While she was here we walked her around the neighborhood then drove up to Gold Hill and drove through that old mining town. From there we went to Big Horn Mountain. We parked just off Sunshine Canyon drive and walked up to the top of Big Horn. We could have driven further as it turns out, but we walked. Chris took a number of pictures from the Crow's nest at the top of the mountain. From there a wonderful panoramic view is available, but this day it was so murky that it was hard to distinguish one mountain from another. Longs Peak, our local fourteener was visible.
Another day she and I walked the loop trail above our house using the church road, although we started from our house rather than from the church. We walked to the Good Hope mine which we call the Apple Tree mine because of the apple tree growing nearby. It is watered by a spring that, as far as we know, has never gone dry. Even in our worst drought it seemed to keep going.
Chris half way down tailing's slopeFrom the Good Hope we went on down the tailing's pile steep trail. I usually don't do that trail, but it didn't look too bad so we went down it. En route to the Emancipation mine Chris took some pictures of the wrecked building that had been standing just below the Good Hope mine and next to the tailing's pile. The diggings from the mine were put into small ore carts which were on tracks. These were then pushed by people or pulled by donkeys to the building. The building was used to sort the ore into the "good stuff" and the tailing's. The good ore then was dropped through chutes into the ore wagons
waiting on the tracks below where they were carted to the mill.
Chris in front of wrecked buildingWe continued on to the Emancipation mine. We saw quite a few wild flowers which surprised me, so late in the season.
From the Emancipation we walked up the Steep trail where we encountered a fallen tree. It was quite a large tree that had fallen over the trail. I opted to go under it and Chris went over it. We came to a good place to cut down to our house, stopping along the way at a bench above the playhouse. Sadly, the playhouse is never used because of the fear of cougars. A real fear. Chris spotted a small skull along the path at one point.
Later that day Chris and I went to the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). I had started working for the High Altitude Observatory (HAO) on August 6th, 45 years earlier.
HAO eventually became one division of NCAR. We spent about 2 hours there looking at the various exhibits and displays.
We later went to the Pearl Street Mall, stopping en route at the Orvis store on Broadway. There was little of interest for women in the Orvis shop. We had coffee at Bookends and spent a little time in the Boulder Bookstore. It's easy to kill time in the bookstore and hard to leave without a book or two.
The Dushanbe Tea house was our final destination. We walked back to where I had parked the car near the Carnegie library. My parking spot when I'm working at the Carnegie. The tea house is beautiful and a gift from the people of the city of Dushanbe in Tajikistan. The city of Boulder took 10 years to find a place to have it constructed. By that time one of the three Tajik carpenters who had built it, unassembled it and packed it, had died. The other two came to
construct it on its present site. We wandered around inside and Chris took several pictures. I bought another tea infuser.
Chris left on Tuesday and on Wednesday we picked up Ariel at 8 AM and went up to Ochs' ranch so Ariel could have a short horse back ride. We toted along a picnic so Alice wouldn't have to try and feed us.
Alice caught a horse for Ariel to ride by putting out feed pans so all the horses and there were a number of them would come feed. While they fed she put a bridle on the one she wanted Ariel to ride. I cupped my hands for Ariel to put her foot into to get a boost up. She was leery, but did it anyway and later announced it was really easy to get on the horse that way. With Alice leading, Ariel riding and me trotting along beside for moral support which very soon was unnecessary we trotted out through and around in the meadow above the Ochs' house. The two old ladies were thoroughly winded much too soon as far as Ariel was concerned. She now had the hang of it and wanted to keep on going. Sadly, we didn't get any pictures. I had my camera, but was much too busy running and keeping horses off my back to even think about pictures.
We returned to Ochs' house and Ariel kept herself amused with art work while we had our picnic lunch. We got home about 2 PM.
Friday was Keegan's last day to come up and help Robert. We'll miss him. He's really helped out a lot this summer. Robert has gotten things done that he could not have done by himself and hopefully Keegan has learned a few things and gotten to know his grandfather a bit better.
