Reunion and mountain adventures

Our week of company is all done. Our last guest (Duane) left this morning. What a great time we had and what a terrific event to have a reunion of sorts between friends/relatives. Can't think of a better use of our place.

Took the group up to Gothic, happily including Mark, as he was able to break away from conference calls for a bit. We intended to go all the way to Emerald Lake, but alas, the road had a barricade the last half mile. Highly unusual - it clearly is going to be closed the whole season. Thinking the road must have been badly damaged by all that April snow.

Forgot to set down the date the snow finally melted off Carbon Peak. July 26 - amazingly late in the summer. I do realize even mentioning the word snow sounds ludicrous to many - especially the many who are having massive heat waves. Duane, Mark, and I took a jeep ride down Carbon Creek his last day. We bounced him around quite a bit, but being the trooper he is, never complained. Saw the side of Carbon Peak with lots of rock strewn down its hills, and then ventured up a side road to a new area close to Red Mountain. Saw an amazing view of the back of Carbon. That's a huge crater in the photo. Carbon was formed by a volcano a while ago, say somewhere in the 40 million years ago range. It's a baby compared to some others in the area - they're 70 to 80 millions years old. We humans are just passing through, dust in the wind as they say...

back of Carbon Peak

The jeep (aka the Rock) is stepping up -has a wench now!

Tomato plants are huge now and some tomatoes are forming with lots of blossoms going on. They can't form fast enough - we could, although it doesn't happen every August, but could have frost before the month is out. Oooh...

Mark and I went for a walk in our woods, and it's been months since we've done that. What a crazy summer we've been having. We spooked deer all over the place including the buck in the photo. This is our same snowshoe route in the winter - just a tad different at this time of year, but the gorgeous views are still every direction.

Lastly, yet another delay in reporting books read. One was before this group of company and the other finished today. Unfinished Desires by Gail Godwin. Sounds sexy, yes?  Not really, older couple meeting after a trillion years to revisit the memories of a young romance. I've read all of hers and they are good, but tend to dwell in the morass of it all... The latest is State of Wonder by Ann Patchett. Great book, terrific read, and she's running up in the top ten on the NY Times book list.The Amazon, natives, experimental drug research and adventure.