The 4th Of July In The Mountains

Phil and Lety after the parade

Waiting for the parade to start.  They
made their matching shirts for July 4th.

Granby is 14 miles from us on highway 40 with access to 34 that  goes to Grand Lake and Rocky Mountain National Park.  Granby was created along the rail line (1905) because of the connection with the stagecoach route to Grand Lake.  Granby is a ranching community with two golf courses, mountain biking, 39 miles of shoreline on Lake Granby and famous for fishing by boat or on shore.  Fishermen find lake, rainbow, brown, brook, cutthroat trout and kokanee salmon.  The Fraser River joins the Colorado River at Granby.  The river parallels U.S. highway 40 with many picnic areas and campgrounds.  The Colorado River is classified as Gold Medal Water, meaning it contains some of the best trout in the state.  Granby has many other great areas for trout fishing, even ponds stocked just for kids.

Phil marching in the Granby July 4th parade (this end).
Grand Lake has their parade on Memorial Day.



 

Everyone participates, colorful!



Truly red, white and blue.

   

The High Country Stampede Rodeo
 is held every Saturday.
Local cowgirls and cowboys make the
West come alive.

The Stetson, symbol of the West.  Miguel
tried on western hats while Lety bought a jacket,
(in background) while waiting for the parade to start.




Red, white and blue.

 

Kids from ranch families learn to ride young. 
A toddler in each Mom's and Dad's lap and  a little
guy in the middle.



Pancho marches a few minutes with
his new fur trapper hat

   



Line of fire trucks and look at all the people!




Dogs are part of the mountain life




Hamburgers in the park after the parade.



A day in the park on the 4th of July, waiting for the fireworks
at night.



Everyone is here for the day




Dogs and owners dressed alike and go every
place together



The bikers love this scenic mountain area and locals participate
in the parade.

Granby is cowboy country with lots
of ranches.  This sign is on the door of my
 Doctor's office.

JULY 4th TO BE CONTINUED...........

With A Little Help



Gilberto hauled and stacked logs for
two days

 


Antonio worked as steady as the
chain saw that he operated all day
for two days

  


A big job getting those giant stumps out to the truck
but Ron made it look easy

 


Poncho thought this was fun, not work!

 

Jill came up for three days and enjoyed
working with her Dad

   

We had to keep an eye on Miguel as
he wanted to help so badly that we
had to remind him that he is here for
vacation.




Phil removed most of the slash



Ron Mullinex, the hardest working man around, made some time
in his heavy work schedule and hauled away truck loads of slash
and those giant stumps



Gary will work for food, he brings
the wine.

 

Hurray,  Job completed.  We are all tired 
and have sore muscles

    Removing 20 large trees from the property seemed to be an impossible job in the beginning and we could not find workers.  Fortunately, we had some help from friends and family.  Ralph, Susan and Tori were in the mountains for the weekend and gave Phil some help on Sunday morning before going back to Windsor.  As always Gary Gardner gave Phil a hand with the fence (which he helped build) and chain saw problems. Gary is always on call and is a great neighbor. He is one among other wonderful neighbors.  We had the good luck for two workers to call us and made it possible to finished the job off fast.  Antonio and Gilberto were terrific workers and three weeks to the day of the storm, we finished and had the fence back up.

When Friends Come To The Mountains

Miguel, Lety and Poncho, their first day
on main street Grand Lake for a Rotary
pancake breakfast, Mt. Baldy in the
back ground.
Below, Rotary bingo in the park
Bring a sweater.






Lety and Miguel enjoying the fire  at
a neighborhood gathering.  The out side
fire is a novelty for them.

 



Grand lake is a scenic village with a lot
of history

  

Miguel operating the grill and the 'boys'
enjoying a beer on the deck

  

Lety and Miguel on the beach at Grand lake
which is one block over from main street.
Many homes around the lake have been
in the same family for generations.

  



The hike to Adams Falls is beautiful scenery
and not too difficult for a beginning.  Drink
water, drink water, and more water to stave
off headaches, dizziness, nausea that often
plague people at high altitude.
They didn't have a problem with the altitude
and were in great shape for hiking and bicycling



Poncho in front of Poncho's restaurant.
Grand Lake has many dining options,
all informal.  The wooden sidewalks and
storefronts retain the time honored
Western look.

  

Grand Lake has many charming shops
that are owner operated

Grand Lake lies between Colorado's largest natural body of water and the peaks of Rocky Mountain National Park.  For more than 100 years, it has been a tourist destination.  I try to make it clear that Grand Lake is small town America and the excitement is all about nature.  Wear anything but jeans and you will be over dressed but 'always' take a sweater with you.  Night life in Grand Lake is bingo in the park pavilion. We invited our friends from Guadalajara to visit us with their son who is 22.  They all enjoy nature and exercise.  We could not finish our list of things to do although we were busy every day.


TO BE CONTINUED..........................

Winds Of Change

We have too many federal bureaucracies and federal environmental laws along with too many environmental groups that spin garbage. We don't always agree with them on sensible balance.  How far should we go to alter nature for our benefit?  Do we have 'to control' everything?  I read a historical novel a few months ago, 'The Winds of Change'.  It was interesting, well written and the author managed to voice his philosophy on this subject.  He mentioned that historically the mountain area contained 30-40 pine trees per acre and now we have 300-400 per acre.  The argument for controlled burns and back burns versus the forest have managed without any help from humans for thousands of years continues.  The 1988 Yellowstone Park fire was considered a catastrophe.  Many feel that we have another catastrophe waiting with the trees killed at epidemic level by the mountain pine beetle and until this year drought conditions.  We can't stop the earthquakes, lightening, tornadoes and other acts of nature but sometimes we don't have to intervene.  Nature does it for us in the form of a microburst.  Wikipedia has an excellent description of a microburst that hit us on June 30th and took out 20 very big pines in less than eight minutes.  We often say that if you don't like the weather, just wait because it will change in a few minutes in the Rocky Mountains.  All the photos are weather that happened in less than 30 days. Colorado's surface is not flat and nothing is as close as it looks but it has glorious scenery and sometimes weather. When I think about it, the mountain men (before Lewis and Clark) that came to the mountains to trap fur were the ones that had it tough!

P.S. To see how we cleared out 20 very big pines in exactly three weeks - follow the blog

Rocky Mountain High



Many of these Lodge Pole Pines are gone now

  

Both of the big trees down now
June 22, 2011


 

 winds hit us.  If you don't like the weather,

This tree fell on the roof but fortunately two other trees broke
the fall and didn't damage the roof

 just wait a few minutes if you live in the Rocky Mountains.  I showed the snow storm on my June 20th blog and then we enjoyed those halcyon days that remind you how beautiful the mountains are. On June 30th, around 5:p.m. a storm 'blew' in with strong winds and we thought it was the usual afternoon mountain rain that doesn't last long.  The winds were extreme and after a few minutes we were terrified as 20 to 50 foot trees started falling in every direction.  It was reminiscent of palm trees in a hurricane since both are very tall and shallow rooted. Mountain pine beetles have killed trees in our area at epidemic levels, and have affected the landscape for years to come.  Because of the change in our landscape there is no wind break and there is more moisture in the ground because of the heavy snowfall this winter.  We have sprayed every year for the pine beetle only to end up losing the trees anyway.  We have been working on the grounds for seven years now and in the mountains, it is never ending with slow results.  We do have a big clean up job but the house didn't have damage.

The grounds look like a logging operation



The Lodge Pole Pines have a shallow root system



Ten years of firewood in the yard



We will have lots of fence repair.
We hated to lose this tree with such a perfect shape