Pagosa

Rhetta and I took a weekend together with Chester and drove down to Pagosa Springs to meet my friend Marci from Texas and her family.

We met them at the sledding hill at the west end of town. They asked Rhetta if she wanted to take a turn on a saucer, she said Yeah! Sadly, she was ill-prepared. She didn't know how to steer, she had never been down by herself before, and she had on her fingerless gloves. Can you say guilty momma?

Anywho, we got to spend our first hours together in the ER making sure nothing was broken, which it thankfully was not.

We spent the remainder of our visit eating, building puzzles, playing hide and seek, and drinking wine. It was lovely regardless of the emergency that wasn't one.

Thank you, Marci, for hosting me and my girl. Your family is amazing.

SNOW!

It's been a couple of years, forgive me but I might be a little excited.

Two summers ago Willon used his own dollar to buy this snow shovel at a yard sale. I pitched in the other dollar. He has been waiting ever since to use it. Can you say drought?



Rhetta accessorized. SO CUTE!



Overheard from the back door:

Willon: "We're building snow forts."

Rhetta: "Mine is going to be indestructible."

Kindergarten Holiday Concert starring Willon

... and about 85 other kindergarteners.

Here they sing Rudolph. Willon is halfway up the stairway and in the back, so very hard to make out.



He tip-toed and was able to see me and Daddy.



After they sang several songs and recited a poem they got to see Santa Claus.

This was Willon's reaction when he heard he was in line to see Santa.



He had to wait in line for awhile but not too long. They were just handing out candy canes.



That didn't stop him however from asking the Santa if he was indeed the real Santa.



To which Santa answered by pulling on his beard and saying, "Does this look real to you?" and Willon agreed it must be the real Santa because his beard was real. Of course! Kindergarten logic. Gotta love it!



He's such a sweetie boy. Rob and I took him to Dairy Queen as a treat after his concert. The candy cane Blizzard about blew his mind. He'd never heard of such pleasure!



Reminds me of DQ Fries



My favorite snack, NOM!



Finishing his first Blizzard. I know this is a silly milestone, but there it is.



Afterward we took Chester to the lake. Willon wanted to show him the dock.



That is a snow storm dropping down a very large mountain in the background. A boy and his dog spooking the geese in the foreground. They were just running. They both love to run. Willon agreed it was a fun way to finish off a concert day before picking Sis up from school.

My Sweetie Girl and Chester

Rhetta's big present this year is Chester. Both kids, especially Rhetta, have a fear of dogs. Well, not really a fear of dogs rather a fear of things dogs do. Chester however doesn't jump, he doesn't lick, he doesn't play chase. He's like a living, breathing stuffie.



Chester was handpicked for Sis by our friend Carter who volunteers at C.A.R.E. in Glenwood Springs while he attends college at CMC. This dog was found on or near Halloween and was named Uncle Fester by the rescue. He has some separation anxiety and dislikes loud noises and being grabbed by the collar. The kids changed his name to Chester and he is adjusting well to his new family.

The cats on the other hand...

Meeting Chester

Parade of Lights 2012

Found ourselves in Delta's annual Parade of Lights last night. A first for all of us, and a first for me as far as being in any Delta County parades. Indeed this year we weren't without choices. We could have gone on the Girl Scout float however Rhetta opted for the less crowded Victory Ranch float. Willon tagged along like little brothers tend to do.

We all helped Kelly decorate the ranch truck, #41. I did the lettering on the posters. The kids did hand prints. Rob helped with the lights. It was a grand last minute endeavor by all.

Saving our spot while waiting for the truck -



Helper elves (even Moose got in on the act) -



Handprints -



It was a Country Christmas theme so the ranch float fit right in. The kids wore cowboy hats and carried stuffed horses. There were 7 kids riding, one mom, and Rob and I handed out candy from santa hats. Let me just say, now that I have been in one I understand why they are out of candy by the time they get to our usual viewing spot. Here's a hint: set up further south next year and you will rake in more candy than they did at Halloween. Just FYI.

Cute kids -



If you know of any child who is hurting for any reason and think they might enjoy being around, learning about, and riding horses, give them Rick and Kelly's number, ya hear?



They are some of the sweetest horse folks around. Kelly is a certified equine therapist.



Rhetta wrapped up in Daddy's coat and enjoyed seeing all those people we know from her vantage point. There was nary a person we didn't recognize. We must be from here.

Doesn't it look like a heart halo?



You would be tuckered out too if you had pretended to be a pop-up-holiday-cheer-jack-in-the-box that yelled MERRY CHRISTMAS!! to the crowd for an hour straight.



We were so busy last night we forgot to look for Elmer...

Rocks ROCK and they know it!

One of the numerous difficulties of going to college when you have a family and small business and property and farm animals to take care of is double, sometimes triple booking your weekends. If a Geology class field trip happens to fall on one of those Saturdays - the kind of Saturday where the activities are spilling over into the margin on your calendar - you have little choice but to reschedule. Fortunately this family LOVES geology and road trips, so to combine one was suitable for us on a relatively slow Sunday.

Information in quotations are taken directly from the Directions for Self-Guided GEOL 112 Field Trip to Glenwood Canyon Area handout and Road Log by Dr. Rex Cole, PhD.

First stop: No Name. No, really. Its name is No Name. We got a very early start. Just look at our breath!



Rhetta got cold so I gave her my coat. I am such a nice if not frozen momma. She enjoyed looking at the formation through the viewer. Willon meantime ran around in circles. We're still not sure he's not a puppy.



Here they are looking at a cave in a layer of thick Cambrian-ordivician limestone and dolomite. Bored yet? Me neither.



Stop #2 was a place called Dotsero. We had to walk under I-70.



Beauty awaited on the other side. The Glenwood Canyon region is fraught with hot springs. In this spot along the Colorado River a hot spring empties into the river. The kids asked a lot of questions about the difference between steam and regular evaporation.



Rob points out "dark limestones of the upper Leadville Limestone and the red mudrocks (stain) of the overlying Molas Formation, which fills in karst pits and caverns in the Leadville. The Molas (Pennsylvanian) records the start of Phase 2 (Colorado orogeny). Also, down river are excellent exposures of the Cambrian through Mississippian strata." Willon for a change was rapt.



Nearby, in a small water skiing park (a reclaimed gravel pit), stands a "blocky basalt flow that is about 6,000 years old (the youngest in Colorado)." A short way up the road are "[s]everal rusty-brown cinder cones", the source of this lava flow - the youngest volcano in Colorado.





Who knew along the way we'd find the perfect name for a Blues artist? We think this should be the album cover for Sweetwater Burns, the famous (ficticious) blues guitarist.



"These are gypsum deposits and dark shales of the Eagle Valley Evaporite (Pennsylvanian). Because of salt flowage and dissolution, the gypsum and mudrocks are badly deformed." Photobomb!



♫ Up on Mitchell Creek, she sends me... ♫



What we are seeing here, besides the badly leaning stop sign, is a near vertical uplift of "sandstone and shale of the Permain Cutler Formation. These strata represent sediment shed off of ancient Uncompahgria during the Colorado orogeny. The sandstones are fluvial channels (arkoses) and the shales are flood-plain deposits." Sounds dirty, doesn't it? Orogeny. Yes, I am juvenile.



Another vertical uplift "the upturned edge of the Upper Cretaceous Mesaverde Group (Williams Fork and Iles Formation)", just past the Wasatch Formation, is now right on a golf course.



Further up the road however is a much larger portion of it at the Rifle Gap Dam. The Gap being the way through the hogback.



I would like to point out at this stage of my blog entry Rob is interjecting with "Look at this fossil! It's a soft-bodied creature similar to a jellyfish... " and pointing at a picture in one of his textbooks. He's just as excited about geology as a five year old about bulldozers. It's so cute. And annoying. But I digress.

Last stop was at Fravert Pond. What? You've never heard of Fravert Pond? Yeah, neither had I. But it was pretty and the day was gorgeous and I must say it was a nice place for the kids to explore.





What we looked at here is "the Rifle Meteorite crater, which is visible in the far distance on the flanks of the Roan Cliffs. The crater, which is hotly disputed, consists of an orange-colored scar on the southeast face of the distant cliffs. It looks like a landslide, not a crater. A meteorite was collected here back in the early 1900's; however, it is not known if it came from the orange-colored area on the hill slide."



We would have spent the entire rest of our Sunday out there among the rocks had we not had to rush home for Rhetta's dance recital. BUT, this whirlwind field trip was worth every minute. The whole family enjoyed it and I got to photograph it to boot.