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so close

I almost got the pine grosbeak while we were in Estes Park. Took a walk on the Fern Lake Trail. Heard a bird singing. I recognize a lot a bird songs. This was not one I recognized. I had listened to what the pine grosbeak sounded like before I went on my walk. I was looking for it. The bird singing sounded kind of like the pine grosbeak recording. You have to allow for regional differences; dialects. I needed to see it to confirm. It kept singing. It was in a big ponderosa pine next to the trail. I circled the tree. The bird kept singing. I had my binoculars. I couldn’t find him.I have a little trouble locating birds now. It has to do with hearing. If only my hearing would degenerate in both ears equally. Sound directs you where to look. A slight inequality in hearing directs your eyes to the wrong place. Then you just have to guess. The problem is: Judy wasn’t with me. We hear birds. We both look. Judy tells me where it is.Judy wasn’t there. I almost got the pine grosbeak.
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Golden

We’ve moved for a day. We’re at Dakota Ridge, the commercial park in Golden. We’ve used up our fourteen days at Chatfield. Our reservation at Cherry Creek State Park doesn’t start until tomorrow. Not quite the same here as the State Parks.
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Mystery buildings

We try to figure out why things are like they are. It keeps us occupied. Even if we’re not right, it feels better if we can figure out a logical explanation without asking. Small square buildings. Identical. They have windows and a tower. Out by Chatfield. Four of them. They’ve been there for years. They’re too small for houses. There are no signs of life around them. No vehicles. No yards. They appear to be on government property or open space. There is no-one to ask. If they are not for habitation, they must be buildings erected to cover up something. Gas wells. Old landfill gas vents. Space alien landing sites, or secret government projects perhaps. What do you think? Any help here?
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Balloons

The intermittent burn of the gas jet, like a great beast breathing, is the only sound the balloon makes as it slips otherwise silently by overhead.
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Chatfield

Balloons in the mornings. Continuing the slow recovery from the bug; we’re both about 90% better. Once in a while we’ll start to think we might be 100% but then reality jerks us back. Patience. On a television program, some guys were giving a Japanese guy a hard time; helping him study for his U.S. citizenship test, and asked him “In what year did America discover Japan?” I thought that was pretty funny; a poke at the U.S. really, as if the rest of the world could be measured by the United States calendar. After all, Japan had its own people, own customs, own civilization long before any Anglos stumbled onto it. It’s not like, say, Columbus discovering America in 1492 is it……..? An old guy about our age, maybe a little older, wandered by our camp and struck up a conversation. We chatted for a while, but the more we talked the older he got. He was stationed at the Corpus Christi Naval Air Station right after I was born. He’s twenty years older than us and still vibrant. I want to be like him when I grow up. Spaghetti for dinner tonight. Yum.