Colorado

Autumn Comes Early in the Rockies

Published on by Casey

How I know it’s no longer Summer in Colorado:

  • It snowed during the middle of August (in the mountains, we had temps in the low 50s and 36 hours of rain)
  • The leaves are no longer green everywhere I look
  • The temperature drastically changes daily (yesterday the high was 52*, today it’s 78*)
  • The fan above our bed was turned off in August and I resorted back to wearing flannel
  • I have started putting away my light-weight shirts in favor of sweaters (but not yet turtlenecks)
  • I have rediscovered socks and shoes
  • I will use my car’s heater in the mornings and AC in the afternoons
  • Football season has started, which means my beloved Dodgers have less than a month to maintain 1st place and secure a position in the playoffs

What Happened to Summer???

Published on by Casey

Last time I checked, this was the middle of August…right?  I haven’t jumped into some space-time continuum that secretly transported me into another season, have I?  Then what happened to summer?  It wasn’t so long ago that Colorado smashed a record with the most days of 90+ degree weather (I think it was 27), and this past week wasn’t exactly cold either with the mercury rising well into the 80s.  But that all changed on Friday. How you say?  How about with temperatures stuck in the low 50s, 36 hours of straight rain (at least — not to mention the off and on showers after that) and snow in the high country.  Yes I said snow.  The lows here were only three or so degrees from tying the record!  The weather here is so random and although I don’t mind cold weather, I rather prefer it not to fall in the middle of August!

When the clouds go ’round

Published on by Casey

I like a good thunderstorm…I think it’s because they were rare where I grew up and never rarely posed a threat (I can only recall about 3 times it hailed during the 22 years I lived in Ventura.  Plus my mom really enjoyed them, so as a child seeing her excited probably passed along to me (although this theory did not carry over to my sister).

So, now that I live in an area that is prone to regularly occurring thunderstorms I get excited.  I even drove through a monster of a storm last summer (a storm that would have been wise to pull over during had there been a place to pull over) – talk about an adrenaline rush!  But out here, thunderstorms can produce not only strong winds and damaging hail but also *gasp* tornadoes!  Although, thankfully, no tornadoes have touched down near where I live we have been subjected to a couple of tornado watches and warnings (neither of which I relish).

Last night was no different.  Lots of storms in the area, thanks to the remnants of Tropical Storm Edouard, and all we got at our house was rain and some thunder in the distance…then came the tornado warning.  However, before the rain started to fall, I had gone out front to enjoy the smell of it on the air (who doesn’t like the smell of rain?).  As I watched the clouds move in over our neighborhood I caught sight of the anemometer we have on our roof and noticed it could not choose one direction from which the wind was blowing.  I called Noah out front to take a look and he also noticed the clouds in front of our house were swirling.   Now that was freaky!  The clouds were forming a tight screw-like swirl right before our eyes.  I asked Noah if they looked green to him, he said no, so we didn’t worry to much and went back inside.  It wasn’t much longer after that I got a message on my phone about a tornado warning for our county, but cities north of ours.

Since the warning did not specifically include our city, the sirens near our house never went off and we were able to sit back and enjoy the sound of the well-needed rain hitting the roof and the breeze blowing my windchime.  If the sirens did sound you can bet that one of us would have grabbed Lava and the three of us would be huddled in the crawl space under our house (we don’t have a full basement because we are close enough to the foothills that tornadoes actually touching down here are extremely rare).  So, if my house is ever hit by a tornado (knock on wood) be sure to look for us there.

Roughin’ It

Published on by Casey

This past week my parents came out for a visit/vacation in Colorado and house-sat for us while over the weekend Noah and I went camping with a group of friends to Ridgeway, in southwest Colorado (in total there were 10 adults, 2 babies, and 3 dogs on 4 campsites).  I love a good camping trip, especially when that means no cell phone reception, which is exactly what we had!

Day 1 (Friday)
We left in the morning via caravan for the 6-hour drive (including lunch and gas stops) across the Rockies.  We arrived with enough time to set-up and cook before dark and only had a few sprinkles of rain that night.  Not much of a gathering, we were all pretty tired from the drive.

Day 2 (Saturday)
Noah and I woke to find air had leaked from our Aero Bed during the night and it now had the stiffness of a water bed.  Not good.  The day was spent laid back, as all good vacations should be.  We all gathered together for our meals, spent some down time playing games or reading books.  Noah, Ryan and I went down to the lake to try and catch some trout, but a rainstorm ended that outing shortly after it began (20 min maybe?).  We headed back to the campsites and hung out in our tents for a good hour or two waiting for the rain to pass.  I got in some good reading, Noah took a nap.  Dinner was good that night (hobo stew!) but dessert was cut out of the menu as more rain sent everyone to our tent (we had the largest one) to play games and stay dry.

Day 3 (Sunday)
After breakfast most of the group headed down to Mesa Verde, but we and another couple decided we did not want to spend 6 hours of our day sitting in a car (3 hours each way), so we went fishing.  Melina sat and read while Stan, Noah and I spent a few hours casting our lines.  I had one fish eat the tail off my rubber bait, but it refused to bite the hook.  When the ranger came along to check for fishing licenses he said that if we could catch a grasshopper we would almost be guaranteed to catch a fish.  So, Noah and I set out to catching bugs (Stan and Melina had headed back to the campsite by now).  Trout have a penchant for crickets.  They did not like the grasshopper and I could not catch a cicada.  It was not long after dropping a cricket in the water that we would have bites.  Unfortunately we were trying to catch smart fish that knew how to steal the bait without actually biting the hook…even though it was a small three-pronged hook.  Grr!  I really wanted to head back to the site with at least one fish!

Noah and I finally gave up and headed back to the campsite after 4-hours of having bait stolen from our hooks.  Stan and Noah headed into town to get some new batteries for our flashlight and get an extension cord  to reinflate our bed, which now had the consistency of a hammock (the one hardware store in Ridgeway happened to be closed on Sundays, but Noah was able to borrow some cords from the camp host).  We needed the cords since the campsites were walk-in and the one cord Noah brought was not nearly long enough to reach from the car/inverter to the tent.  Meanwhile, Melina and I relaxed and read our books, and eventually started dinner.  The other group did not get back from Mesa Verde until nearly 9pm, after we had already had our dinner and were starting dessert!

That night while eating we watched a lightning storm over the San Juan mountains and later that night the same storm blew in over us.  I have never camped in a tent during such a storm.  There was thunder, lightning and lots of rain.  I was very glad Noah and I took the time last summer to add waterproofing to our tent on both the inside and out as we stayed dry.  There were either three storms or three different periods of heavy rain. I’m also glad that the campsites had raised tent platforms and the ground absorbed the water.  😀

Day 4 (Monday)
We headed out around 11am, this time in two groups.  One wanted to head straight back home and the group we were in detoured through Ouray to take in the scenery before returning.  We finally got home around 7pm yesterday and last night relished sleeping on a bed that did not deflate!

You can see photos of the trip here.

If you build it they will come

Published on by Casey

Well, technically I didn’t build anything, but they came anyway.  They being my in-laws.  Noah’s eldest brother, Joe and his family (wife, kids, dog & cat — which got lost and found in the Rockies) officially became residents of Colorado yesterday and in the same town we live in no less!  I Googled the distance between our homes earlier today and it’s 2.3 miles.   Just about twice the distance we lived apart in California.  In both places we were almost due north of Joe et al and while living in California, never saw each other.  Interesting…

Since we moved out here two years ago, and since I’m originally a Jones, I can say they are trying to keep up with the Joneses.  Heh.  It sounds better than keeping up with the Baileys, no one has ever heard of that phrase.  I think Noah is secretively/subtly trying to convince more members of his family to move to Colorado.  But then again, I have been urging friends and my immediate family to move here too.  It’s just so much nicer than California…cheaper too!

Anyway I digress…the in-laws got into town yesterday along with Noah’s parents, another brother (Jake), and Jake’s friend.   The original plan was for them to arrive over the holiday weekend, but they decided to push everything back a day, which essentially reduced any unpacking help from Noah and myself down to next to nothing.  Shucks.  We did go over to their home after work yesterday.  Noah helped unload the trailer, I sat in the Noah’s truck as I was more in the way than actually able to help.  Then, when the womenfolk arrived I helped set-up the kitchen.  Unfortunately I came across a bottle of maple syrup that leaked all over a bunch of spices and later last night  Joe found a container of Pillsbury biscuits that didn’t quite make it over the mountain passes.

I imagine if there is anything left to do this weekend we will be able to help out then.  Maybe tomorrow night if we skip softball, same goes for Thursday but with Life Group.

More on Sharefest

Published on by Casey

Here are some more details on this year’s Sharefest I received from an email our church sent out:

Stats from the weekend:

–          35 churches were involved this year
–          11 Schools in 3 districts benefitted from the day
–          17 local non-profits were recipients
–          20 homes in one neighborhood in Boulder were upgraded
–          Over $400,000 worth of work was completed.

9 News did a story on Sharefest – here is the link.

More on Windsor

Published on by Casey

To give y’all a better idea of what exactly went on with the Windsor tornado, here is a link to information provided by NOAA.  One of the pictures shows a house with not much left of a garage; I think we drove by this house.

Sharefest

Published on by Casey

Saturday kicked off the 5th annual Sharefest weekend. Sharefest was started by Calvary Bible as a way to reach out to the community by cleaning schools, non-profit facilities, and community areas, and now, this past weekend the event has grown to 35 churches participating! This was the 2nd Sharefest Noah and I worked. Last year we were at an elementary school in Lafayette painting endless hallways. This year we spent the day outside at Boulder Reservoir (tough job, but someone had to do it).

The weather could not have been any nicer on Saturday! It was in the low 80s, a nice breeze and plenty of entertainment by watching sky divers land near the lake! I was placed in a weed eradication group and Noah ended up with a paintbrush in his hand. The church didn’t organize a lunch for us at the Res, so what did we do? Bar-B-Que of course! We really were spoiled, and yes, I did wear sunscreen this weekend. 🙂 I think us weeders had a harder time than the painters (you should have seen the size of some of those weeds!); we formed a “union” and went on strike at about 3:00pm as we were completely spent (we started the day at 9am). The painters finished up about an hour later.

I only have 2 pictures from the event and those are of our friend Scott running a roto-tiller in a section we needed to weed. It was a blessing that one of the women in our group had the tiller, otherwise we would have taken us half the day weeding that section! Also, milk weeds have now been dubbed The Spikey Weed of Death by Scott’s wife, Meggan. If I can get more pictures from the event I will post those as well.

To wrap up the weekend, all the churches involved met together for one service at a large auditorium on the CU Boulder campus. Noah and I arrived before the rest of our group and randomly picked a row to save. Funny thing is that the row we selected was right in front of our next door neighbors! What are the chances of that in a room filling with 3500 people? To make things even better, we saw another family from down the street and they came over and sat two rows in front of us, with the group that they worked with. So even though we all go to different churches and all served in different areas on Saturday we ended up sitting near each other in the auditorium!

At the service there are representatives from the organizations we served and a slide show of photos taken from the different locations. Our group did not have a representative present nor were any pictures of us included in the presentation, but we all decided that was okay. It boded well for us that we really were the people in the background making the community a better place without receiving any accolades. Although…we did have one guy at the Res ask us where our orange jumpsuits and armed guards were…

Colorado

Published on by Casey

It’s amazing how many of these I can relate to now…I think Noah can relate to just about all of them…

A winter statistic

98% OF AMERICANS SAY ‘OH SHI*T’ BEFORE GOING IN THE DITCH ON A SLIPPERY ROAD.
THE OTHER 2% ARE FROM COLORADO AND THEY SAY, ‘HOLD MY BEER AND WATCH THIS.

You’re from Colorado if:

You’ll eat ice cream in the winter.
When the weather report says it’s going to be 65 degrees, you shave your legs and wear a skirt.
It snows 5 inches and you don’t expect school to be canceled.
You’ll wear flip flops every day of the year, regardless of temperature.
You have no accent at all, but can hear other people’s. And then you make fun of them.
‘Humid’ is over 25%.
Your sense of direction is: Toward the mountains and Away from the mountains.
You say ‘the interstate’ and everybody knows which one.
You think that May is a totally normal month for a blizzard.
You grew up planning your Halloween costumes around your coat.
You know what the Continental Divide is.
You don’t think Coors beer is that big a deal.
You went to Casa Bonita as a kid.
You’ve gone off-roading in a vehicle that was never intended for such activities.
You always know the elevation of where you are.
You wake up to a beautiful, 80 degree day and you wonder if it’s going to snow tomorrow.
You don’t care that some company renamed it, the Broncos still play at Mile High.
Every movie theater has military and student discounts.
Everybody wears jeans to church.
You actually know that South Park is a real place not just a show on TV.
You know what a ‘trust fund hippy’ is, and you know its natural habitat is Boulder .
You know you’re talking to a fellow Coloradoan when they call it Elitches, not Six Flags.
A bear on your front porch doesn’t bother you.
Your two favorite teams are the Broncos and whoever is beating the crap out of the Raiders.
You’ve been to the original Chipotle near the DU campus on Evans.
When people out East tell you they have mountains in their state too, you just laugh.
You go anywhere else on the planet and the air feels ‘sticky’ and you notice the sky is no longer blue.

Windsor

Published on by Casey

This morning Noah and I up got up at 4:30am to head north to Windsor to prepare breakfast with the Salvation Army EDS team.  We served about 300 servings of eggs, sausage and hash browns to National Guard soldiers, Air Patrol Cadets, Windsor and Greeley police, Windsor Fire and city officials and of course, EDS volunteers and employees.  Once breakfast was served we started to prepare another 300 or so lunches that would be given to a nursing home in Windsor as well as soldiers working in the field.  We worked in the canteen for about 6 hours this morning and then had the opportunity to take a tour of the damaged areas of the city.

Growing up in earthquake country seeing tornado damage is almost hard to fathom.  I have never experienced a tornado and hope I never will.  But the their destruction is so random!  In an earthquake epicenter there is damage everywhere and it’s very obvious.  With tornadoes, it really is hit and miss!  The side of town our command post was located had little to no damage.  Looking around you would never have guessed there was a tornado.  The east side of town was not so fortunate, but at the same, it was not as if everything was demolished or damaged.  There was one neighborhood that every house was practically destroyed, and buildings across the street looked as if they were not even touched!  The Salvation Army employee that took us and another volunteer around said that about 100 damaged homes were able to be repaired, but another 100 or so were condemned.  We saw one house that only had 1 wall of the garage left standing.  Most were missing roofs or had damaged roofs.  It’s an EDS semi-policy not to bring cameras to events, so we took what we could with our cell phones.  I have uploaded the pictures from mine here, and when I get a chance I’ll add the pictures and video Noah took with his phone.  It was not what I expected, but then again I didn’t know what to expect, but it was a great experience and one I will never forget.

One thought I had while touring the city, that’s a bit morbid, is that although the tornado was a horrible act of nature and cost so much damage, it will create the workload and jobs needed to help sustain the slowed construction economy.  So even in the darkest of situations there is always a silver lining.