Julia and I went hiking together on Labor Day. It was her first real hike, about 3 miles round trip to the top of Devil's Head and the fire lookout station. The lookout is the only one of seven origin front range stations still in service - at almost one hundred years old, it's a unique piece of history and fun experience for people of all ages. It's the only lookout station in Colorado staffed by the National Forest Service and is on the National Register of Historic Places. There's an interesting article about it here.
For Julia and I, the drive and hike took most of the day. There were tons of people there, and we had to stop an climb on every big rock or play "pine cone golf" with Julia's hiking pole every few feet, or stop and goof around about something. One of her favorite games was for me to stop and wait for her to hike ahead, wait for her thumbs up, then run to catch up with her before she could get away. Large, Dad assisted jumps off of the steps were also pretty fun.
Julia did great and had a lot of fun. At the end she was able to get her picture taken with Ranger Bill, a semi-celebrity and veteran of the lookout of over 30 years. If you think your office has a good view, it's probably not better than his 100 mile view in every direction.
DeCaliBron...short for Mt Democrat, Mt Cameron, Mt Lincoln and Mt Bross.
Distance - 7.25 miles
Elevation Gain - 3,700 feet
Time - 6 hours
Four peaks in one day. Not bad even though the trip was short and really only two of them counted towards my total. I had already completed Mt Democrat and Mt Cameron really doesn't count as a 14er since it's just an unofficial bump along the route to Mt Lincoln. This trip brought the total up to 20 of the 53 14ers in the state.
I woke up at 3 a.m. and met Eric, a former coworker of mine who was in town visiting from California in the blue hat, at his friend Rich's house. We drove just south of Breckenridge and were on the trail by 6:15 in the morning. I took a few photos, but most of the time the weather didn't make for good pictures. The wind was blowing and we encountered some snow on this trip. Although it didn't stick, the ice crystals hitting your face in the wind made for a colder than expected journey.
Eric and Rich braved the elements in cargo shorts. I guess I should have suggested that they bring more clothes, but the selection was limited for Eric anyway while he was here on vacation. I felt great on this hike, mainly because the pace was a little slower than usual. However, I've also concluded that these trips are just becoming easier because of experience - physically and mentally I know what to expect, and I've also really fine tuned my optimal food and drink.
My knees hurt, but otherwise I feel good. I almost considered mowing the lawn when I got back home on Saturday, to give you an idea how good I felt. I was glad to get these checked off the list. I didn't find it to be that scenic, I had already tried in the winter to hike them and the weather didn't hold, and they were the last few around this area of the state.
I still had a lot of fun even though the hike wasn't much to write home about. It sure beats the alternative.
All of my time and hard work this summer, summed up in one pleasantly surprising letter...
A few days ago, Willow, a girl a few years older than Julia that lives on our block, decided to start her own business with the kids. Julia and Jonathan and other kids were hired for the job. A few kids quit...some were fired. Julia and Jonathan made the cut.
The retail industry is tough, but the kids scrounged up enough old toys and actually sold a few to some of the other kids on the block. Julia was so excited about it that night and the next morning. At the end of the next day they received their first paycheck for all of their hard work...$2 each.
I've spent a lot of time and effort this summer in the backyard. We moved in just as Spring started, so I decided early on that this year would be a good time to focus on cleaning up the outside of our new house. Although the yard had been professionally landscaped several years ago, the prior owners didn't keep up with nature, so things had gradually deteriorated into a giant mess of weeds, rocks and wood chips.
I've finished everything that needed (or that I wanted) changing, except for painting the fence. I painted the light fixtures, I cleaned up and removed countless bags of wood chips that had been blown all over the place and/or been washed along the side of the house and mixed with rocks. I brought in new rock for the drainage area, new rock for the window wells, and brought in a couple truck loads of gorilla hair mulch. I obviously trimmed all the bushes and weeded the property, restored the lawn back to its pre-dog phase, ripped out two trees and planted a new maple...and FINALLY, decided to end the summer with putting in a paver patio over the concrete that had been stained by fertilizer rust.
If that seems like a lot of work, it was. The hardest project was the patio. It took five trips in my truck to unload and load 900 pavers. The entire project took me five solid days to complete; four of them when I was on vacation. The first four days I was able to get the pattern down and 99% of the bricks glued down over the existing concrete slab. Yesterday it took me an entire day to cut the bricks around the edges and pillars. I did all of the cutting with my miter saw and a blade from Home Depot. It was the same cost as renting a saw for a day, but now I have my own blade should I need to cut something else in the future.
The rest of the summer I'll just keep up with the maintenance part of the yard and turn my attention to the inside of the house. We haven't even put up a single picture inside, since I've been so focused on the exterior. The other say at the dinner table Julia complimented me and said, "you're so much more talented than all the other Dads around". Yesterday, just for saying that to me, I let Julia put down the last brick...
