Dreaming of Homer

Lately I've been finding myself feeling unsettled. This happens to me from time to time. I get frustrated and dissatisfied with my current situation and start thinking that the grass might be greener somewhere else. I think a lot of these feelings just stem from boredom. Other times I just get so frustrated sitting in Denver traffic jams that I get the strong urge to go anywhere that doesn't have traffic problems. My job can get pretty dull at times as well. I'm not getting any getting any younger and I often feel like I'd like to have my own business of some sort. A lot of people want to be their own boss, or to build a successful business from the ground up and I'm no exception.

The other day I was perusing the Businesses for Sale section of Craigslist as I have done often lately. I came across a listing for a small bed and breakfast in Homer, Alaska. I read a little snippet about Homer somewhere last week and it sounded very nice. The bed and breakfast itself sounds very nice too. It is in an old building on a hillside overlooking the bay. Since then it has held a sort of romantic appeal for me. It is located on the southern tip of the Kenai Penninsula, about 190 miles southwest of Anchorage. It is a small fishing town located on Kachemak Bay with views of mountains and glaciers rising out of the water on the opposite shore. It is billed as the halibut capital of the world, which I find particularly appealing since I love Halibut. What a great thing, to live in the halibut capital of the world. I didn't even know such a thing existed until the other day. Some of the fish caught nearby can literally be several hundred pounds. The salmon fishing is supposed to be fantastic as well.

Right now, I find the idea of the relative solitdude very appealing. Were I ever to move to a place like that, I'm sure I would miss the city. I've always been a pretty urban-oriented guy, even eschewing the suburbs for a grittier and colorful setting. Nevertheless there are times when the peace and quiet and the slower pace has a very strong appeal. I like to think that I could spend more time engaging in artistic pursuits. I could hone my skills as a photographer, practice writing or learn to paint. Maybe I also like the idea of living somewhere more wild, where there are still places to be explored. I have often thought I would have made a good explorer four or five hundred years ago.

My wife is not thrilled with the idea of going anywhere that the weather might be colder than it is here in Denver. There's also the issue of a lot of darkness during the winter months. Neither of us would like that I don't think. And there is the problem of being just that much further from our families. Denver is already plenty far from Wisconsin, Ohio, North Carolina or Florida and adding a couple thousand miles to the trip wouldn't make visiting our families any easier. But it does seem like it would be a safe and wholesome place for my daughter to grow up. While there would be plenty of dangers to watch out for, I believe that they would be of a different nature than what she will be facing here in the big city. Somehow bears and moose don't seem as bad as muggers and pedophiles.

I'm sure that Bree and I will stay here in Colorado for the time being. Overall we have made a very good life for ourselves here. We both have good jobs, even if we aren't always completely satisfied with them. Rachel is 2 and a half months old now and it seems she is smiling more and more every day. We have so much to look forward to with her. She is already making noises like she is trying to talk, and it will only be a matter of time before she is walking. Now if only she'd settle down at night so we can turn the lights off a little bit earlier it would be perfect. So for the time being, I think Homer will have to wait. In the meantime, Rachel has some Halloween preparations.

We are going to Milwaukee in a couple of weeks. This is something that I am looking forward to very much. I hope that Rachel has the opportunity to spend some time there in the coming years. I feel a strong connection to the place, and I hope that she can share that feeling some day.

September Weekend

Friday night I got to go to see the Rockies play the Dodgers at Coors Field. I hadn't planned on going but my company had some extra tickets that had been reserved for the yearly Owners Conference. Several of the attendees left Denver early because of Hurricane Ike. While I was sorry to leave Bree at home with Rachel by themselves on a Friday night, it ended up being a nice change of pace for me, as well as an opportunity to shake a few hands with some of our Franchise owners from around the country. Furthermore, you can always be sure that there will be plenty of beer being consumed at just about any of our company functions. Friday night was no exception. The company had leased out three contiguous luxury suites which were continuously stocked with beer, chips and hot dogs. The Rockies lost the game, but most of those in attendance weren't really watching it anyway.

Yesterday morning my friend Louie and I went up to Boulder to do a ride. I have been wanting to do the Boulder -Ward Loop for a while now. The problem is finding the time to do do it, because it is not a short ride. It is definitely not an easy ride either. We were on the road by 10:30 or 11 and almost immediately began the long climb up Boulder Canyon to Nederland. For the first several miles, the grade was manageable, and we kept a relatively good average speed, but as we approached Boulder Falls, the grade got noticeably steeper and it started taking its toll. Another problem with riding up Boulder Canyon is all the traffic. For much of the time there is at least some shoulder to ride on, but on a perfect Saturday afternoon, the line of traffic never lets up. It would be a great stretch of road for riding without all the cars.

We took a break at Boulder Falls, which was about 9 miles or so up the canyon. I had two water bottles with me and I had already gone through my first one. It wasn't too hot, so in that respect yesterday was a nice day for riding, but it is very hard work and we were still both sweating a lot. Louie had brought only one bottle with him and had already finished it by this point. We kept riding and the grade continued on at a pretty steep grade. Louie, who had been racing on ahead for most of the morning was clearly beginning to struggle. A mile or so further up the road he said he was ready to throw in the towel for the day. He was getting a little dehydrated and it was taking a toll on him. I suggested he refill his water bottle from Boulder Creek which flows down the canyon. For the most part, the water should be pretty clean as it is all mountain runoff, but you're always taking a chance picking up something that won't agree with you. He agreed that it was a good idea and guzzled a bottle full and immediately felt much better. After this point, the grade of the climb decreased quite a bit as well, which we both were thankful for.

We made it to Nederland around 1:30 and stopped the little grocery store there for lunch. A half hour later we were back on the road beginning the rest of the climb to Ward. This was a much nicer stretch of road for riding on. The road was in great shape and there was much less traffic. Plus, once you get up on the Peak to Peak Hwy (hwy72) the scenery gets phenomenal. The Indian Peaks rose in front of us and to our left, recently dusted with fresh snow and the aspen trees were just beginning to change colors. In a few weeks they will be at their most brilliant. If there was a problem it was that we were already a little tired and this stretch of road has some pretty steep and sustained climbs on it also. Nederland is approx. 3000 feet in elevation above Boulder, and Ward is another 1000 feet above Nederland. Rather than being a solid 1000 ft climb, the Peak to Peak Hwy rolls quite a bit, so we got some short descents in there, but had to climb again and make up the altitude we had given up in the descents. This stretch of road was about 10 miles long and for my money is the nicest part of the ride.

The town of Ward is a funky little place, first settled in 1860 when gold was discovered in the area. This old mining town that thankfully doesn't see very much change from one year to the next. Currently the population sits at 169. Most of the buildings are from the old mining era, and there are rusting, broken down cars and trucks out in the yards representing every era since. There is one store that I know of, an old general store where an gray haired man was sitting on a chair outside on the wood sidewalk out front waiting for customers. The road through town is the upper entrance to Lefthand Canyon, although it isn't marked. Probably just as well, because that would inevitably lead to more traffic. This is my kind of place and I always enjoy passing through here.

For us yesterday, Ward represented our goal. From here on out it was almost all downhill back to Boulder. The grade out of town entering the canyon approaches 10 percent and we both hit about 45 mph going through here. Most of the rest of the descent through the canyon was more gradual, but a welcome change from the several hours of climbing we had endured to get to this point. Down near the bottom of the canyon we had the choice of either going straight, which would have led us back down to Hwy 36, or going right on the Old Stagecoach Road. We flipped a coin and the decision was to take the later. Hwy 36 would be a little longer ride, but with no climbing. The Stage road was a little shorter, but as we found out, it held the most wicked ascent of the day. The climb itself wasn't very long, but to make it to the top required a lot of getting up out of the saddle and cranking it out. Once we crested that rise, though, it was smooth sailing the rest of the way back to Boulder. According to my computer, I topped out at 51.7 miles per hour heading down the other side of the hill. For me this was a new top speed, the fastest I have ever gone on a bicycle.

Later that night Bree, Rachel and I met Louis, Fred and Justin out at Hooters for some beer and wings. It was Rachel's first time at Hooters and she seemed to like it just fine. We were sitting out on the deck overlooking Colorado Blvd, and while we were there a front moved in. The wind started blowing things things in off of the street and it began to rain. This came as a surprise because the whole time we had been out, we had nothing but nice weather.

Today Bree has class, so Rachel and I have been home spending the day together with the dogs. This is why I have had the time to write such a wordy blog entry. Rachel and I do fine together, but she does not like to take the bottle from me. So when she gets hungry, it causes some pretty major problems for us. I have tried different bottles, with different nipples, but for now she is being stubborn and only gets upset when I try to feed her. Bree was able to stop home for a half an hour over lunch and get some milk in the baby. Rach and I are hoping that tides her over for the next few hours so we don't have to get into it again with the bottle.

Brett Who?

A couple of nights ago on Monday night the Green Bay Packers beat the Minnesota Vikings on national television. By the time I got home from work, my daughter Rachel was already geared up and ready to watch the game. Bree and I had been getting her pumped up for her first Packer game for a few weeks now and she was chomping at the bit for kickoff. Since the game started at 5:00 locally, I had to rush home from work and still did not make it for the coin toss.

Although Rachel was had not yet been born when Brett Farve was still the quarterback for the Green Bay Packers, she was certainly privy to a lot of the drama surrounding his coming out of retirement and eventual trade to the New York Jets. While on the one hand she was disappointed that Brett started for another team over the weekend, her allegiances still lie with the Packers, that's not going to change.

Rachel fussed a lot during the first quarter of the game, when the Packers only first down came off of a forward fumble. When they pulled it together in the second quarter she had many smiles and seemed utterly pleased, although we could not be sure whether she was watching the game or was more focused on the Tiffany lamp in the corner. True to form, she fell asleep during half time and remained so for most of the second half waking up only occasionally and showing very little interest in what was going on on the TV.

The Packers ended up winning the game and we decided that this Arron Rogers kid might not be so bad after all.

Holiday in New Mexico

We just got done watching McCain's acceptance speech. Overall I thought it was a solid effort on his part. I've liked him for a long time, but nevertheless been struggling with actually being able to support him in this election. In the past few years he has lost some of my support and admiration through his kissing up to the Christian right wing of the Republican Party/Bush and his exceptionally weak stance on illegal immigration. While I thought Sarah Palin was great in the Van Halen Video, Hot For Teacher, back in the 80's, I'm pretty sure she isn't ready to be president should anything happen to McCain. And while I'm sure Cindy McCain is a great person and she seems to be a person who is willing to put her money where her mouth is when it comes to helping other people, she came off as plastic and syrupy in her speech and I had to change the channel.

But that's not why I am writing this evening. Thursday afternoon after I spent all day at an off-site meeting at the lovely Wilshire Inn here in Denver, Bree and the whole gang came down and picked me up and we drove down to Taos for Labor Day weekend. Thankfully we had a free place to stay that had been arranged for us by our friends John and Piper. The drive down went very well. For Rachel's first long car trip she performed admirably. We only made one stop at a gas station south of Pueblo for her to have a bite to eat. We were able to listen to most of Obama's speech on the radio, although when he was speaking we were making our way over La Veta Pass and had to switch radio stations a few times to try to maintain an intelligible signal.

We got to the little adobe two bedroom home on the northern outskirts of town around 10. The house had been left completely open by the owner who was out of town for the week. Spanish language music was playing rather loudly on the stereo when I stuck my head in and felt about for a light switch. It felt a little spooky in a way. When the dogs came in they both immediately smelled the cats and went about in a frenzied effort to locate their mortal enemies. We found one, a long haired orange tabby, cowering on top of a bookcase, clearly not interested in meeting our German Shepherd, Oscar. I put the cat outside after a while, as the cat's owner said that her cats were primarily outdoor cats and would do fine on their own for the weekend with the dogs in the house. I never saw the 2nd cat that was supposed to be there, and that was the last I saw of the orange one. I hope they are ok.

Everybody, including the dogs had a tough time getting to sleep that first night. There were paintings propped up against several of the walls and potted plants sitting on the floor. I think my wife and I were both concerned that our dogs would do damage to this woman's property. In the end things went smoothly, but from the way the dogs acted that first night, we never would have expected it.

The next morning, before John and Piper arrived, we went into town to walk around a bit. We stopped to share a sandwich at the Cafe Renato, which we later learned was the former site of the home of a local entrepeneur who whose decapitated corpse was found there after some failed business deal. There was WiFi avilable so I could contact John and let him know that the hideaway bed that I had thought would be in the living room and available to the kids had been replaced by something that was not suitable for sleeping on, even for a 5 year old. After a lite lunch we had a nice time walking around with Rachel who was riding comfortably in her new and overpriced Ergo Babycarrier.

Piper arrived with Evelyn and Lorelei a little after 5 while I was sitting outside and reading a copy of Slaughterhouse Five which I had found in one of the many bookcases. I've never read the book before although I know it is one of those books that I probably should have read at some point, preferably when I was in my early 20s. However, when the Wohlbier girls are up and about there isn't much time for reading anything, although I did get a thorough introduction to Hannah Montana. Sorry Kurt Vonnegut.

John came a short time later on his new BMW Dakar 650. He had taken the long road from Los Alamos through the hills and had a nice ride. He barely beat the rain when he arrived. It seemed storm clouds were closing in on both sides. We stayed up late that first night drinking Pabst and talking. We didn't have much dinner, so that left plenty of room for more beer. John stoked up a fire in a portable fire pit he had packed into the back of their car and we got to work polishing off the better part of a case of beer.

We all went downtown the next morning and walked around a small art festival. For us, the farmers market was much more interesting, though. There were actually several vendors there selling fresh vegetables, which is almost unheard of here in Denver where the local farmers markets are an excuse for businesses to get out and sell their fancy artesian breads, flavored pastas, jars of pesto and other wares of that nature. The market in Taos seemed to attract people from all over northern New Mexico, which of course is not exactly known for its produce, with the possible exception of peppers. I took the motorcycle out for a ride that afternoon and was riding up the long canyon toward the Taos Ski Area when it suddenly started to rain very hard. I wasn't surprised. The whole time I was riding up the canyon I was chasing an enormous rainbow silouetted against the backdrop of a large dark cloud. It was gorgeous and exillerating but since I am out of practice on a motorcycle I decided to turn around and head back. I felt really cool whenever I passed another biker coming in the opposite direction. The would always give a little underhanded wave off the handlebar. I tried to replicate it but I'm sure I looked awkward doing it. I was afraid they would pick me out as some sort of poser. That night we had dinner at the Outback Pizza restaurant which was very good, as well as being kid friendly.

The next morning John and I took off for the Wild Rivers Recreation area to do some hiking. This is an area on BLM land that has been set aside with several trails leading down into the deep canyons of the Red and Rio Grande Rivers. We took two short trails. The first of which we were along most of the time on. It descended steeply into the canyon from the rim on a rocky trail that didn't look like it had gotten a great deal of use. We had to thrash our way through some underbrush that had overgrown the trail at the bottom just to get down to the river. It was running quickly here and there was definitely a feeling of solitude down in the canyon. I even saw a small snake but was unable to catch it before it scooted back into the weeds. The next trail was the La Junta Trail, which had been billed as the toughest trail in the area. It dropped almost a thousand feet off the rim to a plateau before making its way down to the very confluence of the two rivers. The trail passed through an enormous boulderfield made up of giant basalt stones. We don't see as much basalt like this up here around Denver. It is a smooth, volcanic rock and is very slippery to walk on when it gets wet. I think we were both grateful for the chance to get out for a little while that morning and stretch our legs, but unfortunately Piper was having a bit of an issue with Evelyn and Lorelei and called John wondering when he would be back. We had already taken more time than we had expected so we hauled ass back up to the rim of the canyon, working up a serious sweat in the process.

She had asked us to stop for some milk and vegetable oil on the way back so we went into the small general store in the town of Cuesta. There are always a lot of rough looking characters around here when I drive through, which is usually at night. It is a small crossroads town that seems to attract weathered, heavy drinking men from all over for a night out in this very poor part of the country. At the only store, which was directly connected to a bar room, we had to ask where the milk was. There was a whole wall full of beer and wine, including a wide selection of my personal favorite, Boones Farm. The woman behind the counter invited us back later to do some partying with the locals, but I don't think either John or myself seriously considered the offer.

To give Piper a break from the kids I took her, Bree and Rachel into town so that they could walk around and do some shopping. It was actually very nice. There is a lot of interesting retail in Taos, if you are so inclined, as well as many fine art galleries. We spent a while at a coffee shop as well where we all, including Rachel, had something to drink.

Bree had a very tough time at dinner later. We were at the small brew pub in town and had ordered our meal a short time before when Rachel started screaming. After being perfectly good all day, she chose the time when Bree's food was being placed in front of her to let loose with a good hearty fuss. I felt bad and wanted to help, but there isn't too much that I can do. If anybody is going to calm Rachel down when she gets into a tizzy, it isn't me I'm afraid. Dinner was good, but hard to enjoy when my wife was feeling so absolutely frustrated.

On the drive home Bree agreed to take a more roundabout route back to Denver by going up through Chama. This ended up taking a lot longer than I had expected. The first part of the drive was amazing. We took Hwy 64 northwest from Tres Piedras through the national forest. For a long time we didn't even see another car. The scenery wasn't spectacular, but was nevertheless beautiful. We drove through rolling hills and forests. Large meadows opened up, some with ponds. It looked like great country for wildlife, although all we saw were some deer. In Chama we parked the car and walked around some. I really liked the town. It has a year round population of 1200 and had a good small, mountain town flavor. It does draw a lot of tourists in the summer months though with good fly fishing and its being the terminus of the Chama Toltec Railroad, which is one of a few old narrow gauge railroads that still runs the old coal fired steam engines for tourists and train freaks.

One woman I talked to in town who was running a small gift shop was from Milwaukee. She informed me that they had gotten 180 inches of snow last winter. The snow caved in the roof of the town's only grocery store and ever since everybody has to make the 50 mile drive up to Pagosa Springs to lay in supplies. Another woman told me that the company that owned the grocery store had told them that they would have another one up and running by September 15th. She was skeptical though, and went in to great detail explaining to me why. For one, she said that they hadn't even laid the foundation for the new building yet, much less anything else, so how were they going to get this thing built and stocked in time to open in 14 days. I had to agree that I thought in unlikely that they would make the deadline. "Well" she said, "I wish they would just tell us one way or another and stop stringing us along. We just want to know the truth so we can make plans." The woman was clearly trying to strategize on how she and her husband were going to make it through this coming winter and wanted plenty of lead time.

After 10 hours of driving we made it home. All of us were very tired, and I had to go to work the next morning. Back to the boring old grind. It was good to be out on the road.