Steve and Judy's Travels!

Wednesday A good day at work. Pretty much finished up the numbers. Now I have two
days to do the federal compliance work. The hummingbirds found our feeder. Now we have hummers at the sugar water,
and grosbeaks at the seed feeder. Warblers. Orioles. Jays. Geese.
Magpies. Blackbirds. Grackles. Nuthatches. Swallows. Mergansers.
Mallards. Killdeer. Dippers. Spotted sandpipers. White-crowned sparrows.
This is a great bird place. The guy next to us last week in the WanderLodge said it was too big. It’s a
forty-five footer. Too much stuff. The weather couldn’t be any better. High seventies during the day. Thirty
degrees at night. It’s a very fast temperature swing as soon as the sun
goes down. Great sleeping weather. Our commute for the Durango job was seven miles. Pagosa is a smaller town.
Our commute here is two miles. Regularly, I am startled by the mouse. It’s a little gray mouse, and it can
show up anywhere at any time. It never wiggles or moves by itself. It’s
filled with catnip. But several times a day, Rags discovers it, terrorizes
it, throws and catches it all over the place, and leaves it somewhere new.
We’re not always there when he does this, so we never know where it will
strike next. I’m already looking forward to the drive to Silverton. We’ll get to drive
an entire hundred miles to get there. When we arrived here on Sunday, we could see the high water mark along the
river. Just like looking for the last high tide mark on the beach at the
ocean, you can tell the highest point the water has been recently by the
rubble along the edge. The river was down significantly from the high water
mark when we got here. I had imagined the spring runoff to be constant and
predictable. The snow starts melting, the water rises, the snow runs out,
the water recedes. Not so. The water was up. The water went down. Now
it’s back up again. Guess rivers have more complicated cycles than I was
imagining. Found the racquetball court at the Pagosa club. Had to drive all the way to
the other side of town, though. It’s a nice glass court right at the front
door, so I could challenge everyone who walked in and out. No takers. The
nice lady at the desk even made several calls for me to local racquetball
junkies, but couldn’t hook me up. It felt good to hit a little bit. Good coyote music tonight.

Monday Started the next job. Another scary one. Might have a large prior period
adjustment. Spent the day setting up, and working on fund balance issues.
If I got a job where I only had to look at the year I was auditing now, and
they had the current year all together, it would seem like a vacation. Back at the ranch, we have the constant background buzzing of hummingbirds,
but they haven’t found our feeder yet. We have to walk up to the feeders at
the office to get a good look at them. Black-chinned, just like everywhere
else we go in Colorado. Some broadtails. I’m hoping to see a Rufous while
we’re out this trip. That’s a good possibility, but I think they arrive a
little later. Some grosbeaks found the seed feeder we set up across the
way. That’s the best look we’ve gotten at them. The orioles are such large, graceful, colorful birds. They have a nice song
to sing, but they also make a startling squawk. It is surprising for such a
beautiful bird. When you hear a parakeet squawking off in the distance,
that means there are orioles around. Took my flyrod over to the pond to see if I could bug any fish. What I
found was a riot of swallows swooping all over the surface. Violet green,
cliff, and the occasional barn. Figured out the bird we didn’t recognize. It was a female western bluebird.
It would have been easier to recognize if a male had been around. Judy bought a week’s pass at the hot springs.

Saturday Funny thing. The furnace worked perfectly all evening, last night, and
again this morning. Yeah. Right. Hosing off the battery terminals is
going to fix the furnace. Interesting coincidence, though. Up and off early to get to the train on time. Three and a half hours up
through spectacular scenery. Two hours in Silverton to wander around.
Three and a half hours back, checking out the backside of all that gorgeous
scenery. A lot of motion. A little tired tonight, and the boat is still
rocking, but a nice way to spend the day. A ten-car train plus a boxcar.
Right at the maximum capacity of the locomotive. There are coach cars, open
cars, and a parlor car. The parlor car gets hooked onto the tail end of the
train. We got to stand outside on the back porch as much as we wanted to
get the best view. Full service inside. All the coffee and cokes and
goodies we could eat. Rugged inaccessible gorge that they somehow laid
track through, then they followed the Animas river the rest of the way to
Silverton. Most of the trip goes through land with no roads. There are
some houses and cabins in there, but the only access is by this train, or
horseback. The locomotive is a living breathing awesome beast. Standing next to it,
you can feel the life. It radiates heat, smoke, and steam. Even at rest,
it pulses and pops and creaks and squeaks. There is an interesting tradition. Every Memorial Day. The Iron Horse
Classic. It’s a bicycle race from Durango to Silverton. Fifty miles, from
Durango to Silverton, and an elevation gain of three thousand feet over two
mountain passes. They race the train. The bicycles follow the road. The
train follows the tracks. And the winner is….. The train has never won.
Carol, Michael’s wife came by to walk Annie a couple times while we were
gone all day on the train. She said Annie was good for her. The motorhome next to us is a WanderLodge. It has an interesting feature.
They have a free-standing barbecue outside, with a propane hose plugged into
a fitting on the side of the motorhome. How handy is that? You never have
to mess with propane bottles.
Tomorrow, off to Pagosa Springs.

Thursday. Bright and beautiful. Not too hot. I worked “at home” today. Judy did
morning chores, fed me lunch, then headed out to check on the local hot
springs. Later, a very relaxed Judy pronounced them to be just fine. Steam train. Be careful today. Friday the 13th falls on a Thursday this month. Met with Jan Milburn, of the Milburn Foundation here in Durango. He spends
most of his time in the Copper Canyon in Mexico, working with the indigenous
Indians there. He doesn’t need an audit yet, but we’ll do some work with
him in the meantime to help him get everything in order. Afternoon birds:
Crows
Ravens
Magpies
Unidentified hawk
Turkey vultures
Red winged blackbirds
Brewer’s blackbirds
White breasted nuthatch
Black-headed grosbeak
Black-chinned hummingbirds
Stellar’s jay
Brown headed cowbirds
Red-naped sapsucker
Cliff swallows
Barn swallows
Yellow warbler
No house finches
No sparrows. That’s odd. Gave up and called David at our Wild Birds Unlimited store in Denver. He’ll
send some new binoculars to meet us at our next stop in Pagosa Springs.
Nice new birding binoculars. They will have a lifetime guarantee against
droppage.

Friday Judy went to check out the “spa services” at the hot springs. Hot oil
massage. Last day of fieldwork on this job. Spent a fair amount of time discussing
options with the client about how to deal with the $100,000 problem, and the
$50,000 problem. They both belong in previous years, but only partially in
the year immediately prior to my work. We can either: ignore them and
issue a one-year report, or we can deal with them. We decided to deal with
them. That requires more work, but ultimately, is more satisfying. You know, sometimes you can’t always get what you want. I don’t find myself
saying that much, but it is true for this job. I want to do the entire job
in one week, wrap it, and deliver a completed product to the client before I
go, but it just can’t be done this time around. Too much to sort out. With
some follow-up work, however, we’ll make this job make a lot more sense for
the next time around. A very flushed, relaxed, and limp Judy reports that the spa services at the
local hot springs are just fine. A little more racquetball therapy was in order tonight. Got in some good
work on the backhand. No new victims, though. Michael the local RV repair guy came by tonight. He took a look at the
furnace controls for us. They both still work, but the back furnace
controls aren’t quite as responsive as the front furnace. Sometimes it will
stall out before it gets all the way up to temperature. He figures there is
nothing really wrong with the thermostat controls. He thinks it’s more
likely that it is a voltage thing. He went straight to the outside battery
compartment. The water in the batteries was a little low. We had the
beginning of a little corrosion on the terminals. He said that was enough
to disrupt the digital systems. He says I need to clean and fill the
batteries once a month. I pointed out that we weren’t even using the
batteries; we’re plugged into shore power. No matter. He says everything
goes through the batteries and the inverter. I didn’t know that! We topped off the water in the batteries. We hosed them down. He sprayed
some battery cleaner on the terminals. We hosed them down again. He said
that would fix the furnace thermostat. Yeah. Right. Tomorrow, the steam train. We’ve been watching it go by all week. Tomorrow
we won’t be able to see it because we’ll be on it. We’ll be right there,
watching all the scenery go by. We reserved space in a parlor car. That
could be good.