a colorado summer

So, we are nearly ready to go.. It has been never ending, and I imagine that getting the ‘rv’ ready is like upgrading your home.. Well… it is our home I guess.. From shower heads to leaking city water inlets, from bamboo flooring to solar panels, from roof coffins to breakdown issues. Poor Paul gets to finish it all up (if it doesn’t snow too much!) whilst I am in the UK and Netherlands visiting family and friends and making a little bit of money again after not working for over a month. I didn’t think I could do it.. Not working that is. But it is surprisingly easy to fill a day with the washing up (a mission if you have to avoid certain evil little dogs called ruby trying to nip your ankles!) the food shop, and the dog walk.. I think I was overdue some not-doing-very-much-time really.

Anyways, the rv is nearly ready to go, Paul is working a few more weeks on timing lines for the Winter Park ski area and when I fly back into denver in November we are OFF south. We cannot wait!! It will be so much easier to live on the beach than in cold climes of Winter Park, as the snow is starting to fall! We have been super lucky with lovely friends that let us plug the rv into their electricity, and steal their internet and hot water… thanks! We can repay the favour by letting you camp in the rv with us when you come out surfing in central america!!

Oh Omar the dawg is doing good too. He loves living in a mobile home, and spends his time mostly sitting in the drivers seat, or laying on the futon bed, that he now claims as his own.. He gets us out mountain biking a fair bit, has been introduced to rafts, canoes and lately horses. Highlight being omar running up to Nash the horse during a nice roll, to bite him in the ass.. Too funny, though he was lucky not to get kicked in the chops!

Riding has been amazing.. Luckily Laurie and my schedule didn’t work out too well this summer as I think I would have been a broken lady! Her idea of a short ride is a five hour hack through a national park, as far away from civilisation as possible. Amazing, but pretty damn painful on my old hips and knees! Been riding her beautiful fox trotters, who indeed fox trot along which is a random mix of walking (front legs) and trotting (back legs). Very comfortable when performed well. A little shaky when not! Laurie explored some great areas with me: Rocky Mountain National Park (steep rocky steps, the clue is in the name.. and sheer drops, pretty sketchy), troublesome forest (hunting camps and lots of trees being felled, and a lady with a gun on a horse, just in case ‘she needs to shoot a horse with a broken leg’.. hmmmm). It is different here. There is still remote wilderness, and places to go where you will not see a soul. Hunting means meat and is still done in the wildest of wilds. Mountain lions scratch pine trees and bears scratch aspens. Or was it the other way around?? When a tree starts falling, make your horse run the other way. Fast. When a bear comes, back away slowly. When a moose runs your way? Not sure. Climb a tree I guess. It was a little daunting when I discovered bear tracks in the first snow of the season, during my daily Omar hike at Jim’s Creek forest. Ehhhh not used to bears. Around me. When I walk alone. Dogs are great deterrents though, so I’ve heard. Anyway you get the picture. Wildlife abundant here, and pretty scenery. I will miss it. And the sunshine, that warms even the icebox of the nation (Fraser, our hometown) on a daily basis.