The mushroom photo is from many, many mushrooms that have been growing here in the moister section of the state, where we have rain, fog, floods and far more water than we’re used to. It can be good, but it has been producing flash floods (and no, I’m not leaving out the folks who rely upon the I-70 highway through the Glenwood Springs Canyon area where they have also been having rain create mudslides that close the road on a frequent basis lately.
I went to the west side of Rocky Mountain National Park last week with some friends from Kansas and we were hoping to go through Grand Lake, Grandby and then up to North Park and go over Cameron Pass and down Highway 14 towards Fort Collins. This route would take us by the burned areas from the East Troublesome fire and then the Cameron Peak fire that burned along the Poudre Canyon. We knew we were going to be taking a risk because we could see storm clouds in that direction as we passed through RM NP and earlier in the week there had been flash floods that wound up sweeping away three or four people from one family to their deaths — the flash floods had swept down the burn scars and nothing stopped the water from clearing away the campers. We never did get very far, as less than about five miles from Grandby, the road was closed because of mudslides that had been happening daily in that area. They cleaned off the road and Mother Nature would bury it the next day. I do hope to go back to the Poudre Canyon this year, but so far, it seems difficult, if not dangerous.
I’m very grateful to the hard work of the firefighters who fought this East Troublesome fire and were able, with Mother Nature’s help, to keep it from burning our house down last fall.
One final point, on a completely different subject. If you would like to know some of Colorado’s not-so-old political history, I would encourage you to read the memoriam on former Governor Dick Lamm who just passed away.
PS — I was going to end the diary right there, but there was an incident too special to just ignore this morning. At about 6:40 AM, I was awakened by a little thump and my Cocker spaniel Ginger went to investigate. She then started barking and would not quit. Usually we can call her back into the bedroom and she’ll come back and quiet down. Not this morning. I checked our cameras we use to see wildlife on the outside of the house and I saw that there were no videos, and we have pretty complete coverage. I finally got up and went to see what was causing such a ruckus. I went to our window where Ginger was looking out and I saw Yogi Bear climbing up our compound’s stucco wall (about six feet high) and he then balanced for a moment on top of the wall before turning and going down on the outside of our wall. I called to Mrs. ColoTim that “she was going to want to see this.” She came and fortunately she was carrying her phone (she had been checking the videos as well). We tried to see where the bear was and I went to the back of the house to see if I could see it walking outside. Well, I saw it walking alright. INSIDE the extension we call my wife’s puzzle room where she does her jigsaw puzzles. The bear had pushed open the French doors and come in to sniff around. I think it could have entered the kitchen from there, but fortunately it went back outside. It went down the slope behind the house to slurp up the rest of the hummingbird sugar water (it had knocked down three of our four feeders) and when it was done, it wandered off in the direction of a neighbor’s house and a campground. Some other neighbors captured this image.
Since it had already been tagged two or three times, we did not turn it in, and we hope it will stop breaking into houses. I took down the rest of our hummingbird feeders today.
Feel free to comment — the floor is yours.