Covered in Snow - Rockies Route 285

Sites along northbound Highway 285

It is amazing how it can snow in the Rocky Mountains, and by late-morning on a sunny day, the road conditions can be back to bare pavement. I drove from Monte Vista back to Fort Collins via Highway 285, and made quick stops to specifically catch photographs of hawks, a few other birds, and Mule Deer and Rocky Mountain Elk. Snow covered everything in northern San Luis Valley through South Park and the rest of the way to Denver. Over the five hours of driving it was easy to see the upper reaches of the Rio Grande, Arkansas, and the South Platte 

More Highway 285 views

Rivers. Colorado is the high ground from the middle of the continent, and many waters flow out of here. The only song birds I saw were two Dark-eyed Juncos, the rest, larger birds like the hawks, one Common Raven, numerous American Crow, and the occasional Black-billed Magpies that crossed over the highway in front of me, and one in a thicket of trees who wouldn't let me get close of a clear picture, but gave calls from its perch. It is a curious phenom that these animals can survive in this environments. Along the way toward the upper end of the San Luis Valley, water was being released from a well to a creek, and Mallard Ducks were making the best of single digit temperatures with snow on the banks.

Rough-legged Hawk

American Crow against the mountain

Red-tailed Hawk

Ferruginous Hawk

Common Raven

Mule Deer

Black-billed Magpie

Mallard Ducks

Long Southern Colorado Drive - Highway 160

Mount Mestas (R) and Rough Mountain

It was a long drive to Buena Vista today, but I love seeing the different views of Colorado. Fort Collins to Denver, Denver to Pueblo, Pueblo to Walsenburg, Walsenburg to Alamosa, and then Buena Vista. Highway 160 up over North La Veta Pass at 9,300 feet elevation, and down into the San Luis Valley. Southern Colorado Rockie Mountains - Spanish Peaks covered with clouds and snow, as is most of the ground - it is still over 7,300 feet here in Alamosa. When coming up the east side of the pass, a Black-billed Magpie cruised by the opposite direction parallel to the ground with the blanketed white hill slope with snowed-covered trees as background contrast - a perfect photograph in my mind, and if I could paint, it would be staged like one of those Judy Leach hidden horse scenes with Indian ponies camouflaged by their background.

Calvillo's Restaurant

There are not many towns along the way from Walsenburg to Alamosa - watch out for the unmarked police cars in the few towns that are: Fort Garland and Blanca - pay attention to the 35 mph signs that punctuate the otherwise 65 mph highway speed. Alamosa is worth the journey just to sample Calvillo's Mexican Restaurant - many reviews, four stars. Their rojo sauce has a smoky flavor, similar to what I have tasted at a new restaurant we tried and liked in Fort Collins - maybe this is a Colorado style different than we have had in Oregon and Maryland.

PDX Enroute Stop - Coffee People Choice

Second Third Place

Starbucks is my favorite Third Place of choice - if I am to use one - but the Coffee People at the entrance to Concourse E at PDX is the most available watering hole when flying on United Airlines (my preferred carrier for frequent flying miles membership). My regular choice: Cafe Mocha Decaf with whipped cream (that sounds like a line out of You've Got Mail (1) - staged in New York City, but where Starbucks has penetrated the metropolitan giant with small pieces of the Pacific Northwest coffee culture that  sustains residents there through the ten continuous months of cloudy weather and rain).

Customized cafe mocha decaf

For health regulations, the concoction has to be handed over to the customer in a paper cup with the generic, non-biodegradable cap in place, upon which receiving I put on the generic brown paper sleeve to serve as a heat insulator, step over to the service bar where the nutmeg, cinnamon, and chocolate shakers are available for customers like me to custom adulterate the hot drink by sprinkling the spices on top of the crushed whipped cream, to then carefully reattach the non-biodegradable cap, and then gather up my carry-on bags and waddle my way to my gate carrying everything and thinking about that first sip of my coffee drink.
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(1) Line from You've Got Mail when Joe Fox says: "The whole purpose of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee. Short, tall, light, dark, caf, decaf, low-fat, non-fat, etc. So people who don’t know what the hell they’re doing or who on earth they are can, for only $2.95, get not just a cup of coffee but an absolutely defining sense of self: Tall. Decaf. Cappuccino." A book is specifically written about Starbucks culture in America that draws commentary by newspaper columnists, not unlike what the Frank Navsky character would write in the movie.

Arena Lullaby - Cowboys and Hoops

Arena's jumbotron

The sights and sounds at the National Great Western Stock Show's rodeo are familiar as any other large gathering, but different. Big crowds, lots of moms and dads with kids, but with a western flavor: boots, hats, livestock themes, bar-b-que - this is Denver, Colorado, not Annapolis, Maryland. The indoor rodeo is like any other sports event held within a large arena with spectators sitting in fold-up seats, the row numbers marked on the aisle seats along the ascending concrete steps that lead up to the nose bleed sections at the top. A jumbotron crowns the central ceiling area above the dirt-filled ring - a similar substitute that is not all that different than he scoreboard in Moda Center in the Portland Rose Quarter where hardwood planks cover the arena where the NBA Trail Blazers run back and forth between the rims identified with numbers on their jerseys, in contrast to the horses, bulls, and steers that are pursued by cowboys with similar goals as the agile leapers playing round ball with their desires to win their competitions, but with numbers pinned to the backs of their long-sleeved western-style shirts.

The pavilion where the rodeo is housed is a long ways from the range, and even Denver, the city on the edge of the Great Plains, has intrinsic aspects that are many degrees of separation away from its livestock heritage, just as the singer of a modern cowboy lullaby sung in distant Massachusetts - dreams of moonlight lady fairies, snow-covered turnpikes, and glasses of beer. Maybe J.T. will sing this song when he appears May 30th at the Moda Center.

Competitors - horse and man

Sweet Baby James by James Taylor

Well, there is a young cowboy he lives on the range
His horse and his cattle are his only companions
He works in the saddle and he sleeps in the canyons
Just waiting for Summer, his pastures to change

And as the moon rises he sits by his fire
Thinking about women and glasses of beer
And closing his eyes as the dogies retire
He sings out a song which is soft but it's clear
As if maybe someone could hear

(Chorus)
Goodnight you moonlight ladies
Rockabye sweet baby James
Deep greens and blues are the colors I choose
Won't you let me go down in my dreams
And rockabye sweet baby James

Now the first of December was covered with snow
And so was the turnpike from Stockbridge to Boston
Though the Berkshires seemed dream-like on account of that frosting
With ten miles behind me and ten thousand more to go

There's a song that they sing when they take to the highway
A song that they sing when they take to the sea
A song that they sing of their home in the sky
Maybe you can believe it if it helps you to sleep
But singing works just fine for me

- Chorus -
So, Goodnight you moonlight ladies
Rockabye sweet baby James
Deep greens and blues are the colors I choose
Won't you let me go down in my dreams
And rockabye sweet baby James

January Silent Night

As for winter, Northern Colorado is not Oregon, and it is not Maryland. Regular temperatures in the teens or lower at night, with wild swings as much as 40 or 50 degrees greater during the day. Having significant amounts of snow still on the ground when the next storm comes is a new experience as well, but not needing studded tires and a relative lack of lost traction when driving around town is novel as well. When the snow falls at night, there is a silence around us, and the build-up on tree branches, lawns, roads, and houses carries on with the layers of blankets over the landscape.

Picea pungens to the right, Kinkade left

I took a picture last night from our second floor landing looking out our the upper living room windows at the house on the corner across the street where the lit window glows like in a Thomas Kinkade painting. I always look at that window when I head upstairs to bed, and with the beginning of the accumulation of snow on our Colorado Spruce tree in the front yard, I thought about the beginning of the Night Before Christmas poem by Clement Clarke Moore, just that January 30th isn't Christmas Eve.

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'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse; the stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds, while visions of sugarplums danced in their heads; and mamma in her kerchief, and I in my cap, had just settled our brains for a long winter nap; when out on the law there arose such a clatter, I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter. Away to the window I flew like a flash, tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

The moon, on the breast of the new-fallen snow, gave a luster of midday to objects below, when, what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer, with a little old driver so lively and quick, I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.

More rapid than eagles his courses they came, and he whistled and shouted and called them by name: "Now, Dasher! Now, Dancer! Now, Prancer and Vixen! On, Comet! On, Cupid! On, Donner and Blitzen! To the top of the porch, to the top of the wall, now, dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!"

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly, when they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky, so up to the housetop the coursers they flew, with the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too. And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof the prancing and pawing of each little hoof. As I drew in my head, and was turning around, down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound. 

He was dressed all in fur from his head to his foot, and his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot; a bundle of toys he had flung on his back, and he looked like a peddler  just opening his pack. His eyes- how they twinkled! His dimples-- how merry! His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry. His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow, and the beard on his chin was as white as the snow.

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth, and the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath. He had a broad face and a little round belly that shook when he laughed like a bowlfull of jelly. He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf, and I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself.

A wink of his eye and a twist of his head soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread. He spoke not a word, but went straight t his work, and filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk. Laying his finger aside of his nose, and giving a nod, up the chimney he rose. He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle, and away they all flew like the down of a thistle. But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight…

"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!"

Linn's Restaurant - Eye Candy

An eye-catching tapestry

My folks' favorite restaurant in Cambria is Linn's. They frequent there so much, that when we showed up on the first Friday of the new year without a reservation, no problem, we were shown right to a table. A tapestry (1) on the wall across from where I was sitting caught my eye the three times in four days we ate at Linn's. The glass work in the cafe area was appealing as well. Check out the menu for Linn's by clicking here.

View of old Cambria

The faux-Spanish images made of cloth seems almost like something you may have seen in Hearst Castle - the mansion of William Randolph Hearst that is just a dozen mile further up California Highway 1 at San Simeon. An old postcard of Cambria looking down the street where my folks' house is now on the left near the bottom of the hill shows what the town looked like earlier in the last century when the Spanish-looking estate was being built. The print below hangs on their wall near the kitchen - a gift from my sister-in-law, a Cambria native.
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(1) The tapestry is Lady with A Fan by Austrian born artist Gustav Klimt. I think the price tag at Linn's was for nearly $300. A Google search showed a number of sources for the same tapestry ranging from $57.99 to $209.99 - ah, retail mark-up.

Winter Farmers Market - Cambria

It is remarkable that you can attend a full selection farmers market in January. The Central California Coast affords mild weather, and I was surprised when my folks said they wanted to go to farmers market to get dinner - Linn's Restaurant barbeque. There are additional benefits when vacationing with parents that are averaging 90 years of age - disabled person's parking privileges. As it turned out, we found an available parking spot right at the market entrance, and not have to flex our option. Following are some views of the products at the Cambria Farmers Market - many colors, textures, and you can imagine the scents and sounds - a varying year-round, twelve-month experience.

Onion - Allium cepa

Citrus - Citrus × sinensis

Tomato - Solanum lycopersicum

Date of a Palm - Phoenix dactylifera

Date - close up

Persimmon - Diospyros kaki

Lettuce - Lactuca sativa

Squash - Cucurbita maxima

Table beets - Beta vulgaris

Olive products - Olea europaea

Salsas and tamales - Comer bien

Linn's Meals to Go Bar-B-Que