3/23/16. Home Again

As promised, I put the pictures of our last, amazing night in Alamosa.  The moon was almost full, the sunset was lovely and we saw the porcupine and a great horned owl - what a send-off!

Our journey home was a long one.  We got to the airport very early as we heard about the bombings in Brussels and wanted to be prepared for the extra security, which, as it turned out, did not exist, but better safe than sorry.  We did have a delay on the second flight from Philly to Providence so we didn't get home until about 9:30.  We are always glad to come home from wherever we have been - the snow from Monday has melted and the daffodils and crocuses are in bloom.  It feels like Spring - hoorah!

3/21/16 Monday

We got up this morning and said our good-byes to Mike and Louise.  Louise started to get a little teary-eyed, but she will be in Mystic in July and then again for Thanksgiving so we will see her soon.    We decided to take the smaller roads through the mountains to get up to Denver.  It was a very pretty ride - one which you would not want to take during bad weather, but was prefect today.  We turned in the car and made our way to the hotel.  We have just come back from walking to a nearby restaurant for an early dinner (we didn't have lunch).  We are all set for our flight tomorrow.

Last night, after dinner, we took a walk and we had a bonus.  Not only did we finally see Spike (although I only got a picture of his backside - must be camera shy), but we also spotted a great horned owl atop a telephone pole!  I just tried to put the pictures onto the computer, but there seems to be some resistance.  I will try again when we get home.  I did download pictures of the cats, however, last night.  In order, there is Ollie, Leo, and Sadie Sue.

and will put them on today's blog.

We had a wonderful time in Alamosa, both in our volunteer work and spending time with Louise, but we are both ready to go home - there is no place like it.

3/19/16 Saturday

We did get to go out for dinner last night as Louise got home at 5:45.  We ate at the Brewery again - good food.  This morning we decided to have breakfast in town at the coffee shop next to the Brewery - eggs and wonderful homemade wheat toast.  We stopped at the Animal Pound to see the dog that Louise has found Thursday morning, but it didn't open until 10 so we continued on our way. Our destination was Penitente Canyon out near La Garita (north of Monte Vista).  The canyon is on BLM land (Bureau of Land Management) and was formed 20 to 30 million years ago from volcanic eruptions of the San Juan mountains.  The rock formations were lovely and we found a neat rock art painting from early Inidans near the entrance to our hike.  We had a lovely long hike along the canyon and came across deep ruts in the rock from Carreras (two-wheeled wooden ox carts).  They were used as early as the 1850's to carry firewood and other items.  The views from the top were amazing and we finally wound our way back to the parking lot.  On our way out, we saw some prairie dogs curiously watching as our car went by.  On the way back home, we stopped by the dog pound and saw the rescue pup.  They have named him Dundee and he will be available for adoption on Wednesday.  The lady at the pound said there has already been some interest in adopting him.  Louise fell in love with him, but we tried to persuade her that she had enough to do with her work, the two dogs and the three cats.  He is very cute and I have no doubt that he will find a good home.  A little bit ago, Louise took Monte for a walk and saw something strange on the ground behind a tree off the road.  I went out with her to check it out and I thought it looked like a dead coyote to me, but we didn't get too close.  Dave came out with us later and we discovered that it was indeed a dead coyote and it had been shot.  Obviously, one of the neighbors is not fond of them.  We haven't made plans for tomorrow yet beyond packing and cleaning out the car.  We will leave for Denver on Monday morning.

3/20/16 Sunday

Today is our last full day with Louise so we packed up our suitcases after breakfast and then asked Louise what she wanted to do today.  We ended up taking a ride up to Crestone, a small town at the foot of the mountains known for having a free-spirited atmosphere.  There are many different religions, magical thinkers and just plain grown-up hippies living here.  We drove through the small town, but as it was Sunday morning, nothing was open.  We did discover a Buddhist shrine (Stupa of Enlightenment) and stopped to take a picture. On the way back we stopped at an odd looking place called the UFO tower.  Apparently, people pay ($20/person) to come out here (in the middle of nowhere) to look for UFO sightings - a sucker is born every minute.  We then stopped at the Colorado Gator Farm as Louise had never seen them in the wild.  The place started as a tilapia (fish) farm because there is a hot spring on the property.  Eventually, the owners bought some baby alligators to clean up the fish waste.  Now it is still a tilapia farm and the filtered water is used to grow plants in the greenhouses, but they are also an alligator rescue place.  Some of the alligators are from New York and California, where people were keeping them in bathtubs and backyard swimming pools!  They also have snakes, turtles, tortoises, lizards, emus, and peacocks on display.  They have two albino alligators, one of which is named Mr. Bomangles.  We came back into town and stopped at the grocery store.  Louise is cooking tonight - pork chops with spiced apples with roasted Brussels sprout and barley salad - yum!

3/18/16 Friday

Today was our last day at the ReStore and it was very slow today: about 80 people, but only $205.  The regular workers and volunteers signed a going away card and one of the volunteers that we worked with, Mary Susan, made us a lovely dragonfly in stained glass and that was our parting gift.  I can't wait to hang it in our sunroom - it is gorgeous.  We saw a lovely mountain bluebird this morning on the way to work.  After work, we went to the little airport in town to pick up Mike.  He will be here a week before he has to go back to work in Arizona.  He is an engineer at a copper mining facility.  We are waiting to see if Louise gets home at a reasonable time - if so, we will go out to dinner, if not, I have a Plan B dinner planned.

3/16 and 3/17 Wednesday and Thursday

Louise called at about 5:30 last night to say that she was slammed with patients and would not get home in time to go owning so we decided to postpone that activity until the weekend.  It was very windy so we didn't go Spike hunting either.  We had a number of donation pickups this morning and more people came in to drop off.  We priced everything and sold most of it before the day was over.  We even had a few sales happen just as we were ready to close for the day.  We came home and I made a pot roast for dinner.  Louise was late again tonight as she had a hair appointment and then went back to the office to finish up some charts.

Today, Louise left for work and then was back in about 10 minutes.  I thought she had forgotten something, but she had seen a pup running down the middle of the road and brought it home.  We put it in a kennel and fed it while she called Animal Control.  It was a very cute puppy, but quite scared and very hungry - no collar for ID.  Animal Control said they would meet her in the hospital parking lot so we put the kennel in the back of her car and she was off again.  We had another busy drop off donation day again today with one of them coming at the end of the day so we will have to deal with it tomorrow morning.  We only had about 80 customers, but made $595.  Tomorrow is our last day of working.  I think we are picking Mike (Louise's husband) up at the airport tomorrow afternoon and then hopefully going out to dinner.  Louise just came home and said that the Animal Control Officer came right away and took him to the shelter.  She wishes she could give him a home, but she does not need a third dog!  She told a friend about him and he may be adopted by someone she knows, which would be a better situation.  Almost dinner time, so will say good-bye for now.  Happy St. Patrick's Day to all.  We are remembering our wonderful trip to the Emerald Island several years ago.

3/15/16 Tuesday

It was too cold and windy last night to go look for Spike so we stayed home.  This morning we started our last week of volunteering.  It was chilly and windy again this morning.  We had a slow day today.  A few small items came in on Saturday and a few more came in this morning so we priced everything and got it out onto the floor.  It was so slow that Rhonda let us go home early 1:30 and we had only made $198.  Tomorrow she and Dave will go out on two pick ups and hopefully bring back some larger items to sell.  Dave went for a nap when we got home and I did laundry and finished the book I was reading.  In a little while, we will feed the animals as Louise is going to come home early tonight so we can go out hunting for owls.  Someone told us of a place where they hang out in Monte Vista near the wildlife refuge.  We will look for Spike on our way home.  I am putting on some pix that Dave took of the sand dunes and the surrounding mountains as well as the creek we had to wade across to get the the dunes.

3/14/16 Monday

Happy Pi Day everyone!  This truly is Pi day as it rounds to 3.1416 - pretty cool.  We were going to go to Fort Garland today, Louise called and they don't open for the spring season until April 1 so we are out of luck.  We did have a few errands to run so we went into town.  We stopped at the sporting goods store and Louise picked up a used sand board so that she will have one the next time she goes to the dunes.  We really did have a great time sliding down.  Some people used snow boards and stood up to go down, but that really isn't my style at all.  I can see Alex and Dan trying that though.  Louise and I were both a little stiff this morning from the dune climbing, but it feels fine now.  We had lunch and a quiet afternoon.  Louise is going to cook tonight: Ginger shrimp.  After dinner, we will go for a walk and see if we can find Spike, the porcupine as we only have a week left to spot him.  We will also check on the beaver family and the muskrat on the way.  It is sunny, but very windy today.

3/13 Sunday

Today we went back to the Great Sand Dunes.  Dave decided not to climb the dunes as he just got over his bronchitis and didn't want to take any chances so he sat in the car and listened to a book on disc.  Louise and I waded across the stream, which was wider that the last time we were here, but not as deep (only about 3 inches).  We walked about a half mile to the base of the dunes and then climbed up and down - each one higher than the last.  At one point we stopped to watch a man slide down the dune on a wooden sand sled.  He offered Louise a ride and she accepted.  Then he insisted that I try it.  I thought it was going to be a bit scary, but it was actually great fun!  Louise decided to climb up the next dune, but I thought I had had enough of that tough climbing so stayed where I was and chatted with the man and his family.  They live in Colorado now, but had lived in Ledyard, CT!  He was retired from the Navy and his last port of call was Groton - small world.  We stopped at the brewery for lunch and then drove out to Kyle and Angel's new house to deliver a mirror (Art Deco) that we saw at the ReStore and thought they would like.  They loved the mirror and the house looks great.  They have painted and putted up all of the wall to wall carpet and put in hardwood floors - very nice.  We came home to rest our sore muscles.  I made meatball and/or kielbasa grinders for dinner and we watched another movie before bed.  The pix are all from the sand dunes.  Louise didn't want me to put the one of her wiping out at the bottom, but it really was funny so had to include it.

Owl Pictures

I finally got the camera to unload.  The photos are of one of the beavers, the crane quilt, a long earned owl being camouflaged on a log, the cute little saw-whet owl, the burrowing owl, and the great horned owl, as well as the golden eagle.

3/11 and 12 Friday and Saturday

Thursday night we went looking for Spike, but he was hiding on us.  On the other hand when we got back to the house, we saw the beavers in the second pond and I got a nice close up of one of them chewing on a branch.  I heard a noise in the pond behind me and looked over to see a muskrat swimming towards shore.  I tried to get his picture, but there were some tall reeds between us and the camera would only focus on the reeds.

Friday was busier than I could have hoped.  Someone brought in a nice wicker chair, which sold in the morning and then a wicker basket organizer for a kitchen or bath came in and was sold in less than 10 minutes.  We sold another two toilets and some doors along with various hardware items and we ended up making $500 for the day.  I guess the little things do add up.  After dinner, Louise and I walked down the road to look for Spike again.  We didn't see him, but the moon and stars were beautiful!  When we came back, we watched a movie and went to bed.

Today was a great day!  We went to the recycling center and then headed to Monte Vista for the craft fair.  It was held in an indoor arena and was jam packed with vendors selling homemade jams, jewelry, clothing, soaps, salves, photography as well as the usual booths of "so-so" purchased items.  There were several raffle booths for quilts and I took a chance on all of them.  I hope I win the crane quilt as it was lovely.  I will include a pic I took of it.  The best part of the event was that a conservation group from New Mexico had an area where they were displaying some of their rescue raptors.  My favorites were the owls: long-eared, saw-whet (such a cute little face), great horned and barred.  They also had a golden eagle.  Apparently, most of the birds are injured because they are looking for rodents close to the road and a hit by cars.  We walked down to the Mountain view for lunch (there were some food trucks parked near the arena, but the prices were high and they featured ribs and spicy foods).  We then drove into town and walked around a bit before going to the theatre to attend a lecture on owls.  It was interesting to see the different types of owls that are found out here.  Some are also found on the east coast, but many were unique to this area of the country.  The slides were great and the presenters had stories about most of the owls.  One of the presenters had an app on her phone that allowed her to play the various calls - I learned that not all of the owls say, "Whoo".  Some of them sound quite eerie.  On the way back to Alamosa, we stopped at the store for a rotisserie chicken and some broccoli, which we had for dinner.  We were all tired from the walking we did in the arena so we went to bed early.

I just tried to put some of the photos on, but the machine was not cooperating so I will try again tomorrow.

3/9 and 10 Wednesday and Thursday

Yesterday was such a busy day!  Dave, Mike and Rhonda were on the road all day picking up donations and making deliveries.  Their first delivery was to a woman who bought the nice tables and chairs that came in the day before.  They brought back the table that the new one was replacing and we sold it before they could unload it off the cart.  They went out again to deliver a washing machine and pick one up and also to pick up a flat top electric stove.  While they were gone we sold a freezer, the last saddle, some garden chairs, a sleeper sofa and assorted smaller items.  They were late coming back so it is a good thing I had a crockpot full of meatballs and sauce cooking all day.  Louise came home about quarter after six so got to eat with us.  She said she saw Spike (the porcupine) on the way home so we may go to look for him tonight.

Today was slow compared to yesterday, but we did sell the washing machine and stove that they brought in last night.  This morning Dave and Rhonda went to San Luis to pick up five toilets from one lady and we sold one already.  We had a new volunteer today.  She is doing 80 hours of community service so she will be in again tomorrow.  We got home earlier tonight so I made some banana bread and will make chicken for dinner.  There hasn't been much to take a picture of, but hopefully we will see Spike tonight and this weekend we will go to Monte Vista.  They are having their crane festival this weekend.  We have already seen the cranes, but will go to the craft fair and Louise wants to attend a lecture on owls.  I don't know what else we will do this weekend, but there are plenty of beautiful places to visit.

3/8/16 Tuesday

Another busy day at the Restore.  Dave was busy most of the day picking up items that were donated by people.  A lovely couch, table and chair set and a chaise lounge came in from one lady.  We also had people dropping by the store with donated items: sinks, toilets, hardware, stovepipe, etc.  Wilma and I priced things as they came in and got them out on the floor (in between waiting on about 100 customers).  Some things went as soon as they were priced.  The truck went out three times and came back with lots of items each trip so the day just flew by.  Dave is feeling much better today so the medicine in working - yeah!  Tomorrow is another pick up and delivery day so I imagine we will be busy again.  I think people are doing their spring cleaning.  We had a man come in looking for long poles.  He makes bluebird houses and donates them so we gave him a great deal on some poles we had.  I have only seen one bluebird since we have been here, but he said to take a walk down by the river as they are coming in to set up house and he has seen a dozen at a time.  I just fed the cats and dogs and we will have dinner shortly.  Hopefully, Louise will get home on time tonight.

3/7/16 Monday

We had a quiet morning - did some laundry and caught up on a bit of housekeeping.  Today is Kyle's birthday so I baked a cake: chocolate with lemon filling between the layers, lemon frosting on top and decorated with raspberries.  Angel, Kyle's partner came over to cook lunch as a surprise.  He made capreese salad, homemade pasta with veggies, shrimp, chicken and garlic toast.  Everything was delicious!  We had a good time chatting and laughing about different things.  The time just flew by.  I don't imagine anyone is going to be hungry for dinner after that huge lunch so I think we will just pick for dinner.  Tomorrow is back to the ReStore, but we will wait and see how Dave is feeling - I may go in on my own if he is still not up to par.  We saw a golden eagle fly across the pond this morning - magnificent creature.  Dave just threw a few more branches in the pond for the beavers, but it is still early yet for them to appear.

3/5 and 6 Saturday and Sunday

Dave wasn't feeling up to par on Saturday so we decided to go to the San Luis Valley Museum in town.  It was a small museum, but had some interesting exhibits,  I will included a picture of a wagon used by one of the first settlers to bring his family to Alamosa and a pic of the classroom they have set up inside the museum.  We had a lovely chat with one of the docents and told her that we would send them some scratch pens to exhibit in the inkwells on the desks.  We then ran some errands and came home for lunch.  Dave took a nap while Louise and I went for a walk with the dogs.  In the late afternoon, we went out to Monte Vista to the wildlife refuge and saw hundreds of cranes coming in to roost for the evening.  It was really quite amazing.  We drove up to Monte for dinner at the Mouintain View Restaurant and then drove home and watched a movie about birding called The Big Year.  It was actually pretty good.

Dave still wasn't feeling great this morning so Louise and I went to Zapata Falls.  We drove about 4 miles up a dirt road and then had to hike about 1/4 mile on an ice covered path from 9000 feet elevation to 9400 feet.  The views along the path were awesome.  The falls were inside of a granite walled canyon.  The falls were completely frozen, but I think they were all the more beautiful because of that.  We could hear the water flowing underneath the ice.  When we got back, Louise called in a Z-pack prescription for Dave as it sounds like he is coming down with bronchitis again.  We will have leftovers for dinner tonight and then we may watch another movie.  It is overcast and cloudy today.  The forecast was for rain, but the sun did come out for a bit this afternoon so I'm not sure that we will see the rain.

3/4/16 Friday

The weather is a little crazy here:  It was 28 this morning and in the 60's this afternoon.  Bizarre!  Although, everyone here says it is usually warm this year.  As we drove into town, we had to slow down to let a large mule deer stag cross the road.  We had rather a slow day today - about 100 people and $500.  Dave and Rhonda went to pick up a small desk that someone donated.  I chatted for awhile with Mary Susan, one of the volunteers.  She is one of six women in her family and they are all named Mary: Mary Victoria, Mary Geraldine, etc.  Sounds rather like what George Foreman did to his sons.  She is very nice - a former social worker.  The oddest customer we had today was a 76 year old woman who came in to buy paint.  She lives off the grid in one of those sheds that you can buy to store lawnmowers, etc.  She actually has 3 of them: one for nice weather, an insulated one for winter (which she heats with candles - sounds dangerous to me) and one for storage.  She had a neighbor rebuild her chicken coop and picked out blue paint for it.  She said "I hope the rooster likes the color".  I had to bite my lip so I wouldn't laugh as she was dead serious!  When we drove home past the golf course, we noticed quite a few people out playing - it was a lovely afternoon.  We hope to go the the sand dunes again tomorrow to do some hiking so I will try to get some more pictures.

3/3/16 Thursday

No pix today.  We were very busy at the store: 157 customers and $932 worth of goods sold.  We sold one of the saddles, two fridges, some doors, a hope chest, a chair and other assorted goods.  We were busy all day.  Weather wise, the wind died down overnight.  It was 30 this morning and the temp was 60 when we got done at 3:00 - nice day.  We went grocery shopping after work and gassed up the car in anticipation of our road trips this weekend.  I just put a meatloaf in the oven for dinner and a banana bread for breakfast. Louise got home late last night so I hope she gets done earlier today so she can eat with us.  Hope we have more exciting things to blog about this weekend.

3/2/16 Wednesday

I seems hard to believe that we have been here for two weeks - time really does fly, especially when you are busy.  We had another busy day at the store: 108 customers and $560 in sales.  For a small store, they certainly do a lot of business.  We had an older woman come in yesterday just after we opened.  She donated two beautiful saddles that she said didn't fit her horse any longer (not being a horse person, I'm not sure how that happens).  Everyone who came in today stopped to admire the saddles, but only one person seemed very interested and he didn't have enough money to buy them.  Dave, Rhonda, and Kim went out to do a pick-up.  They came back with a side-by-side fridge, 4 sets of Pella sliding glass doors, a glass shower door, 2 sets of swinging "saloon" doors, and various other items, most of which were heavy.  They were all pooped when they came back.  We unloaded and priced everything and Rhonda called someone on the wish list who was looking for a fridge so hopefully we can move that out tomorrow.  After work Dave and I went out to the wildlife refuge (Louise was going to come too, but she got slammed with patients this afternoon) to look for cranes.  We saw mule deer, a variety of ducks and geese.  Apparently, we were too early as we saw hundreds of cranes, but none were landing.  If you squint at the picture you can see one of the groups that flew overhead.  We would have stayed longer as people say that they tend to settle as dusk approaches, but Dave was really tired so we came home and decided we would go again with Louise this weekend.  It was in the mid 50's this afternoon, but extremely windy - we ran over some blowing tumbleweeds with the car.

3/1/16 Tuesday

We had a fairly busy day at the store today: 105 customers and about $580 in sales.  Dave and Rhonda took the van and cart and went to pick up aluminum cans (Habitat gets money for the cans.  I am so glad we have a deposit on soda cans in CT).  They took the cans to the recycler.  He is a sheep farmer and does recycling on the side.  They then went to Monte Vista and picked up a stove, dishwasher, a hope chest, a bicycle, a large mirror and assorted other items from two private homes.  Quite a few of the items sold as soon as we got them priced.  A customer that came in last week, came back again today with a large bone he found on this property.  Dave looked at it and determined it was a mammoth vertebra.  I will include the photo I took of it.  Dave and I ran to the grocery store after work.  We didn't see any new animals today, but I will put a few pictures on of the ReStore.  The weather has been lovely - 20's at night and low 60's during the day - quite pleasant.  I am a bit jealous as Dave saw a half dozen cranes while out in the truck.  We may go after work tomorrow to see the cranes as I am feeling deprived (or maybe depraved?).  Tonight we had mozzarella crusted chicken for dinner - yummy!