Retirement in the Mix: Resisting "Gone": flowers

Showing posts with label flowers. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

A place on the table

(If you received this blog by email, you might want to visit the actual site. The pictures work much better there.

Just click on the title, “A place on the table”)

This summer, I’ve been on a serious return-to-fitness kick, trying to regroup from the long spell of inactivity brought on by last fall’s assorted orthopedic woes. I’ve been really conscientious about it, too, prioritizing walks and workouts and such rather than letting them take the last, left-over spots (if any) in my schedule. So today, after a nice lunch with a friend in Golden and before I got back to work, I planned to stop on my way home for a walk, thinking I’d probably do a loop on a local trail and call it good. But just north of Golden, I spotted the trail head for the North Mesa Trail. I’d never hiked it before (though I'd heard tales), and the steep initial climb really beckoned. So I traded lunch duds for walking shorts, slathered on sunscreen, and started climbing.

If you live in the Denver area and haven’t yet explored this trail (or rather, this web of trails), check it out. It does start with a serious uphill grade, but the almost immediate reward is great views to the west—that wonderful Colorado sky and the shadows of the clouds on the hills. But maybe the best treat for me was the pleasure of walking up a steep hill, settling into a steady-state pace, and discovering that my “training” has actually worked. If legs and lungs can smile, then mine were smiling. But I suspect my fitness regime is of far less interest than the scenery, so I’ll skip right to the nature tales and pictures.

From the road, North Table Mesa looks dry, rocky, and boring. But in truth, once you get up the hill and on top of the mesa, it’s really lovely. At least this year, with our ample rain, the meadows are soft and beautiful, and even mid-summer, the wildflowers and grasses are really nice.

From the flat mesa top, you can see east to Denver and west to the afternoon clouds rolling in.

Around a bend in the trail, I was surprised to see a large-ish pond (in Colorado, we might call this a lake)—thanks, I suspect, to the abundant rain, since there are definitely no streams up there.

I heard and saw lots of birds—meadowlarks, swallows, circling hawks, an American kestrel on a wire, a cormorant landing on the pond, and a bumblebee big enough to count as a small bird.

And at the top of the highest promontory, the increasingly common rusty-legged signal carrier.

This unexpected adventure was such a treat—a trail I hadn’t walked, a beautiful day, and the sweet awareness that walking uphill is actually fun again. What a great day.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Comment on this post:

If you got this blog via email, go to the blog website by clicking on the title at the top of this particular post.

To comment once you're on the website, click on "No comments" (or "2 comments" etc.) below the blog. Comments from "anonymous" welcome.

Thursday, June 19, 2014

Pix

If you received this by email, you might want to go to the blog site to view it.

The pictures look much better there. Just click on the title ("Pix") above.

Summertime is supposed to be leisurely, laid back, casual, even lazy. But somehow, this summer is shaping up to be the busiest time I've had in a while. First, I have several longish projects brewing: several Resonance tasks, some professional writing (some of it based on this blog), planning a trip to Ireland. Then, there was the unexpected trip across the country for a funeral. What with the usual fare of life-maintenance tasks, editing work, walks, time with friends, a bit of community work, and assorted educational and cultural outings, it's all added up to a hyper-busy, barely-keeping-up sort of a period. But I haven’t documented much of that here, so I thought I'd just put together a photo blog of assorted sights and adventures to keep this space alive until I resume my usual wordy ways.

First, a couple of post-flood scenes. Remnants of flood damage are visible everywhere along creeks and in low-lying fields. The magnitude of the damage is too great to show in well in simple photographs, but these give a hint of what the flood did to local waterways.

A bridge torn from its moorings by the flood

Spring clean-up in Boulder creek

And then, for a total change of mood, lots of beautiful sights, captured mostly on walks. Wildflowers, fields, a couple of creatures, and the now-lonely fork in the tree where Winnie the Pooh spent the winter (click here for earlier pictures of Winnie's perch high in a cottonwood).

I know ... but he can't help it if we think he's creepy

Winnie's perch (click here to see it occupied)

And finally, (scant) evidence that I actually have done something intellectually uplifting: mediocre photos taken at talks by Masha Gessen, a Russian LGBTQ activist who recently visited Boulder, and another dignitary who likely needs no introduction (I think she was laughing at one of my jokes when I snapped this).

... and at the Diversity Day assembly at Manhattan Middle school, where kids dressed in self-made costumes that made sounds as they danced.

Then, there was the return visit to the museum of nature and science—part two of my stroll with a friend through the Maya exhibit. The Maya (much like our culture) were preoccupied with beauty. Children were placed in special frames so that their foreheads would develop the preferred slanted shape. Adults had holes drilled in the enamel of their teeth so that jewels could be inserted—an early form of mouth jewelry. How fun must this have been, pre-Novocaine?

So that's what I've been doing instead of writing blogs. At least I have a photographic record of some of my adventures ... although with Photoshop, who can be sure?