The Colorado State Open Thread is written to provide a place of amusement, discussion and perhaps a little reflection for people who live in, have heard of or just would like a connection to our beautiful state of Colorado. I’m always looking for guest writers who have some element of Colorado they’d like to bring to our readership — please send me some KosMail.
Prior to my wife and I moving to Estes Park, we had been visiting the town for over a dozen years but it was usually in the warm weather and it tended to coincide with festivals and other events. We didn’t usually come up during winter or stormy weather because, frankly, I was nervous driving in the snow and ice and, not having experience combining mountain driving and snow and ice, I preferred staying down in the flatlands (the front range, mostly) where the snow would melt off most of the streets in a day or two. Also, plowing would take care of most of the worst of things. Did they plow in the mountains? Or did I need to consider getting a snowmobile to get supplies?
Well, of course those were pretty stupid thoughts. I had gone up into the mountains on rare occasions during winter, but what I could recall included blowing and drifting snow, slick and icy roads, worrying about whether I needed chains, and concerns over avalanches. I’m not a skier so I didn’t have cause to go visit the resorts or backcountry. I also didn’t feel any great desire to take I-70 and face the massive traffic jams getting to Copper, Breckenridge, Vail or Aspen. Of course, the news teams that were always out showing the flatlanders with their bald tires spinning while sliding down the hill? Naw — not for me.
When my wife suggested moving to the mountains to escape the sprawl of Denver, I thought of my two biggest worries about living in the mountains — having a fire destroy my house while I’m away for the day, and having to commute in the snow. We obviously decided to overcome those worries and we moved up here two years ago this month. Last month, I got to experience the worst threat— a forest fire approaching our home, but through fortunate circumstances (hard work by firefighters, the timing of a snowstorm from Mother Nature, and, while I’m agnostic, I’m not discounting the prayers and rosaries sent our way from many Kossacks, friends and people I’ve never even met), our home was spared, as was Estes Park. We fared much better than Grand Lake, Drake and the Poudre Canyon where several hundred homes, businesses and other structures were burned to the ground. I’m always going to be grateful our house was spared this year and I will attempt to be better prepared in future years, while hoping we never are threatened again.
The second issue, a snowy commute, has been manageable because my wife retired before we moved up here and I was able to work remotely from home, using my computer and slow broadband to be able to provide the technical support to my callers. I don’t think we would have moved had I not been working from home.
One thing we didn’t know to plan for, but which has been very impactful is that Estes Park, in the six months of winter, is a very windy place. I am interested to hear how windy your other areas of Colorado are; Denver had some days where it was windy, but even though our last eight years there were spent towards the top of a hill, it was never anything like we’ve experienced up here. I don’t know if you know the song “They Call the Wind Mariah” from the musical “Paint Your Wagon” but I call our wind Mariah. Here is my favorite version — he’s got one heck of a voice.
That musical was set in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, but it could easily have been set here in Colorado.
I was very happy this summer to get a weather station set up on our roof to see the wind speeds that hit our house. As I write this, today’s top recorded gust is over 45 mph but I’m sure there have been gusts higher than that over the last few days. I’m happy with our metal roof to protect us. When we first moved in, our windows were just two panes of glass but they weren’t sealed together. We’ve since replaced all the windows and Mariah can’t just come in when she likes any more. She does work on coming in the dog door double flaps, down various chimneys and vents and she gets our Cocker Spaniel Ginger to react sometimes. We have pine cones and sometimes even branches hit our windows and she does give us plenty of one of my favorite natural sounds in the world — the sound of wind through the pine boughs, but when she thunders on by, we do sometimes cringe and hope that we’re not losing things being blown away into the forest.
Fun trivia: According to Mariah Carey, she got her name from the song. She does have terrific wind pipes.
How is the weather going in your part of Colorado? This should be a warmer, dry week and the winds should be less. I’m always happy to have moisture, but we’ll take whatever Mother Nature wants to hand out. We still have bears that are wandering about — I have videos but I haven’t figured out how to try posting them in a diary. When I’m sure they’re in hibernation, I will be putting up my bird feeders. Please feel free to put your thoughts and opinions about whatever is on your mind down below. The floor is yours...