This n That

How's your January going? 

I was booting up my laptop to write this blog and up came the image selected by Microsoft that changes periodically showing me all the beautiful and spectacular landscapes from around the world that I'd like to visit. Today's photo featured a scene from Patagonia highlighting mountains and glaciers. Here in Colorado we have both of those things (though sadly fewer and fewer of the latter) but still the scene reminded me that I and my better half were supposed to be journeying far, far to the south at about this time to another land of ice and snow, mountains and glaciers, and even the occasional penguin thrown in for good measure. Yup, we were supposed to be freezing our tuckuses off in the far off continent of Antarctica. Passage had been booked with the good folks at Norwegian Cruise Lines (they really are very nice people - lord knows we've had enough conversations booking, rescheduling, and sadly, cancelling several cruises to know what wonderful people they are). Back in October (2021) we had cancelled our trip of a lifetime to that frozen clime due to concerns around COVID. More specifically our Port of Embarkation, Buenos Aires, Argentina, was being persnickety about not letting foreigners into their beautiful country out of an abundance of caution regarding that virus we've all come to know and love.

Unable to head south to practice our Spanish and Penguinese we opted to book a bicycle trip to Florida where we would tour the Florida Keys from Key Largo to Key West. I know, I know - Florida the sometime viral Capital of the U.S., really? What were we thinking? Well, when we booked the trip Omicron was still just the obscure 15th letter of the Greek alphabet and NOT the viral gangbuster it has since turned out to be. Things had appeared to be returning to whatever the new normal is (if you've figured THAT out let me know) and we felt what safer place could there be than on a bicycle pedaling through the fresh, and hopefully warm, January sea air along the southernmost leg of U.S. Highway 1, also known as the "Overseas Highway". 

And then, OMG, Omicron entered our vocabulary and yes, the east coast and Florida specifically regained their claim to fame as THE place to go if you wanted to experience this especially virulent, but thankfully less severe strain of good ole' C-19. The tour director reached out to let us know they were still planning on running the tour but with some new conditions: COVID tests when we checked in, daily temperature checks, no group meals or get-togethers, none of the planned excursions (visiting turtles, saying "Hi" to Flipper, glassbottom boats, etc.) and oh, by the way, if you came down with COVID you'd not only be asked to immediately leave the tour (as Shakespeare would say - "Post Haste") but be on your own to figure out how to get yourself back home. Visions of me and my sweetie (yes, Valentines is only days away!) standing on the side of the "Overseas Highway" suitcases in hand and thumbs extended came merrily to mind. Now if this doesn't sound like a great trip I don't know my Omicron from my Epsilon (the fifth letter.... well, you get the idea).

So we reached out and told the tour director, who was very nice (we're having so many nice conversations with so many nice people!) and said, unless we were mistaken, this didn't sound like the definition of FUN we had envisioned and that given all the new caveats and conditions we'd take a pass.  Which is why I'm sitting in Denver (Littleton actually) looking out at the snow that fell a day ago. Granted the sun is shining and the temps are climbing but palm trees and daiquiris on the beach it is not. I'd much prefer to be writing this from the comfort of a poolside lounge chair as the wind rustles through the hair I still have left, but hey, we play the cards we're dealt. 

To kind of bring this full circle, I just read this morning that the cruise ship we were on (the Norwegian GEM) when we Bon Voyaged from New York to San Francisco via the Panama Canal in 2020 just had to cancel a cruise mid-passage and was returning with several thousand disappointed travelers to whence they had set out (New York) due to an outbreak of sickness onboard that prevented them from docking at several Caribbean countries they had planned on visiting. Sounds dishearteningly familiar yet sadly unsurprising. At least they'll have the opportunity to speak with some of the very, very nice people at NCL that I spoke of earlier. As for me, the mention of the Norwegian GEM still brings back wonderful and unforgettable memories from a pre-COVID world so perhaps I'll take some time to revisit some of the videos we took during that glorious trip where mention of mask mandates, social distancing, and vaccinations were still the stuff of science fiction. Except for hand washing, or as they say in the cruise ship biz "Washy, Washy!"

I'll repost the first video from that trip below in case you're looking for a dose of shipboard fun in the sun. Just mix up your favorite umbrella drink, sit back and enjoy! And no, not a single Penguin to be found...

And if you're more the reading type just click here to see some of the accompanying blogs from that trip. Aaah, those were the days...

Welcome to 2022!

Probably not a lot of folks sad to see 2021 fade into the history books. 2022, as does every New Year, offers a chance at new beginnings, a proverbial blank slate on which to etch the moments of life.

Along the Front Range of Colorado 2021 certainly left its mark on its way out the door. As the Denver Post today proclaimed in one of their stories, climate change met population boom with disastrous results.

The weather forecasts on the night of December 29th had warned of high winds along the Eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains but that in and of itself was not unusual. High winds here are not an unusual occurrence - they even have a name: Chinook winds. Generally they bring warmer temperatures to lower elevations and such was the case as Wednesday would see temps climbing into the 50's in Denver despite the calendar saying it was December and Christmas only five days removed. 

Thursday dawned clear and sunny and yes, breezy. The Denver area had not seen a white Christmas and the period from July through December had proven to be one of the driest on record with the metro area having received only an inch or so of precipitation for all those months. During breakfast my weather station was indicating barometric pressure of 29.44 which is relatively low and was supportive of the previous night's forecasts of strong winds. My wife and I discussed what we wanted to do for the day and since the temp's were relatively mild decided to take our two pups out for a walk. Given the wind forecast we decided to head to Bear Creek Lake Park a couple of miles away as it offers fairly sheltered walking through the trees. Unbeknownst to us, the combination of record dry conditions and exceptionally strong winds would result in the most destructive wildfires in Colorado history.

Driving north along C-470, the western part of Denver's circumferential highway, the winds were starting to howl and the minivan was being pushed all over the road. Big rigs and semitrucks were already slowing to a crawl and it wasn't more than a couple of minutes after we took the Morrison exit that the first truck was being blown onto its side bringing the highway to a standstill. 

Normally we start at the Skunk Hollow parking lot but I had a sense that given the winds the upper Big Soda lake might be something to see so we kept on going to the swim beach parking lot. The car was swaying from side to side in the wind as I parked and out on the lake the conditions took my breath away. Literally. Walking (more like staggering) to the concrete retaining walls around the beach the surface of the lake looked like it was boiling and it was indeed hard to breathe as the wind seemed to suck the air right out of your lungs. You could only face downwind as to look the other way was to get sandblasted. What seemed to be smoke turned out to be the surface of the lake vaporizing and carried high into the sky. Trees were swaying erratically in the strong winds and I thought to myself how fortunate it was that there were no leaves at this time of year or few limbs would be left. 

I hadn't set out to take pictures or make a video on this day but conditions were so extraordinary it wasn't long before I had my camera out trying to take as steady a shot as possible while leaning backward into the gale force winds and trying to catch my breath (Gale force winds are defined as between 32 and 63mph - a little further up the road north of Golden wind gusts of 115mph were being recorded). 

We quickly retreated to the relative shelter of the Cottonwood Trail. Even here it was eerie to hear the roar of the wind through the treetops. The dry prairie grasses were lying almost flat and as we walked occasional limbs, branches and other debris would tumble down from above. Clouds of flying dust flew overhead and to the north over Green Mountain we noticed a single solitary white cloud stationary against the azure blue of the Colorado winter sky. I remember wondering how any cloud could survive being shredded to bits in such horrendous wind conditions but it did, barely moving or changing shape through much of our early walk. 

As we followed the trail from Skunk Hollow several miles to Bear Creek Reservoir we alternated from the comparative safety of the trees to scrambling up and over small hillocks where we were quickly reminded and awed by how strong the wind was blowing. The waters of the reservoir, which sits in a normally sheltered depression, were in turmoil. Sections of the western shore were still frozen and in places geese were seeking shelter on the ice wherever they could find it. They were all pressed as flat as they could facing the same direction into the wind and you could see their flight feathers ruffling with every gust. It was amazing that they were not being blown backward off the ice into the lake but they remained in place. Farther out on the lake you could see random areas of calm which upon closer attention turned out to be sheets of ice that had separated from the shore and were on a perilous journey eventually to crash into the wave-tossed shoreline on the other side of the reservoir.

Making our way back the way we had come that same fluffy white cloud still hovered over Green Mountain. Only now there was an ominous dark billow beneath it streaming off to the east. It was at that point we began to realize that something was amiss. As we continued our walk it became evident that the dark billow was smoke and soon it stretched along much of the eastern horizon. Driving home the winds continued unabated and we passed several overblown trucks. One car had their Yakima roof container blown apart and the poor driver was desperately trying to collect his skis and other belongings from the windswept highway. From a neighborhood park we got a clearer view of the smoke plume streaming from the Boulder area and hurried home to turn on the local news only to find out conditions on the ground were far, far worse than the distant smoke plume would have suggested. 

As I write this I can only shake my head at the capriciousness of Mother Nature. This morning we woke to a mantle of white that was two days too late. While I shoveled snow this morning hundreds, if not thousands of my fellow Coloradans were wondering if they still had a home to return to. 

The following video is a snapshot of the wind event that would end up causing such extreme fire damage just 30 miles to the north. It will be a long, long time before I can hear the roar of the wind and not think back to this day.