Just two days ahead of setting a new record for the latest "first snowfall of the season" in Denver, we woke up to a white backyard this morning.

Snow is serious business here. An editorial—an editorial, not just an op-ed piece—in yesterday's Denver Post gave us something else to worry about other than the global financial crisis, the Iraq war, and whether there will be any jobs for newly minted JDs when Patrick graduates next month. The headline read "Little snow, quick lifts create chaos on slopes," adding the ominous subhead: "With resorts opening earlier and thousands of skiers urged to use one or two runs, dangerous situations are likely to result."

Although, as the editorial further observed, "Dude, we totally don't want to look like wussies," it was a relief to see real—as opposed to machine-made—white stuff sticking to the Front Range even after it vanished from our yard. Moving from the gentle slopes of the northern Lower Peninsula to skiing the Rockies is going to be challenging enough without having to worry about getting run over by a cast of thousands.

The combination of angry autumn sky and forbidding peaks reminds me of "Lord of Rings." If you click on the photo to enlarge it, you can even see what appears to be a castle turret rising on the far left side of this range, which is between Arvada and Boulder.

One of the things that I love about Colorado are the ubiquitous "Share the Road" signs, reminding drivers and cyclists to play nice with each other. (We could have used a few of those signs in Brussels, although I suspect that the Belgians would have ignored them.)

Hikers, cyclists, and horse riders also share many of the dirt and paved trails out here, generally with good humor and manners worthy of 18th century European aristocrats. ("You first." "No, no, you. Please, I insist." "Why, thank you. Enjoy this beautiful day.")

When we hike at the base of the mountains, as we did yesterday, we sometimes see signs such as this one:

Which is how we found ourselves sharing the trail--which, after all, crossed their grazing lands--with a small herd of cattle. Hana completely ignored the cows--even the huge black one, who trotted right out in front of the dog's nose--and they paid no attention to her. Apparently even the livestock in Colorado are easygoing about sharing open space.

On a related note: Hana and I recently spotted some livestock just off the paved trail that winds through our neighborhood. I had to rub my eyes to make sure I wasn't hallucinating, but sure enough, there they were, a trio that I can't stop thinking of as "Llamas for Obama."

Being flatlanders, we were awestruck by the tiny figures inching up the canyon walls. (When the only thing you ever "climbed" in Michigan was Sleeping Bear Dune, and your two-year-old son went up and down it twice in one morning, you realize that there is climbing, and there is CLIMBING.)

Eldorado Canyon also offers a bit of historical color. In the early 20th century, a luxury hotel perched at the edge of one of the cliffs. Although Crags Hotel burned to the ground less than five years after it opened, you can still see the skeleton of the main fireplace. You'll also see a lot of hikers standing around that fireplace scratching their heads, trying to figure out how anyone ever managed to haul guests and their luggage, much less building supplies, up the mountain.

More pictures from Eldorado Canyon:
http://picasaweb.google.com/Katharine.Gillette/EldoradoCanyon

Color season is a week or two behind schedule this year, or so the locals say. But if the occasional impatient leaf is any indication, it's going to be glorious.

and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

August 16, I-25 between Denver and Loveland:
Two days of precipitation and falling temperatures
led to fresh snow in the Rockies.

This little pug mix has the worst underbite I've ever seen--
he looks this way even with his mouth closed.
Because he's a dog, his looks don't get in the way of his stellar personality.
Humans should be so lucky.
(Photo: TMAC)

. . . as it was yesterday. Actually, this is what I've been doing for the last 22 days of 90+ degree temperatures in a house with four ceiling fans and no AC.

1. Lie directly below a ceiling fan in boxer shorts and a camisole and read. Favorites? The Used World by Haven Kimmel. Grace (Eventually) by Anne Lamott. Moscow Rules by Daniel Silva. Forward From Here by Reeve Lindbergh. What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman.

2. Go to the movies. Theaters always have air conditioning. In the past two weeks, I've seen four movies. My favorite was "Wall-E," but I liked "The Dark Knight" and the new X-Files movie, too. Thumbs down on "Swing Vote," though. Tomorrow: "Mama Mia."

3. Get some culture, preferably free or cheap. Seeing Daniel Silva at The Tattered Cover and Eilen Ivers at Lincoln Center (Fort Collins, not NYC) were heatwave highlights.

4. Hit the end-of-summer sales. Like theaters, retailers always have air conditioning. I picked up two tops, a dress, a pair of capris, and a skirt at Dillard's (much nicer than Macy's) for $106, total. All "Famous Names," too, as the ads always say. The dress alone was originally priced at $134. I swooned with joy.

5. Head to the mountains for a hike, and get caught in what folks around here refer to as a monsoon, making me feel like I'm living in southeast Asia.

We drove up to Indian Peaks today when it was 98 degrees here in the foothills. At 10,000-plus feet, it was only 84 degrees on the CRV's digital thermometer. When we got back to the car after a two-hour hike, the last hour of which was in a brutal rain and hail storm without our ponchos (The Stupids Go Hiking), it was 48 degrees and my fingers were turning blue. Three hours later, Hana is still slightly damp, since she couldn't change into something a little drier when we got home. But we are all a lot cooler.

Indian Peaks, pre-monsoon

Mother and baby, Chimney Gulch Trail

Cecropia moth caterpillar, Chimney Gulch Trail

Colorado Dragon Boat Festival, Sloan's Lake Park

Dragonboater's version of "Just do it!"

I once read that the Irish love to talk about the weather. (I also once read that the Irish don't take well to psychotherapy, because they would rather talk about anything other than how they "really feel" about personal matters. Hence their attraction to weather as a topic of conversation.)

According to a genealogy project my Dad helped me do in grade school, I'm 7/16 Irish, which may explain why I feel compelled to share this item from today's Denver Post:

If Denver's heat wave holds on for three more days, the city will smash a 19th century record. In 1874 and again in 1901, Denver braved 18 consecutive days in which temperatures reached or surpassed 90 degrees.

Fortunately for record watchers - and unfortunately for relief-seekers - the week's forecast is flush with 90-plus degree temps.

What the article doesn't mention is that since June 1, we've had 31 non-consecutive days with highs in the 90s; on July 20, it was 100 degrees . . .

With today's temps predicted to top out around 100 degrees, it was too hot for hiking. Instead, we loaded our two-person kayak on the CRV and headed 40 minutes northwest to Garrison Reservoir. Since we kayaked only once while living in Belgium, we were very, very happy to take up our paddles again.

Aspen looks pretty much like any cute, upscale tourist town in a picturesque area. (Think Harbor Springs on steroids, all you Michiganders.) I didn't take many pictures there, except at the John Denver Sanctuary, which is actually one of the more interesting memorials I've ever seen. (Stop gagging and snorting, Jude!) There's no statue, just the lyrics to a few John Denver songs engraved on boulders arranged in a semi-circle near a fast-running river. Our friend Gayle, who's a music therapist, couldn't help singing a few bars here and there . . .


Actually, unless you're a photographer for People magazine during ski season or attending the Music Festival (Emanuel Ax was amazing), what's near Aspen is more interesting than what's in Aspen. Ashcroft is a tiny ghost town left over from Colorado's mining boom. The Historical Society has fine guided tours of this remote spot. The tour's cost ($3) is less than we paid for a gallon of gas ($5.30) in Aspen.


You can also designate a fearless driver to take you up to Independence Pass so that you can admire the Continental Divide. (Blood members of the Gillette family are handy to have around in such situations, since they were all born with teeny-tiny "No Fear" tattoos on their foreheads.) Parts of the two-lane road to the pass are so narrow that the highway department doesn't even bother painting a yellow line down the middle. If two big SUVS are facing off on this section of road, they have to treat it as one lane and take turns, because shoulders don't exist: Depending on which side of the road you're travelling, if you move a few inches to one side, you will either crash into the vertical cliff looming above you or fly off the mountainside.


More photos from the Aspen area: http://picasaweb.google.com/Katharine.Gillette/Aspen

What does $300 buy in Aspen? Not much, apparently, at least if we're talking hotel rooms.

I was late in booking a room in Aspen for this past weekend, when we went to visit Tim and Gayle, our friends and former neighbors from Cleveland Heights. They were in town for a week while Tim worked for the Aspen Music Festival and School doing on-site repair of woodwind instruments.

Our hotel was in the center of Aspen, near the spot where Tim and Gayle were staying. When we stopped at the front desk to register, we were informed that there would be a $26 per night additional fee for parking. $300 a night, and I have to pay for parking? (We were offered the option of taking ourselves over to the Aspen Parking Department and purchasing a $7 day pass to park on any city street. If we could find a parking space.)

Our room wasn't ready--in all fairness, it was only noon--so the clerk offered us an "upgrade" for the same price. The "upgrade" was on the second floor, right around the corner from the elevator. The room did have a king-sized bed, which we had requested. It also had a balcony with a view of an alley; a tiny bathroom with no fan and a tub shorter than those in most Days Inns; and a weird decor that was ski lodge architecture--low, oak-beamed ceilings and oak woodwork everywhere--paired with Eurotrash furnishings. Highlights included an all-Formica, Cubist-looking bedside table; a chrome desk chair with a faux white leather seat; and a fake (and fake-looking) fur throw that, a sign informed us, we could purchase for $400. (I think that our friend Marianne may have paid less for one of her real furs at Jacobson's going-out-of business sale a few years back.) The carpeting was a zebra print. Animal print--one zebra, one cheetah--robes hung in the closet for our use, as well as two pairs of fuzzy blue--one pale, one navy--slipper socks designed, I guess, to enhance our chic quotient when we slipped into the robes.

The oddest part of the decor was a minibar with a glass display case on top, sort of like a curio table on top of a dorm refrigerator. In addition to cans of peanuts, bags of M&Ms, and a tin of Altoids, the display case held 1) an "Intimacy Kit" with condoms, lubricant, and "obstetrical wipes;" 2) a playing card-sized box with "Kama Sutra" oils and a vaguely Indian painting of a happy couple on its cover; and 3) a pair of velvet handcuffs. Suddenly the ski lodge/Eurotrash room added a third school of decorating: Truck Stop.

Frankly, our $100-a-night hotel room at the newly remodeled Holiday Inn in Ogallala, Nebraska, where we were stranded by a ferocious spring snowstorm during our move to Colorado, was bigger and more tastefully decorated.

And the parking was free.

Late last night, we heard godawful noises outside. One sound was familiar from our days as cat owners, when our young, slim, calico Goldberry whupped the two fat (literally) cats next door, Bert and Ernie. The other sound was totally unfamiliar.

When we went out front to have a look, there, across the street, was our neighbor's black and white cat, hissing loudly and puffed up as big as one of those red rubber balls used for dodgeball in grade school. Facing off with her was a coyote. Jim started yelling, "Shoo, shoo," and waving his arms wildly. The coyote glanced at him briefly and returned its focus to the cat. Finally Jim took his arm waving routine to the street, jogging up and down, still yelling at the coyote. After a few minutes, the coyote gave up and loped slowly west (of course) down the street.

We stood and watched the big animal until we were sure that he was well on his way. Meanwhile, the cat continued with the pufferfish imitation and non-stop hissing, no doubt convinced, in the way of all felines, that she had scared off that vicious wild animal.

Given the price of gas, we were thrilled to discover White Ranch Park, just 20 minutes from home. From it, we could see downtown Denver (below), and, with binoculars, the distinctive roof of the Denver International Airport, which is about 35 miles away.

And it wasn't all about the panoramic views. Recent rains finally brought out a dizzing array of wildflowers.






High above the ranches in the foothills, a lone white horse grazed, like a creature from a fairy tale.

On an unseasonably hot Sunday morning, we hiked at Pella Crossing, near the town of Hygiene, once the home of a TB sanitarium. The "lakes" promised in our hiking guide proved to be smallish ponds (at least to our Great Lakes State eyes), but the view of Long's Peak, the only "fourteener"* in Rocky Mountain National Park, made up for the lack of scenery on the ground.

*"Fourteener" is a mountaineering term for peaks above 14,000 feet.

Front page news from today's Denver Post:

[Colorado] Republican Senate candidate Bob Schaffer unofficially launched his campaign Wednesday with a biographical spot he was forced to pull almost immediately because the image in the ad of Pikes Peak--where he proposed to his wife--turned out to be Mount McKinley in, well, Alaska.
. . .
"To Schaffer, who came here from Ohio, all mountains probably look the same . . ." penned Michael Huttner, director of ProgressActionNow.org.

Walking our pack o' hounds at Michigan's Maybury State Park, we'd snort with laughter when we saw perfectly able-bodied people using trekking poles to traverse the flat, small (1,000 acres) park. "Must be training for Everest," we'd snicker.

Flash forward to Mother's Day 2008 in Rocky Mountain National Park: If someone had been hawking trekking poles on the trail to Dream Lake, we'd have overpaid for them in an instant.

We're still getting acclimated to the Colorado weather and topography. Temperatures swing 30-40 degrees from one day to the next. Even though we can see the snow on the biggest peaks from here in Arvada, well, I guessed we thought we wouldn't be up that high any time soon.

Things were pretty dry in the foothills of the park, where the mule deer, looking bedraggled in the transition from winter to summer coats, were grazing. Tourists were jumping out of their SUVs in T-shirts.

We'd decided to hike in to Dream Lake, elevation 9,900 feet. It's apparently a popular trail in the summer, but on Sunday, most tourists pulled up to the trailhead, saw the snowpack, and opted to just walk the few hundred feet to Bear Lake for their photo ops. (Note: Many tourists weren't dressed even for summer hiking; in the windy trailhead parking lot, one middle-aged woman with an updo kept moaning, "I just know I'm going to lose my hairpiece . . .")

Gillettes are hardy souls, though, and, by God, if, in the comfort of the foothills, we said were going to hike to Dream Lake, then we would do it, snowpack or no snowpack. The views were more than worth the effort. But trekking poles don't look nearly so silly in the Rockies as they do in suburban Detroit and would have made the going easier on the narrow spots with steep drop-offs. And those cool, high-tech snow shoes might have kept me from stepping knee-deep in snow when I moved aside to let some climbers pass us. I'm not sure we'll be pairing snow shoes with shorts, though, as one young fashion-conscious couple we passed did.

After living among the wondrous architectural diversity of Ixelles, it's been incredibly depressing to return to endless suburbs of identical homes and ubiquitous strip malls.

Fortunately for my sanity, the absence of man-made beauty is offset by natural beauty that is ridiculously easy to come by. The Denver metro area is blessed with miles of interconnecting trails through its urban neighborhoods and suburbs; the trails are bordered by green space, some of it substantial. We're two blocks from the Ralston Creek Trail. In our neighborhood, the creek opens into a small pond that attracts the usual mallards and Canadian geese, as well as more exotic passersby. A lone female bufflehead recently spent a few days there, looking like a stuffed toy among the bigger mallards. At dusk last night, a huge northern goshawk made us jump when it landed in a tree right in front of us as we were walking Hana. (We told her that the hawk had targeted her for dinner.)

For serious hiking, we can be in the Flatirons in less than half an hour. We haven't managed to spot a whole lot of wildlife there yet, although the Black Angus babies tottering around the nearby grazing fields on their spindly legs are way too adorable to end up as hamburger. At least the wildflowers are beginning to show themselves in the Flatirons, like this early--and, as of Sunday, only--bloomer in a huge field of wild iris, plants that are perfect miniatures of the iris in my Northville garden.