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Aspen

Judy found a house she likes. Nice view; sits on two acres. It’s not expensive for Aspen: two million dollars per bedroom. Problem is; it has twelve bedrooms.
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Basalt

From: Steve Taylor [mailto:spt@thetaylorcompany.net]
Sent: Saturday, July 14, 2007 11:15 PM
To: Bill Taylor (Bill Taylor); David Taylor (David Taylor); Tom Taylor (Tom Taylor)
Subject: basalt
Camp Hale. A getaway from the summer heat. High seventies yesterday. Not much atmosphere to hold the heat. A forty degree swing overnight. Got to sleep with the windows open and the fan on. Woke to the calls of vesper sparrows. Got to turn the furnaces on to take the chill off while the people in tents over on the other side of the meadow walked out to the sunny side until the sun rose enough to hit their camp site. Dry camped. This coach is such an electron-hog through the inverter; it appears to be drawing twenty or thirty amps at rest. I wondered if it would make it through the night on the batteries without turning the inverter off so I could run a fan. It did. Maybe I have more battery storage that I thought. Maybe it is not really drawing twenty or thirty amps when it says it is. Don’t know. I needed a new mystery. I do know that when I turned the coffee maker on this morning everything shut off. Not enough electrons left to run an electric coffeemaker. No-one around. A few minutes with the generator running took care of the power problem. Took Annie along on my exercise walk. Wide open spaces. Didn’t need a leash. She struggled to keep up the first mile through the grassy meadow. Poor little dog. The pace was too much for her. I didn’t think she was going to make it the whole way. Then, we popped out of the north end of the meadow onto an old road and followed that back. Everything changed. Annie was suddenly young again. She would stop to investigate, then roar effortlessly past. She was a monster. I guess it all comes down to whether you think you might get a sticker in your little princess paw or not. Judy left Erie, two hundred miles to go. I left Camp Hale, a hundred miles to go. Our routes converged on Interstate 70, seventy five miles from Basalt. Wouldn’t you know…. we each arrived at that spot within a few minutes of each other. Met up at the next rest stop and caravanned in the rest of the way. Home sweet summer home. Basalt. Caught some brown trout in the Roaring Fork.

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Camp hale

Judy’s work in Louisville is done. My work in Alamosa is done. Time to get back together. I had the exit conference with the client this morning. That took a while. Lots of issues. It may be a few weeks before this one is completed. Left Alamosa after lunch, north through the San Luis Valley, over Poncha Pass and down into the Arkansas River Valley. Followed the Arkansas up to Leadville. It’s funny. The town of Leadville is at 10,200 feet elevation. The nearest pass, Tennessee Pass is only 10,400 feet. They pretty much built that town at the top of the world. Stopped in Buena Vista for fuel. It was awful, getting fuel by myself. Judy wasn’t there, so I had to go inside and pay for it myself. Oh well. That won’t happen often. Over the top of Tennessee Pass, and slightly down the other side is Camp Hale, our stop for the night. Camp Hale is where the 10th Mountain Division trained during WWII. A large flat mountain valley. High altitude. Plenty of snow all winter. There is a forest service campground at the edge. I drove in that direction, towing the jeep, but the road got narrow enough that I decided to pull over and unhook the jeep before I got any deeper. The campground is a nice size for the jeep, but it’s small for the motorhome, so I explored the disbursed camping in the valley. Got a nice spot next to a stream. It turns out this little stream, that I could practically jump across except where the beavers have dammed it, is the Eagle River, which is a substantial river farther downhill, that eventually runs into the Colorado. Saw some little fish leaping about in the ponds, but I didn’t get to them before dark. Maybe tomorrow morning. Hundreds of ground squirrels for Annie to chase. Maybe she’ll get on tomorrow morning too. Drove the jeep back to the motorhome. Made a nice seventeen point turnaround with the coach and brought it back to the camp spot. Rather than spend time hooking and unhooking the jeep, I just left it there, a nice destination for the first mile of my evening’s walk after dinner. Alamosa is hot, flat, and dry; desolate, but there were birds around. The campground was good for sparrows, finches, warblers, and vireos. I got good at the brewer’s sparrow call. The city park has a trail along the Rio Grande. The Alamosa National Wildlife Refuge had ruddy ducks, swainson’s hawks and great horned owls. The Monte Vista Wildlife Refuge had avocets, sora, western and clark’s grebes. I took a walk in different habitats each day and ended up with fifty birds. Matt brought Alex and Austin up to Becky’s house tonight so everyone could visit. He’ll take Austin home with him and leave Alex there at Becky’s house for a few days. Judy will leave tomorrow for Basalt. So will Annie and I.
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Subdivision

The neighbor’s last communication to the city was an email pledging he was going to show up at the public hearing after all, to protest, and apologized for the offensive remarks he had made about city officials in an earlier email. He wanted to take his remarks back, for now, until he had a chance to see how the hearing went. The neighbor was a no-show; no surprise. The city staff spoke for five minutes and presented their recommendation. The engineering company presenting the survey work spoke for five minutes. Doug Stewart, a long-time friend and neighbor spoke. Daughter Becky spoke. The Planning Commission voted unanimously to pass the subdivision. I’m sure we’re not through dealing with the neighbor, but we’re through dealing with the city (although if I had my choice, I’d keep dealing with the city and be done with the neighbor). We can now sell the trailer lot. We decided to sell the lot last November. We had an offer on it in January before the neighbor crashed the deal with his protests. Now, six months and twenty thousand dollars in costs later (including survey work that discovered the neighbor and his “no trespassing” signs were actually encroaching on our property), our lot is five feet wider, the neighbor’s lot is five feet narrower (now they’re both the same size), and the lot is going up for sale again. Thanks to all who showed up at the hearing, and all who sent their good wishes to support Judy, who had to bear the brunt of all this while I’m safely working in Alamosa. The world continues to churn.