Steve and Judy's Travels!

Another can’t lose football day, Saturday. Texas and Colorado. That didn’t
go well. We could pretend we were rooting for Texas all along, but really,
we were rooting for Colorado. Took a while to figure out what went wrong.
Went outside at halftime and discovered we had hung the CU flag backwards.
That must have made it the sign of the devil, the anti-CU, or something,
because CU just got creamed. Creamed doesn’t describe it. Words don’t
describe it. Sorry CU, for getting the flag backwards. Got Rags back from the cat spa today. Now we’re all back together.

Know how, when you’re camping, and it gets quiet at night, and then some
dogs start barking off in the distance, and it goes on and on, and you can’t
fall asleep because it’s so irritating, and then you discover that it’s not
dogs barking, it is a whole flock of Canada geese, and suddenly it’s nature
not an annoyance, and everything is okay? Does that ever happen to you? I struggled with a smell/fragrance/odor/annoyance in the motel in
Carbondale. I just couldn’t place it. Something faint, but sharp. Just
the occasional waft. I couldn’t locate the source. Something slightly
burnt, but subtle. I tried for days. It only hit me when I was sitting
quietly, working at my computer. It never happened in the other room. It made me crazy. It wasn’t the fridge. It wasn’t the sink. It wasn’t the
microwave. I just couldn’t figure it out. Then, Friday morning, the
epiphany. It appeared in a different room. At the same time as the
fragrance appeared in a different room, the ziplock bag of coffee beans
appeared as well. Coffee beans! Not our normal coffee beans, but some
particularly strong espresso coffee beans. I love that coffee. Problem
gone.

Saturday. A long drive last night, but a productive one. We drove through
a little bit of a mess on Vail Pass, then a bigger mess at the Eisenhower
Tunnel, but we made it back to the front range between storms. That was the
best possible time to get through. Very happy to be home, to our motorhome. Wherever the motorhome is, it’s so
much nicer than a hotel room. Home in time for the Company Christmas party.

Happy Friday. Job done today, mostly, a little follow-up next week, but we
won’t have to be here for that. Then, the escape from the high country.
Even with the late start, after lunch, we bailed on the motel and headed
east. The snow has really only been flurrying here in Carbondale all week.
No problem driving here. We expect to encounter our winter challenges on
the road over Vail Pass and at the Eisenhower tunnel. The whole time it has
been flurrying here, they’ve been calling it winter storms for the high
mountains and ski areas. Four-wheel drive Jeep, antilock brakes, new tires.
I don’t think we could be better equipped. We could lurk and wait for a break in the weather, but we don’t want to miss
the company Christmas party on Saturday. Better head back now.

It was a long commute to work. Up early, check out of the hotel; drive the
seventy miles, through Glenwood Springs, Glenwood Canyon, past Gypsum,
Eagle, Edwards, Beaver Creek, and Avon, to relocate to Vail for the next
job. Five minutes before nine, call the client for final approach
instructions. The response… Vail? Plan B. He’s in Aspen. Drive back to Carbondale, check back into the
hotel, have a quick lunch, make the thirty mile drive to Aspen, and I’m
there by one. Got in a good half-day’s work today, plus a surprise two
hundred mile drive through the winter wonderland. We’ll still be able to
wrap it up tomorrow.