Well, this seems to be a weekly occurance – SNOW! I am not complaining though, I am rejoicing! We woke to approximately 5 inches of new snow that had fallen over night. It has continued to snow 1 to 3 inches an hour since that time and we now have a fraction of a inch shy of a foot on the patio. It is only 10 AM and it is predicted that it will continue all day. Matt left for work early this AM and I couldn’t stand all that beauty being outside my window. With a little extra time in my schedule, I had to go and play in the snow! Continue reading
Month: October 2006
Wow! The prices on silver and gold have sure taken a leap lately. I guess I had known that somehow as one of those little bits of info your brain stores away, but had not really paid all that much attention. Until I decided to revisit my coin collection…
I have always had a passing interest in Numismatics over the years but it has been an occasional and casual interest. It began when I was just a young pup and can be attributed to my Grandad. He worked at the Plaza Bank and would bring home sacks of pennies for me to paw through. In retrospect, it may have been a clever idea on his part for keeping me occupied…do you know how long it takes to sort through a $50 bag of pennies? Nevertheless, it started a lifelong interest. I still have my penny collection but alas, it has not been updated since 1968 or so. I also collected a few British coins while I was in England and still have those too.
Shortly after Grandad died Gram gave me a cookie tin filled with old dimes and quarters along with an envelope filled with one dollar bills. None of the coins were collectable but they were pre-1965 thus 90% silver. That tin has been in a closet or under my dresser ever since. I had thought about cashing them in a time or too but mostly they were momentary considerations. As I was reviewing the old dollar bills I realized that I have a much stronger interest in old currency than I do in coins. I decided that now would be a good time to cash in the old quarters and re-invest it in some more banknotes.
I hauled the cookie tin down to a local coin dealer and received a very nice payment in exchange for the old quarters. The current rate is a bit more than 7 times the face value for old silver coins! So if you have any old silver coins you might want to give it some thought.
It barely seems time for Labor Day to me for some reason this year. The leaves have not finished their seasonal shedding and their lovely fall color display. However, yesterday afternoon while I was trying to complete some late season painting and caulking, it started to rain. I cleaned up my mess and decided to run a few errands. The weather man has said spotty rain showers, well, he totally missed the call! There were scattered rain showers and then sleet. After an hour of those spotty rain showers and sleet, I looked out a store window to an inch of snow! The snow fell all evening at a fairly rapid pace and this morning there is more than 7 inches in the backyard! It paints such a lovely picture, the trees are flocked as if they were preparing for a Christmas party. I need to go get my snowshoes out and tromp around! It won’t last. The lovely Colorado sunshine will come out and make it all go away quickly. Wish you were here to see the beauty!
I had a new cultural experience a few weeks ago. The Colorado Springs Philharmonic Orchestra had their season opening performance on the weekend that Mom was here so we bought tickets and all went to the “symphony”. I’ve never been to the symphony before. I have attended my fair share of live music performances but that was long ago and we called them rock concerts. Same idea but way different presentation.
The Orchestra was accompanied by four vocalists and the Colorado Springs Chorale. The feature was Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis which is actually a Mass that he created as a tribute to an Archbishop friend. It took him over three years to create this piece of music. I enjoyed the latter part of the presentation the most. It was not precisely my cup of tea but it was still a good experience. I marveled at the number of violinists. I believe there were close to 30 of them.
The performance was held in Pikes Peak Center and it is a very nice facility. Not too big and not too small. The acoustics were excellent and we had a very nice spot in the center about seven rows back from the Orchestra. All in all I enjoyed it and would like to go back sometime when they are playing music I am more familiar with.
My Mom came out in September to help celebrate Kristina’s 21st birthday. While she was here, we had agreed Mom should have a bit of the Colorado ‘Fall flavor’ so our first stop was the REI store to fit her in Merrell brand ‘trail’ shoes. With Mom properly equipped, we headed west to Mueller State Park to do a little hiking and check out the brightly colored aspen trees. Mueller State Park is located on the picturesque west flank of Pikes Peak; a high mountain park with average elevation over 9,000 feet. We headed a half mile down Outlook Ridge Trail, turning south onto the Raven Ridge Trail which ends in scenic overlook.
Although the trail is wide and well tended, Mom quickly grew to appreciate the Merrell’s grip on the loose surface and exposed rock. The trail winds through the forest among the aspens, various pine, and fir trees. The smell of the forest is always present but varies depending on whether you are passing by cedar trees, pine trees, or walking in groves of aspen. Glade air freshener may have tried to bottle the forest fragrance in aerosol form but… trust me… it’s not quite right 😉
Raven Ridge Trail descends a little more steeply for another 1/4 of mile while providing numerous glimpses of the surrounding mountain vistas. Eventually we made it to the overlook, found a few logs to sit on, and admired the view. In the surrounding mountains and valleys there were large patches of gold and orange aspens. In the distance, approximately 60 miles to the Southwest, stood the awe-inspiring snowcapped Sangre de Cristo mountains. We never tire of their breathtaking beauty!
I climbed down amongst some rocks in search of interesting formations to become part of my photo compositions. We belatedly realized we had left our snacks in the car and so decided to head back. On the return trip, the trail was mostly uphill but we maintained a steady pace and took numerous breaks to admire the scenery, before long we were back at the car. Overall it was a mile and half hike and Mom did a super job!
Click on a photo to enlarge
There is a fascinating little geological wonder located out on the Eastern Plains called the Paint Mines; so named for clays found there, thought by archaeologists to have been used by American Indians to make paint.
The Paint Mines are a collection of eroded gulches of sandstone-capped clay colored by leaching minerals, ghost-white hoodoos and elaborate labyrinths of eroded rock. They cut through the landscape southeast of Calhan, resembling the fantastical gullies and drainages of the Badlands of South Dakota.
Ronda and I attended a function out at the Paint Mines sponsored by the Palmer Land Trust (PLT), which is a public non-profit land trust dedicated to the permanent protection of open space, agricultural, scenic, and natural lands in Southeastern Colorado.
Ronda was considering a job opportunity with PLT and we wanted to know a little more about the organization, the people involved, and what their goals were. 
More about that later… we enjoyed a nice hike into the valley where you can walk in and around these fascinating structures. The rock formations are made of colorful clays stained by oxidizing iron compounds and capped by white sandstone. The colors are amazingly bright and it’s easy to see how the clays would have made excellent paint pigments with almost no mining effort at all.
