For the past month, all we've heard people talk about are the changing colors of the aspen trees. I-70 has been jammed to the gills on weekends, because all the locals keep heading up to the mountains to see the aspens. On Monday, Bruce and I decided to go on a hiking trip to Frisco. Not San Francisco, California... Frisco, Colorado, also nicknamed the "Main Street of the Rockies, because it sits right in the middle of several popular ski areas. And I'll have to admit that on the drive up, the leaves were gorgeous - very bright yellow against the dark green pines.
Frisco is a cute little town with lots of quirky shops. We stopped for lunch at a German beer garden. Their menu was very simple consisting mostly of sausage sandwiches and huge pretzels. But they had a wide selection of German beers. The only thing better would have been if we were actually sitting in Germany drinking it.
This week, you'd think all I did was follow Bruce around taking pictures. Our pendant lights for the kitchen island finally showed up (I ordered them over a month ago). It seemed like a fairly straightforward fixture from the pictures on Wayfair, but they turned out to be quite complicated to install, especially since the contractor warned us not to stand on the granite countertop. Luckily Bruce has long arms, so he could reach over the ladder to install them.
On Thursday, I got a flu shot and Bruce got a COVID booster up at CVS. I think Colorado is up to a 78% vaccination rate. It would be nice if the other 22% would suck it up and get their shots so we could be done with this pandemic.
On Saturday, Bruce and I went to the neighborhood chili cookoff and pumpkin festival. There were a ton of pumpkins for kids to decorate, but only one person brought up a crockpot of chili (I'm assuming they won the contest). I thought about taking one of the leftover pumpkins home, but since we walked, we would have had to carry it several blocks (and those pumpkins were huge - most of the parents brought their little red wagons to haul the pumpkins home).
There was a really good blues band playing during the afternoon, but they were struggling to keep their instruments tuned in the high winds. The lead singer said he was having trouble singing the "sultry" notes like Ray Charles with the wind blowing his voice back in his face.
Walking back home through the "family side" of the neighborhood looked very different from the "over-55 side." In our side, I've seen a few pumpkins and a concrete turtle or gnome, but on the family side all the yards are decorated up for Halloween with skeletons, mummies, spider webs, and gravestones.
This week we had a good turnout for our weekly bike ride, though only 2 of us were on "real" bikes. All the rest had e-bikes (electric). You can always tell the difference between the 2 types of riders, because people peddling real bikes are bent over the handlebars (especially when going uphill), while e-bikers are sitting up straight just peddling enough to keep the motor running.
One of the things I really like about our back deck is you can see the sunrise. We never could see it well in St Louis, because of all the trees. The only thing I don't like about it these days is that the sun is coming up later and later. Luckily it's almost time for Daylight Savings to go off.
