100,000 in Denver to greet Obama

Wow, the picture on the front page of the paper
today shows the crowd in Denver to hear Obama.
It was fantastic, at least 100,000 people were
there. Some sitting on the steps of the Capital
building using binoculars to see him. The rally
was in Civic center park and the area of the
park was filled and all the way to the capital
was filled tightly with people.

I will be relieved when the voting is over and
Obama has won. How much he'll be able to do is
the question. The country is in such a mess!

Bob Gray came a week ago Saturday for dinner, but
arrived about 3:30 PM to help Robert move batteries.
They moved about 50 batteries up to the solar hut.
These were the batteries we brought back from Gothic.
Robert had already moved about 10 of them. They
are all up in the solar hut now, ready for experiments.

I have been calling people in our precinct whom have yet
to vote. I get a new list every day so that I know
who has/has not voted. But, I think people are getting
tired of all the phone calls they are getting. Moveon
is calling our area as are the Obama volunteers. It is
too much. I'm stalling on the phoning at this time.

Tuesday evening Gretchen and Allison and I went to a
Poll Checker class. It was a disaster. The guy
running it was hopeless. He started talking and had
barely gotten started when he began accepting questions
instead of saying, I'll take questions later if
you still have questions after I've finished. After
an hour of this with some questions being asked more
than 2 times, I asked the other two if they were ready
to leave and we left. By the time I got the car to
drive back to the front of the hotel to pick up
Gretchen, the exodus had begun. Gretchen had recent
knee surgery so it was a real effort for her to go
to that meeting and then have it be so worthless was
a shame. She said she used to be a Republican and
they at least knew how to run a meeting.

Wednesday I went to book club in the evening. It
was at Shannah's and the book was "The Literary
and Potato Peel Pie Society." Sue Berkenbush had
lent me a copy and I liked it so much I passed it
on to Julie and she recommended it as a book club
selection. We had a lengthy discussion of the book
and have named our book club "The Literary and
Sweet Potato Slices Society." Or some such. Shannah
served sweet potato slices that had been covered
with a little olive oil and salt and then baked.
They were really good.

Robyn arrived in time for dinner on Thursday. She
had her van full, but not as full as when she went
to Gothic since she left a lot of things in Gothic
for next year. It was fun to have her here and
we had dinner and catch-up time.

On Friday Robyn and Robert removed a couple of
trees that were near the fish pond, shading it
and their roots were invading the pond. It
makes a subtle difference over there. It is
quite a bit brighter. They put some of the
evergreen boughs in the pool for the fish to
hide under as we have done in the past.

In the evening Carl, Martha and Ariel came for
dinner. Robyn grilled the steaks for me on the
charcoal grill. They are soooo good that way.
I usually do them in the broiler in the oven because
it is hard to manage the grill outside on the
porch and do the inside stuff, too. It was
a fun evening. We've all become easier together
because of the trip to Gothic, I think.

Saturday Robert and Viki went on a geology field
trip to Golden, Central City, Crescent Village
(in Coal Creek Canyon) and perhaps other places
as well. Robert, clearly, had a great time.
He was full of descriptions and stories when he
got home.

Robyn and I went shopping. We didn't have much
luck except in the shoe department. We went to
Clark's shoes and she was able to find 4 pairs of
shoes (size 12) that fit and look great. This
store was a find because they also carry the
small sizes that Robert has difficulty finding.
She found a jacket she liked at Cold Water
Creek, but the largest it came in was 18 and
she clearly needed a 20. Cold Water doesn't
even carry 20 on-line. And the jacket wasn't
available on-line anyway. But that was
disappointing. She did find three fancy t-shirt
sort of tops that she liked though. We went
in all the women's stores looking for jeans in
tall (34+length), but they all said to buy
them on-line. I was amazed at the short-sightedness
of these stores. If they tell you to go on-line
and they aren't willing to help, then why not
go on-line for everything. They'll lose the
impulse buying totally.

Sunday we moved the dry wood from the stack by
the barn to the woodshed to make room to
stack this year's wood. It is too green to
burn this winter, but will be ready for next
winter.

In the evening the Salina kids plus the Wall
Street kids plus some Gold Hill kids (25) all
together came for "trick or treat." They
were all in very special costumes. The first
one on my list was Andre and when he received
his treat he said, "thank you." I told him
are good that made me feel when he said
thank you and that he was very welcome. That
started the trend. All the kids, older than
3, said thank you. Robert and Robyn were
sitting on the couch when they arrived and the
kids all gathered around them. It looked
like they were waiting for a story to be
told by either Robert or Robyn. It was sweet.

And so this morning Robyn had to leave. She
is anxious to get home to Idaho. She has been
gone six months...but, there is a possibility
that she'll be back in January to attend the
RMBL board meeting.

Finally, this week Robert and I decided that
we had traveled enough. That and the financial
debacle that is taking place made us decide
not to go to Portland, OR for Thanksgiving
week. It would have been fun to see everyone,
but it's a long way and we're really not ready
to hit the road any time soon, as it turns out.