Sparkly, pristine, pure white snow

Warm spell going on here - 22 degrees today. yes, I know that sounds absolutely freezing, but in the land of no humidity, it's not. Perfect to go play outside. We live in a world of magical white.

Lots of animal tracks in my tracks on the snowshoe trail. Also pee markings - I think a sign of approval. Fun to imagine all the travelings back and forth in the night.

The first Monday night Gunnison History class was really great. Professor Vandenbusche is a long time, multi published, and big personality faculty member at Western.No doubt we will learn a lot. Surprise though, there is reading homework, there will be a paper due, and here I thought extended studies meant sit through some lectures and slide shows. Ha. Quite a few regular students taking this for credit as well (and have more requirements then the rest of us). And let's not forget I am in the midst of genetics and evolution class. Must be a throwback to "real" school when I sort of panicked over the first graded problem sets. Figured it all out in the end (although I don't have my grade results yet). Honestly, I am loving this experience and the format of these MOOC classes is fantastic. And I have one more starting in 2 weeks. Philosophy from University of Edinburgh with 80,000 of my closest friends. Yes, am aware I'm just a tad in overboard mode.

Speaking of a learning mode, I want to share some interesting info we learned about in the Gunnison area a few months ago. Surprise to us, there is a substantial population of Cora Indians living in our area.  Never heard of them? Nor had we, so I looked them up.  They come from a remote mountainous area in western Mexico. Came to our area to have a better life, and are some of the hardest working people around. The difficulty lies in the fact that they do not speak English nor Spanish, just Cora. There are other Latino people in our area, mestizo, but they are not, in any way, the same. So programs have been set up to help everyone get along. Always the way, isn't it.

Beauty in every direction. Still a long time before winter is over. Big snow through March, sometimes even April...