lot of eggs and an embarrassing amount of butter).  

On Santa Watch

Christmas is sort of soft-pedaled at our house.  I love to decorate, but don’t go crazy.  We enjoy the Christmas lights on the front porch at least as much as the few folks that will see them.  I love the music we listen to for only a couple of weeks a year.  It’s fun to be with family and friends at this festive time, be we also enjoy some solitude during these longest nights.  We’re living in our forever-more Christmas present to ourselves, the cabin, so there is (at least currently) nothing under the tree for either of us.  And that’s fine, especially since we recently gifted ourselves with a new iMac and Kindles.  We buy presents for my husband’s elementary school-aged grandsons and shoot for something that strikes us as just right, without going consumer mad.  This year it was space-themed pajamas, jigsaw puzzles, and games.  I like to think of them opening the presents from us with all the excitement Christmas morning brings to children, and hope they like what’s under the wrapping.  We also hope that before too many more Christmases have passed they’ll have opened at least the gifts from us here at the cabin.

Snow angel -- next year I'll work on technique

This afternoon we took a walk towards the meadow on the plowed dirt road.  At our turn-around point my gaze fell on an almost pristine expanse of snow, untouched except for what looked like the faint track of some small rodent.  Something from long ago triggered a memory of making snow angels.  I couldn’t quite remember exactly how to get down in the snow to create the perfect impression, but after careful consideration I decided my falling-backwards days were over, at least in snow less than three feet deep and this was half that much.  I lowered myself down, stretched out tall...feeling how strange it felt to voluntarily lay down in the snow (actually not bad at all)...and moved my arms up and down to create my wings.  It’s certainly been over 50 years since I last did that.  Some things are worth repeating as an adult; I think we appreciate their particular fun more that when all the world was nothing more than our playground.

We’d left shovels at the bottom of the drive and collected them on the way to our friends’ cabin across the lake.  They were coming in late that evening after a big family dinner and we wanted to at least break through the three foot snow berm at the foot of their driveway that the plow had kicked up.  We went on to clear enough space for them to park a car before hiking up to their cabin, which was going to be anything but easy.

Over a simple dinner of our favorite vegan chili and some yummy pumpkin biscuits (Vegan Planet), we talked about Christmases past.  We’ve the last nine of them together, but both of us have memories of Christmases when we were kids, and when our children were kids.  It was odd how little we remembered about the gifts themselves...it was so much more about the experiences -- where we were living, who was with us, family and friends.  Later we settled down in front of the radio to listen to NPR’s A Christmas Carol, narrated by Jonathan Winters.   I never get tired of that story, and never give up hope that we can all learn the important lessons of kindness and caring, and remember them all year long.

We no longer have to go through the motions of leaving cookies and milk for Santa (no wonder he’s so chubby!), but we did decide to leave our outdoor lights on for our late-arriving neighbors...a little cheer before they reached their cabin after a cold, dark hike up a steep hill in two feet of snow.    

The Christmas Diaries, Part 5

A snug cabin in which to ride out the storm

Storm Warning, December 21st 

It’s nice to welcome winter in a place that has the quintessential look and feel of winter.  Snow on the ground and dusting the evergreens, a nice contrast and keeping it from looking at all bleak as it might in some landscapes, the temperature in the low-20’s appropriately brisk, to say the least.  Our wireless weather station has flashing snowflakes displayed for a “future forecast” (bit of an oxymoron, me thinks).  The sky is clear and a light blue at the horizon, intensifying at the zenith.  We’re hoping for several hours outside again this afternoon, knowing it might be the last comfortable outside time we get for several days.

Prepared

There’s a winter storm watch on from this afternoon and through tonight, tomorrow, tomorrow night and into the following day.  We could get nothing, or we could get the 2-5 inches they’re predicting, or we could get more.  Most assuredly we’ll dip down into single digits (on either side of zero degrees), but our cabin is so snug (thank you builder Brian), and our wood supply is essentially endless.  We’re provisioned well for a month (less well until the spring thaw).  We have little to worry about with a storm, and that is more than offset by the excitement (weather junkies that we are).  We have two big bookshelves filled with fiction, non-fiction, and reference books on nature and cooking, Kindles loaded up with reading material, an absolutely full iPod, NPR on the radio, one DVD to watch on the computer (Snowflower and the Secret Fan), jigsaw puzzles, games, two laptops, a sewing machine with projects galore, three different places to nap (the loft is the warmest), a phone to call family and friends, the chains on the SUV, a good dog, and binoculars near every window for bird watching.  And, thank goodness, we truly enjoy our own and each other’s company.

Sharing the road for a bit

After lunch the temperature climbed to near 40, so we put on a couple of layers plus our fleece vests and headed out for a pre-snowstorm walk.  It had clouded up and was looking quite gray in the northwest, so we knew we wouldn’t be going far.  We headed down the drive and up the main road in the opposite direction to Tuesday’s walk with our happy dog trotting out ahead.  We rounded a corner and found a neighbor’s dog lying in the road, keeping an eye on things.  He joined our dog for half a mile or so and then scenting with his nose deep in some tracks in the snow, headed off into the forest.  Bump took a few tentative steps to follow him, ended up in chest deep snow, and thought better of it, rejoining us on the road.  About a mile along we turned back into an freshening breeze and a darkening sky, and retraced our steps.  The snow scrunched underfoot, and with the increasing chill we were glad to get back to the warm cabin.

This way home...or maybe
we'll walk the driveway

It started snowing around 4 PM, and half an hour later we had an inch on the deck and were losing sight of the features across the valley.  We know that landscape so well that as it disappeared from view we still thought we could see the ghost of the mountain forming our horizon, but it was gone.  I took extra pleasure in making us a hot dinner -- oven roasted potatoes and a Greek veggie-tofu scramble -- which we devoured with a glass of Malbec.  The evening was spent with the porch lights on, watching the snow thicken and the depth increase.  We went to sleep snug under the quilt, unable to shake the vision of swirling wind-driven snow, wondering what we’d see when we looked outside in the morning.

The Christmas Diaries, Part 4

Snowy dawn

Ten Years Ago Today, December 20th

Dawn brought a winter wonderland scene of snow-flocked evergreens and a cloudless sky.  Sometime in the night it had actually warmed up to 16 degrees - a heat wave.  It was clear that at least another inch of snow had fallen during the night, bringing the total  to three or four inches over 24 hours.  There is nothing quite so lovely as a blanket of freshly fallen snow, sparkling in the sun.  It made me think of this same day, ten years ago, the day I arrived in Tucson to take up residence.  This is at odd place to be on that anniversary, at a high elevation cabin in the Colorado Rockies surrounded by snow, but there is a connection.  I’m here with the man, now my husband, who was my neighbor and the first person I met in Tucson, ten years ago today.  As they say, nowhere in my wildest dreams...

Arrival in Tucson, December 20th, 2001

Our cabin retreat, December 20th, 2011

At mid-morning we heard some sort of vehicle, the first we’d heard since our arrival.  We got out the front door just in time to see our neighbor, the site manager of the adjacent retreat, heading back down our drive plowing our road.  This is one of those things I so love about being here at the cabin and in such a remote location.  Neighbors are much more likely to lend a hand, and to do it without being asked or negotiation.  And it all works out.  My husband has helped this neighbor by teaching a few units of science to his home schooled kids, and I’ve baked the cookies that are the post-lesson treats.  We help other neighbors move wood and get hand carved bears in return.  Baked goods change hands, and there’s always a hot cup of tea or cold beer for anyone dropping by.  

Icing

By noon the temperature was just above freezing so we put on a few layers, boots and hats, got the coat on Bump and headed out for a walk.  With the long driveway cleared walking was easy and pleasant, and it felt good to move after being two days in the car and a snowy day inside the cabin.  We headed down the road enjoying our frisky dog’s antics and the warm sun on our backs.  Last summer’s fields of wildflowers were now carpeted in smooth snow, unmarked except for the occasional string of wildlife tracks.  Caps of snow helped define the rocky outcrops.  You could hear the creek gurgling under it’s iced-over top.  

Back at home after an easy two mile ramble it was, at 36 degrees, way too nice to go inside.  We decided to hang our one string of outdoor colored Christmas lights, and made a quick job of it, and still didn’t want to go inside.  I have little experience with snow aside from living in Michigan until I was nine years old, so I am alway surprised how sitting in a sheltered sunny spot in a snowy, near-freezing landscape can be so blissful.  Our south-facing porch is just such a spot on a calm day.  With the afternoon sun low in the sky we sat in sweaters on the Adirondack chairs, basking like lizards, soaking in the sun and were totally comfortable.  Even our once snow-phobic dog settled down in four inches of it just off the deck, laying in the sun.  But the minute the sun got near to setting behind the mountain across the valley, the sun’s rays diffusing through the tops of the pines and firs, we began to feel the chill.

A vegan dinner, the better to have more anniversaries

Retreating inside on this last day of fall, celebrating my arrival in Tucson and our first meeting, we made a dinner of roasted portobello mushrooms stuffed with a savory mix of brown rice, lentils, and cashews mixed with fresh parley and lemon thyme I’d harvested from our Tucson herb garden, and braised brussel sprouts.  We poured some wine and reminisced about the crazy set of circumstances that brought and kept us together.  Neither one of us could have imagined anything more unlikely, or so right.  It almost makes you believe in fate.  We count ourselves very, very lucky.

The Christmas Diaries, Part 1

Somewhere...yawn...along I-25 heading north to Albuquerque

Departure...Saturday, December 17th

After waiting for 10 weeks to return to the cabin, it seemed there was a great deal to do at the last minute.  I’d decided to provision everything we’d need for two weeks before leaving, and when I started packing I wondered if we’d be able to fit it into our Honda CRV.  In the end Bump, our dog, had to be content with just over half of the backseat, and we were on the road early than we’d expected.  The seven hour run to Albuquerque is, frankly, a little boring, but it was good to get there and get settled.  We did have a treat spotting Sand Hill Cranes both flying south and on the ground in open fields along the Rio Grande Valley.  We knew that soon after heading north the next morning, we’d hit the pinon pine forests, rolling hills, buttes and mesas around Santa Fe, and it would be great scenery for the rest of the trip.

Second Home for the Holidays

It is an embarrassment of riches, choosing which home in which to spend the holidays.  It is also a bit of a difficult decision, because both Tucson and the Colorado Rocky Mountain cabin have much to recommend them.

This is how Christmas in Tucson looks

In Tucson we have lots of friends, La Posada, the Pastorella, our giant dried agave flower stalk to decorate, the fun of our volunteer work at the Desert Museum with folks visiting from elsewhere, and the distinct possibility of a sunny and warm Christmas day.  Our traditional New Year's Eve is spent sitting on the west side of Gates Pass, perched on a boulder, watching the last sunset of the year.

This is how Christmas at the cabin looks

This year the cabin is winning out.  We have good friends we are looking forward to spending time with as well as family we hoping to see in Colorado.  We need a cabin fix to see us through until next summer, and its cosy space and wood-burning stove would be most welcome.  We're hoping for a slightly white Christmas and bracing weather (please not the minus 13 we had last year), and enough good days to get out and do some hiking.  Our plans include a Yule Log with our hopes and dreams for the future, as well as some things we'd like to let go, written on notes and attached to be burned New Year's Eve (though midnight is an unrealistic expectation for us).  We're even looking forward to the four days on the road -- we do road trips together well -- and one of our resolutions on that Yule Log will be to do better at the transitioning from one place to another, and to FULLY be wherever we are.

Here are some images of Christmas last year, our first at the cabin:

First dinner guests at the cabin, our dear neighbors from across the lake

The ubiquitous Stellar's Jay, waiting it out near the feeder

A walk in the snow near the cabin

The view from the hilltop behind the cabin

We hope that your holidays are spent where you most want to be with those whose company you most desire.  May the New Year bring you health, happiness, and fulfillment.

One. More. Month.

Changes...

One more month this year.  That’s what I keep telling myself.  That, and that just about any time we feel the urge, we can get in the car and be here the next day.  It’s impossible to believe we’ve been here, and away from Tucson, over three months.  Four weeks from tomorrow we’ll have closed up the cabin and be heading south.  I’m hoping I’m more ready (much, much more ready) when the time comes.  Meanwhile my plan is to make the most of this last month of our inaugural summer in the cabin...the first of many.

Golden mantle ground squirrel harvesting buds on a flannel mullein

Migrating Canada geese stop for some
R&R on Bear Lake before continuing south

No question about it, fall is on the way.  It’s early afternoon and just now barely out of the 50’s, but clear and sunny with the perfect amount of crispness.  The aspen are beginning to turn, usually the leaves changing to a clear yellow, but sometimes a rich orange.  The grasses are ripening and heavy with seed.  The tree squirrels, chipmunks, and golden mantle ground squirrels are frantically harvesting everything from pine and fir seeds to raspberries and buds off the flannel mullein.  Migration has seriously reduced the number of hummingbirds at the feeder (though for those who are still tanking up for their long flights we’ve increased the ratio of sugar to water a bit to help them out) and we are seeing a big increase in raptor action, including a stunning near pass by a ferruginous hawk a few days ago and a close visit by a great horned owl last night, it’s ear tufts silhouetted by the last remnants of the sunset before flying silently to another nearby snag where it tolerated being nagged by a defensive robin before swooping back into the forest.    The first hard freeze is probably no more than two weeks away and a fire in the mornings is suddenly no longer an indulgence, but a necessity, and snow before the end of September is not out of the question.  I’m taking advantage of the chilly day with a pot of homemade baked beans cooking slowly in a low oven for most of the day, and the cabin is filled with the smell of brown sugar, molasses, onions, and smoked ham shanks.

Many local friends have come and gone over the summer, and this Labor Day weekend will mark the end of the season up here at the ranch, and at the retreat that adjoins us.  Over 100 folks are expected at Sunday night’s end of the summer season barbeque and party, complete with entertainment (someone mentioned polka!).  It’s the first time we’ve been up here for this annual event and we’re looking forward to it.  It’s hard to say goodbye to our mountain friends as they, and before too long we, depart...we see more of them in these four months than we do of many of our friends that live a block or two away in our Tucson neighborhood, probably a function of the simple pleasures we indulge in here and a lack of extraneous entertainments that so distract us back in the city.  Shared meals, weekly game nights, group hikes, the outdoor Sunday services, and pitching in to help each other have formed close ties, some of them unexpected, some several years long now and very dear to us.

Teacher Bob, his five charges, and one mom

As summer nears its end, it also means back-to-school time.  The two families who manage the retreat have five elementary school-aged kids between them, all boys (one lone girl, still a toddler, will have a challenging future with this group).  They are all home schooled by their able and devoted parents, but this year my husband (with his three degrees in science) is teaching them a section of science each week.  Last week they gathered for their first lesson with Bob, and the subject was bugs, a favorite with just about all kids, and these boys were no exception.  They all headed off to the spring at the back of our five acres and were rewarded with finding long thin white horse-hair worms living in the muck.  They headed to the lake down the hill and found loads of bugs and aquatic insects, including a dragonfly nymph.  All the while they were learning bug basics, and another neighbor who was a life-long educator and is working with the parents on skills for teaching reading, provided vocabulary lists for follow-up work.  When they returned from the lake with their jar of mud-clouded water, complete with a plethora of tiny critters all doing the backstroke, freshly made cookies awaited those with freshly washed hands.  Homework was assigned -- a drawing of a bug and a collection of five different bugs to be delivered this coming week, when the topic will shift to birds.  All involved enjoyed it, but no one more than Bob.  Four more weeks, four more topics.

Four more weeks, a dozen or more hikes.  Four more weeks, a temperature drop of 20 degrees or more.  Four more weeks, four more game nights.  Four more weeks, one more full moon,   

Mid-Summer

This juvenile Great Blue Heron posed for me at Deer Lake, below the cabin

Life at the cabin just keeps rolling along in the most pleasant of ways.  With the major essential projects behind us we are settling into what I’m thinking passes for normal up here -- days filled with reading, nature watching, hiking, cooking and eating, cabin and forest maintenance, gardening, visiting with neighbors, and stargazing.  We know the world will keep spinning on its axis without our following the debt-ceiling crisis and the early throes of the next election cycle, and we’re happier for shrugging that off for now.

Deer's breakfast just off the front deck

Instead we wake up to deer munching baby aspens in our front yard, and are often still sipping coffee at 10 AM while reading the novel of the moment until our tummies insist on breakfast.  The next order of business is often a hike before it gets too warm (low 80’s) or the afternoon thunderstorms start up.  We had over three inches of much needed rain in July (on top of about an inch in June), one inch of it in about 20 minutes, complete with BB-sized hail!  Usually it falls much slower, soaking into the forest floor instead of washing out our driveway.

Our hikes are filled with change and new discoveries each and every time.  As the seasons roll on some wildflowers finish while others are just reaching maturity.  It seems to be the start of the harvest season for the critters -- the raspberries are ripening (and make a refreshing snack along the trail), some flowers going to seed while others are brim full with nectar.  Most of our hikes are along creeks and our dog Bump does her best to take advantage of them to keep cool and hydrated.

HUGE bumblebee having its way with a thistle

We put in a border garden on the entry side of the cabin.  I bought a few perennials grown here in Colorado, blue penstemons, cone flowers, and hyssop.  But mostly I’ve collected wildflowers from the forest (careful to harvest them only where they exist in great numbers) -- scarlet gillia, wild rose, mountain laurel, wild geranium, black-eyed Susans, pussy toes, harebells, and lavender asters to name a few.  

Installing a perennial border garden 

We'll keep collecting specimens of wildflowers

Tonya Sharp, Colorado Division of Wildlife Officer,
educating us on how to re-educate the bears

We keep fine-tuning the way we live up here, from wildlife management to where to get our hair cut.  We haven’t seen evidence of any more bear visits, but we have made some changes in our behavior that probably has helped.  We invited Tonya Sharp, our local wildlife officer (Bob stopped referring to her as the Bear Lady after seeing the huge gun strapped to her hip), to come by and give us some advice.  We no longer seed feed, though we do continue to feed the hummingbirds.  Seed feeding is messy with the birds sorting through the mixed seeds, tossing the ones they don’t like over the side -- not this, not this, not this...THIS! -- so even if you bring in the feeder at night there’s still a mess on the ground, despite the best intentions of the ground squirrels.  And I’d seen enough of the regulars at the seed feeder -- Cassin’s finches, brown-headed cow birds, and pine siskins -- to last me a while.  If you sit for a few minutes and pay attention there are lots of interesting birds in the trees -- nuthatches, Stellar’s jays, juncos, woodpeckers, flickers, and sapsuckers, and even the occasional red-tailed hawk stops by a snag out front to scream at us before flying off.  We have the hummingbird feeder about twelve feet up a tree hooked to a pulley system and we fill it once in the morning and bring it in empty by mid to late-afternoon.  Sometimes I take a “rest” on the front steps with the full feeder and I’m never alone for long.  Good trick for a warm day as those little hummers’ wings whip up quite the breeze, and it’s wonderful to see them so close you can see the varying colors of their individual feathers.  And it’s too precious when they perch on your fingers.

Up close and personal with hungry lady hummers

Along with missing our Tucson friends, we’re missing our volunteer work and are thinking of what would work for us up here.  Bob is volunteering some chainsaw time to help folks clean-up their lots and will help with the semi-annual ranch clean-up when they bring in a HUGE chipper and feed in what’s been cleared, blowing the chips back into the forest.  He’s also volunteered to teach a little science to some neighboring kids who are home schooled...leeches will be the first segment.  I’ve filled out my application with the Colorado Division of Wildlife’s Bear Aware program and will come up next spring for training so that I can go out and coach folks on how to live in bear country.

Make a big wish on this tennis ball-sized salsify seed head...and BLOW

We’ve reached the halfway mark in our first summer at the cabin, and loving it more all the time.  It’ll be odd to start counting down to our departure in early October, though we have much to go back to in Tucson.  I wouldn’t be surprised to be back up here during the holiday season for a couple of weeks.  May will just be too far away.  Pack up the car, Honey -- I’m needing a cabin fix!  So very nice to have options, and the time to exercise them.  

Squirrel psych-out -- it fooled our dog the first time she saw it!

The Unexpected...Great Eateries

Every time we go to town our biggest problem is deciding which one of our favorite restaurants to visit.  It was the last “problem” we expected up along this fairly remote stretch of communities in the southern Rockies.  Collectively my husband and I have lived in Tucson for over 20 years and we still don’t have “our place”.  We favor kind of funky, often ethnic, and always reasonable restaurants where the service is good enough and we feel comfortable.  In Tucson we like them close to home, which is the main problem for us on the west side.  Here in the mountains we’d never make the 40 minute trip in to the nearest restaurant, but we always make sure to include it on our provisioning trips.  Here are two of our favorites.

The Hungry Bear, Woodland Park, CO

Three signs are better than one

The Hungry Bear in Woodland Park has been a favorite of ours since we started coming up here together six years ago.  It’s a one-off, family owned, quirky down-home place which specializes in breakfast and lunch, but is also opened some nights for dinner.  For us it’s our breakfast spot.

I’ve often speculated that its origins were someone’s teddy bear collection -- high shelves hold hundreds of plush toy bears and the walls are covered with bear photos and plaques with kitschy sayings.  The waitresses are country-friendly and efficient.  The tables are all different, and you can sit at one of two counters if you like, one with a view into the kitchen.  

I suppose you could eat healthy at The Hungry Bear, but I’ve never seen anyone do so.  Even the trophy wives just passing through on their way to the ski resorts are tucking into huge plates of fruit and sour cream filled crepes with a massive side of bacon.

After all these years we’ve settled, for better or worse, into our favorites.  My husband orders The Dream -- a split, toasted and buttered biscuit smothered in sausage gravy served along two over easy eggs and an order of bacon.  I get what’s referred to as 2x2x2 -- two eggs over easy, two strips of bacon, and two huge, plate-sized blueberry buckwheat pancakes.  Oh, and lots of hot coffee.  I hope our doctor is reading this.

Plateful of Buckin' Blues

It’s a ridiculous amount of food.  In fact their menu has a tongue-in-cheek disclaimer...Warning: Our food may become habit forming.  Mass consumption may cause weight gain.  Since we only hit The Hungry Bear about once a month, we’re holding our own.  If you want to eat some great comfort food, do some interesting people watching, and feel like you’re among friends it would be hard to do better than The Hungry Bear.  It’s on the south side of the main drag, Hwy. 24, in Woodland Park, Colorado.  Check out their website:  www.hungybearcolorado.com

Go hungry!

McGinty’s Wood Oven Pub

Best (only) pizza in Divide, Colorado

McGinty’s, and Irish themed restaurant, is in Divide, a two light town along Hwy. 24 eight miles west of Woodland Park.  It is the last thing I’d have expected to find at the main Divide crossroads.  In fact, we probably wouldn’t have given it a try except for a strong recommendation from our neighbors who have a cabin across the lake from our cabin; they often stop for dinner on their way to their cabin from their home in Colorado Springs.  Margaret said the bleu cheese pizza was to die for...blue cheese pizza???

We stopped in starving for a very late lunch and were surprised by the attractive and comfortable interior.  Shown to a deep booth with a view of the wood oven we perused the menu for the raved about bleu cheese pizza.  Even after reading the description of the Frenchy McGillicuddy Patty Cake (pizza pie) -- charred bits of prime rib and chunks of bleu cheese, garlic and olive oil, sweet onions, arugula and roasted tomatoes -- I was a bit skeptical.  Still, it was what we’d been planning on ordering, and since the price was just under $11 I was sure, with those ingredients, we were talking about an individual size pizza and we’d need a second one or a substantial salad to suffice.  I asked the waitress if she’d recommend ordering a second pizza and she said probably not since the pizzas were 16 inchers.  What?!  A pizza like that in Tucson would be over $20!  

It was fun to watch the chef and his helpers move around the work station in front of the wood stove.  No fancy flipping of pizza dough, but careful overhead stretching.  About ten minutes after ordering, while we were enjoying some lovely draft Guinness, the waitress brought over a thick section of tree trunk, peeled and sanded and sealed.  A few minutes later our pizza arrived, still bubbling, on a dark green stone slab.  Any reservations I had about the odd ingredients disappeared when I saw the gorgeous glutenous crust, a perfect brown with sheer crispy bubbles, the bright green of the chopped arugula, the crisped bits of prime rib, caramalized onions, large chunks of tomato, all melded together in a thin pool of melted bleu cheese.  The crust was on the thin side, crisp without being brittle, with plenty of corn meal still adhering to the bottom.  It was utterly fantastic, and as hungry as we were, we still had two large pieces to carry home and they warmed up to almost the same perfection the next day for lunch.  Eleven bucks.  Unbelievable!

One of the best pizzas I have ever eaten!

Our second trip in we ordered the Bernadette Devline pizza, created in honor of Ireland’s first female politician, sauced with half red, half green pesto topped with fire-roasted peppers, onion, baby spinach, mushrooms, roasted tomatoes, fried leeks, artichokes and mozarella cheese.  It was just as good as the first one, a buck cheaper, and we must have hit happy hour as our pizza and two draft pints totalled under $17.  

They have a very extensive menu with imaginative salads and sandwiches and dinner entrees that all sound amazing.  I’m not sure we’ll ever get past the pizzas!  The wait staff is attentive and enthusiastic, and when I had a question about one of the beers that stumped the waitress, she quickly went to get the answer.  There are several good beers on tap, including Guinness.

If you’re hankering for some REALLY good food at prices that make me worry this wonderful eatery won’t be sustainable, and appreciate a bit o’ the Irish, do go out of your way to visit McGinty’s in Divide.