From the Mountains, to the Prairies

Published on by Casey Category: Travel, Work

<<Note: pictures are not yet uploaded to the website but may be viewed on my Facebook or Myspace accounts.>>

It’s always hard to go back to work after a long weekend…especially so when you make a stretch a 3-day holiday weekend into 6, and in Noah’s case start a new job.

First the job…Floorcrafters laid-off Noah last week claiming financial hardships due to the current economic situation.  So now, Noah is working for a former boss (one he worked for in CA who now lives in CO) and looking for stable work.  I am looking for ways to catch Floorcrafters breaking DOL regulations.  So far I think I have them in 2 areas, but Noah doesn’t want to burn bridges.  Meh.

That lovely news came 2 days before my birthday (Happy birthday to me!), 1 day after we bought airplane tickets to fly out to California for Noah’s brother’s wedding in October and on the eve of our road trip to Wyoming and South Dakota.  More on the road trip – it’s a much better story and not so depressing.  🙂

Our friend Sandy came to visit from California over Labor Day weekend for a) my birthday, b) because she likes Colorado and wanted to get a change of scenery for a while, and c) it was a good excuse to stretch a long weekend.  She got in Wednesday night and Friday morning we left home for South Dakota.  Mind you, there is a whole lotta nothing in-between here and there…just field and field of hay and 1 or 2 trees.  Seriously no trees until you get to the Black Hills (check out the pictures, there’s one of a lone tree in the middle of the prairie).

Since we left early, we got into Rapid City with plenty of daylight.  Although we didn’t quite make it into town before we Noah was pulled over by a local trooper.  Apparently the speed limit was 65, not 75.  Oops.  Because we were “touristas” the trooper let Noah go with a warning, but not before he asked Noah to go sit in his car.  Sandy and I remained in our vehicle and were desperately trying to figure out why Noah needed to go sit in the cop’s car.  Very odd indeed.  We snuck a picture of the cop behind our car.  Turns out, the cop had some news crew riding along with him and the whole thing was on video.  The trooper even asked Noah if he wanted to say anything to the camera…Noah respectfully declined.

Now, that we knew what the speed limit was (there were no signs…seriously folks) we continued on our merry way, checked into the hotel and then back-tracked to Mount Rushmore.  Rushmore was beyond neat, I got got to kiss Teddy’s giant head, Sandy shot Lincoln and Noah picked Jefferson’s nose.  Just as cool as the carving was were the mountain goats walking around the roads and parking structure.  It is very possible I took the same amount or more pictures of them than the mountain we paid to see.  After Rushmore we drove to Crazy Horse.  Not worth the money you pay to get in…but at least we can tell our grandkids…great-grandkids (? – whoever is alive when the mountain is actually finished) that we contributed to its completion.

Day 2 we went to Wall, got our free ice water, then headed out to the Badlands.  It was very hot and very windy…seemed fitting for such a neat/desolate area.  Lava didn’t like the heat at all.  The plains were neat, I took a video of the wind blowing the hay/prairie grass like ripples in water, but I would not want to live there.  Or on any prairie for that matter.  I need trees and mountains…the ability to know whether I’m looking East or West.  That morning when we were preparing to leave the hotel, Sandy and I thought we were looking East, only to have the GPS inform us that our “East” was actually “North”.  Stupid flat land.  We drove by a soddy (in the pictures), but were too cheap to pay to go into the buildings.  Our last stop for the day was Cabela’s.  I also just found out they’re building one in CO.  Yup, that’s right.   It’s okay to be jealous, I know you are. 🙂

Day 3 was spent driving to Sturgis with a stop at a joke of a petrified forest (kinda crazy to believe that South Dakota was once a lush forest with marshes).  Sandy and I asked the woman at the gift center if any of the trees were still standing or just piles of material on the ground.  She said you can never find petrified trees still standing.  We told her about the petrified forest in NorCal.  She was shocked and somewhat annoyed that we didn’t want to pay to see their piles.  Sturgis was um…not what we expected…neither was Deadwood.  So we drove through both towns and continued on to Devil’s Tower.

Now Devil’s Tower is worth the money you pay to get into the park!  Wow was that thing cool!  Of course we would never climb it, but we did hike around it’s base (1.3 miles) and took lots of pictures!  Saw some deer, chipmunks, people working their way to the top of the rock.  Be sure to check out those pictures!

Funny thing…on our way back to CO we stopped in some podunk town in WY for dinner.  We planned on Pizza Hut but the GPS location was a dirt lot.  Apparently pizza isn’t too popular, so we settled on Subway.  That’s not the funny part.  This is, while paying for her food Sandy realized she did not have her ID.  Turns out she left it at a gas station in South Dakota when Noah and her walked to it (next to the hotel) to buy some wine coolers the night before.  Ooops.  This was Sunday, and with Monday being a holiday there was no way it could be shipped to CO in time for Sandy to use it to board her flight Tuesday night.  So what other choice did we have but to turn around and drive back into South Dakota (we were about 2 hours out of the state) and back through Deadwood.  The added 4 hours got us in at a nice 2am Monday morning, but that extra leg gave us the opportunity to avoid deer in the road and watch lightning in the distance.  Thanks Sandy!  🙂  Good thing it was a holiday and none of us had anything strenuous to do that day.

So that’s our trip in a nut shell.  Next “vacation” – California in October.  But I’m sure I’ll find something to blog about before then.

What Happened to Summer???

Published on by Casey Category: Colorado, Weather

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!

Rugby in the Olympics

Published on by Casey Category: Work

As Olympic fever strikes the globe, I am jumping on the bandwagon by pushing a cause close and dear to my wallet heart.

This is a video put together by the International Rugby Board (the organization that oversees USA Rugby).  Rugby has only been included as a sport in four Olympic Games (1900, 1908, 1920, 1924).  The United States earned gold in both the 1920 and 1924 games.

Unfortunately, the YouTube video was creating problems with our website, so you will have to just browse to this link to view the clip until I come up with another method of embedding.

When the clouds go ’round

Published on by Casey Category: Colorado, Weather

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 Category: Colorado, Travel

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.

Nothing Says Love like a GPS

Published on by Casey Category: Family

This past Thursday Noah and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary.  This was actually the first anniversary we have had where we did not have some enormous drive to make!

1st – Drove to San Diego (5 hours)
2nd – Drove from Cedar City, UT to Lafayette, CO (the big move day 2 – 12 hours)
3rd – Drove from Diamond Lake, OR to Davis, CA to Oakland, CA (8 hours)

This was also the first anniversary we have spent alone in our house!  Although we moved into our house on our 2nd anniversary my family was here, so it wasn’t celebrated too much.  This year we celebrated by going to a quiet dinner and we still plan to go to the movies but haven’t yet.

Traditionally the gift for the 4th anniversary is fruit or flowers (I got neither).  The modern gift is an appliance.  Noah’s parents bought us a steam cleaner (vacuum), which qualifies for the modern gift.  It was also much appreciated as destructive Lava caused us to rent one from King Soopers twice within 2 weeks!  The gift I purchased for us qualifies, maybe, in the modern category too.  I purchased us a GPS unit.  Despite high gas prices we still like our road trips, plus Noah uses GPS (on his phone) daily for work.  So this purchase will pay for itself very fast!  It’s our new fun toy, of which one of my coworkers (when she saw me playing with it) said, “Nothing says love like a GPS”.  I tend to agree.  🙂

According to traditional gifts, the 5th anniversary is wood.  So, I’m really hoping I get my pretty hickory floors!  If not for next year, the modern gift for the 6th anniversary is also wood.  🙂

If you build it they will come

Published on by Casey Category: Colorado, Family

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 Category: Colorado

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.

Good Fences Make Good Neighbors…Right???

Published on by Casey Category: Household

I guess one needs to have a good fence first, which is why the fence was torn down to start with. Part of the fence between our house and our nextdoor neighbor’s was only being held up by the posts for the dog run that Noah and I are slowly tearing out. As a result, yesterday Noah and Andy tore down the 48-foot section and headed to Lowes to buy new lumber (Andy had several gift cards for Lowes). The goal was to tear out the old broken fence yesterday and prep the area for the new post holes. Then today, they wanted to have the new posts in the ground. So, after church Noah and I stopped by Home Depot to grab the needed brackets and concrete mix. New posts securely in place? Yeah, not so much. Apparently we all underestimated the willingness for the old posts to come out of the ground. It doesn’t help that one of our maple trees has decided that wrapping roots around said posts is a good idea.

So, two days into the fence project, there is no fence, and several holes with bits of post and concrete still in the bottom. After work tomorrow Noah is going to work at hacking the jumble of wood, root and concrete in an attempt to clear the holes. Maybe I’ll help…probably not though. My assistance on Saturday was limited to me relocating gravel and leaves; today I read a book inside and then went to play softball. I think my job is the hardest, I mean…after all, someone has to supervise. 😀

Hopefully, by the end of this project, our neighbors still like us…