Thanksgiving

We had a mid-day walk at Walden Ponds with Noah and Henry Dog. Of course, Rouse was in bird-mode. He spotted a small flock of Evening Grosbeaks, a bird he has not seen in decades! This eclipsed my notable sighting of the Sandhill Cranes at St Vrains State Park the other day.

We gathered for our Thanksgiving feast around 4:00pm. When we arrived at the house, Susanna was finishing up the turkey and other dinner deliciousness, while Noah was roasting chestnuts for appetizers. I couldn't wait any longer to present Noah with his "new-again" childhood quilt, which I had taken home to patch and repair after our last visit in September. After the ooh- and aah-ing, it was time for dinner.

What a menu! Of course we had all the good food that had been prepared at the Back to Basics Kitchen, including green bean casserole, classic scalloped potatoes, cranberry chutney, quinoa dressing. Between dinner and dessert, we successfully put together a Liberty jigsaw puzzle. Then, THREE pies for dessert! Pumpkin, apple, and chocolate. Alas ... I did not get a picture of those pies. We must've been too eager to dig in!

Even in this crazy year of COVID-19, we continue to have so many things for which to be thankful. Right now, we are grateful for this time spent with Noah and Susanna in colorful Colorado!

pleasant walk at Walden Ponds

arriving at Noah & Susanna's house

"a little turkey in the oven"

host and hostess busy in the kitchen

Noah preparing chestnuts for roasting

Susanna preparing everything else.
Notice Henry waiting for a morsel to drop!

family portrait

Henry's reward for being patient

after-dinner puzzle

new quilt label

even the back looks good

repaired and "visibly-mended" log cabin quilt
Hard to believe I made a quilt that is now 40 years old!

A Beautiful Day for a Hike

Rouse and Noah hiked Mount Sanita today. Despite its modest elevation of 6,843 feet, they found it to be quite the workout ... more than 1,300 feet of elevation gain! The rewards were great, however, with spacious views of Boulder, the sprawling plains, and Denver to the east, with a dramatic panorama of the Indian Peaks to the west.

Of course, fourteener Longs Peak (14,255 feet), a prominent part of the skyline seen from the summit of Mt Sanita, is always calling Rouse's name.

 

We woke up to snow!

That's right. It snowed overnight!

We set out to enjoy the morning, always on the lookout for birds. We returned to Waneka Lake, checked out Union Reservoir, revisited St Vrains State Park (where we stayed with our camper trailer in September), and explored ponds along the back roads. Again, we saw thousands of geese, many kestrels, mature bald eagles + an eagle's nest. But the best sighting of the day, made by me :-)... a swoop of Sandhill Cranes, ~35 of them, circling over the entrance to St Vrains.

We spent the afternoon lending a hand in the Back to Basics Kitchen. 

view out bedroom window

airbnb - our entrance on the right

revisit Waneka Lake

Union Reservoir

driving around Union Reservoir

St Vrains State Park

along a county road

drive-by sighting

distant peaks

A Little Play, A Little Work

We spent the morning getting settled into our home-away-from-home in Lafayette. We took a little walk and enjoyed the birds... thousands of Canada and Cackling Geese... at nearby Waneka Lake Park.

After lunch we headed over to Susanna's take-out commercial kitchen, Back to Basics Kitchen, in Broomfield, where there was a whole lot of cooking going on! Thanksgiving week is always the busiest week in the Kitchen... the most complicated menu of the year to fill the most orders of the year. But this year they had an unprecedented, record-breaking number of orders. Susanna said it was daunting, and exciting. It certainly took some serious organization by the boss-lady, as well as plenty of labor.

Rouse was the dishwasher extraordinaire! I mostly helped with food prep. There were 80 dozen eggs to crack, for goodness sakes! 88 pies to bake and package. Piles of green beans to snap. You get the idea. The to-do list was long, but we had plenty of folks working to get it done. While there is plenty of space to socially distance while working, everyone in the kitchen wears a mask due to COVID restrictions.

We were not the only family members lending a helping hand. One employee's boyfriend spent time prepping those beans and cracking those eggs. And another employee's teenaged daughter joined us for portioning and packaging food. What a team effort!

Waneka Lake Park

gorgeous morning
Front Range in the distance

Susanna got Rouse settled into the dishwashing station

piles of food

That is some immersion blender!
pumpkin pie filling in the making

Driving Day #2

Hot breakfast at the Holiday Inn - scrambled eggs, bacon, cinnamon roll, coffee

8:15am CST  on the road, another gray day, overcast, cloudy, 40 degrees, breezy

10:15am Kansas City, MO

10:45am Break out the sunglasses! partly cloudy, blue skies

10:52am Denver 560 miles

12:50 -1:30pm picnic lunch break near Abilene, Kansas, home of President Eisenhower's Library and Museum

4:00pm CST Denver 244 miles

It takes a long time to drive across Kansas.

Then we gained another hour as we entered Mountain Time.

4:10pm MT Welcome to Colorado! Denver 160 miles

Stopped for gas and fast food take out.

Made it to our airbnb apartment in Lafayette by 7:00pm MT

12 hours in transit. Whew!

socially distanced motel breakfast

crossing the Missouri River

Kansas City

Topeka

rest stop near Abilene

wind turbines

fields of baled hay

westward ...

... into the sunset
Our destination is close!

Off we go ... back to Colorado

Amidst news of surging COVID-19 cases nationwide, we decided to drive to Colorado to visit with Noah and Susanna. Besides the joy of spending time with them, our intention was to help Susanna in her commercial take-out kitchen during her traditionally busiest week of the year (Thanksgiving) and help complete some home renovations in anticipation of Sweet Baby Girl's arrival in February.

We would blast out in two days, keeping motel stays limited to one. This time, we took the northerly route via I-64 and I-70, through Virginia, West Virginia, grazing Ohio, then Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, and finally Colorado. Our goal the first day was to get past St. Louis. I was 8 weeks past total hip replacement surgery on the right side, so would be no help driving. We made a point to stop every 1-1/2 to 2 hours for rest / stretch / walk break. All in all, we spent 15-hours in transit that first day... 13-1/2 hours of actual driving time. Here's how the day went:

7:45am on our way

9:20am Pilot Mountain under blue skies

10:45am rest stop, lovely views of winter trees and cloud shadows on mountain ridges

1:00pm rest stop It started drizzling. We gathered our egg salad, corn chips, and veggie sticks for lunch on the road. As we traveled further into West Virginia, the day got more and more gray and the view became more and more industrial. I was fascinated by the steel bridges. We crossed the Kanawha River multiple times. It's a sizable river. Why have I never heard of it? It was a gray, timeless afternoon.

Most interesting sight today, a couple of subway train cars being transported on flatbed 18-wheelers.

In Kentucky, we were amazed at how the invasive Bush Honeysuckle was everywhere, lining I-64.

4:45pm Welcome to Indiana!

5:45pm We ate take-out hamburgers from Wendy's drive-through and gained an hour as we entered Central Standard Time.

Early evening, and we were getting car fatigue. Howard Stern's interview with Elton John on Sirius XM (recommended!) helped pass the time and got us past St. Louis. Hallelujah!

8:30pm We stopped for gas and rewarded ourselves with ice cream bars which we ate outside in the raw wind and cold rain west of St. Louis. Why??

9:45pm CST We stopped for the night at a Holiday Inn Express in Kingdom, MO, 140 miles east of Kansas City.

Pilot Mountain, NC

Virginia mountain ridges

The Arch, St Louis, MO