About 40 local residents and 25 foot ball players from Boulder
High, with their coach, arrived at 9 AM to help! What workers
those boys turned out to be. They and the locals did a fantastic
job of cleaning the debris from the creek.
In addition to the creek clean up lunch was served at the Salina
Cafe with donations from the community. Anne Brady made a
hugepot of her famous green chili and almost 100 bean and cheese
burritos; Thelma Robinson supplied a huge pot of Mediterranean
Bean soup and a loaf of bread; Patti Beebe donated 100 brownies
and 50 macaroons; Carl Cowley supplied 2 huge pots of macaroni
and cheese and two key lime pies; Martha Cowley brought two
loaves of her famous sourdough bread; Ann Lawrence donated paper
ware, chips, salsa, salad, hoagies and two apple pies; Michelle
Wieber donated a salad and a huge platter of cheese and meats
and accompanying rolls; Antoinette Vastenburg donated a green
salad; Russell Brockway donated a bag of tortilla chips; Michelle
Grainger donated birthday cupcakes since it was Maria Mitchelle's
birthday. Others donated candy and cookies. So much food that no
one could go hungry after all the hard work.
Work continued for a while after lunch, but by 3 PM most everyone
called it quits for the day and the boys left, all but one. When
the boys arrived as a convoy in the morning, the last one pulled
into our driveway, blocking the other cars and ours and announced
he had run out of gas! Fortunately, we could still get one car out.
In the afternoon, after Larry Gates had donated a gallon of gas the
posse was ready to leave again, BUT no, the boy with the gas less
car had now lost his car keys! Eventually, mom was called and to
arrive in an hour or so with a second set of keys. The rest of the
boys and the coach left. An hour later Mom arrived, but the car
wouldn't start so she left to call a tow truck; tow truck arrived
and got the car turned around and headed down hill and with,
perhaps, more gas, was able to get the car started. At least it
didn't have to be towed to Longmont! Hopefully, a lesson or
two was learned.
The next morning we packed up the Van and left, after lunch, for
Crested Butte to deliver tools to Robyn that had been loaned to us
last November. The weather was iffy, but they were good enough.
After we got over Monarch Pass I called Robyn to let her know we
were over the mountain and would be arriving in time for dinner.
We arrived and the tools were unloaded and by then it was raining.
Tuesday we awoke to four inches of snow and more coming down
hard and fast. Robert considered leaving, but reconsidered so we
stayed and visited with Robyn for the day. After the roads had
melted she took us on a tour of Crested Butte and Mount Crested
Butte. We visited an area of Mount Crested Butte fully developed
with at least 30 McMansions perhaps more. We drove up, around
and through the area and in our whole drive saw only 2 houses that
were currently occupied. The others were clearly furnished and livable,
but second or third home of the owners. It was creepy seeing a
whole village empty. I felt badly for the 2 live-in owners. I wondered
how it felt to live in a neighborhood full of empty mansions?!
On Wednesday we said goodbye to Robyn and headed for Utah.
The roads were fine by then. We drove to La Sal junction and then
north to Moab. Moab was inundated with jeeps, hundreds of jeeps,
thousands of jeeps, millions and billions and trillions of jeeps. Amazing!
We went on from there to the San Rafael Reef area and found the area
full and overflowing with RVs and ATVs!! Every place we had ever
camped was either fenced off or occupied. By this time it was after
eight in the evening so we found a place to pull off the road and
decided we'd spend the night and get out of there early the next day
before all the thousands of ATVs came roaring by! And so we did.
In the morning we drove back out through the reef and found a place
to park so that we could go for a walk on the slick rock. It was
interesting because once up on the rock and slightly out of sight
of the zillions of RVs we saw no one. No hikers on the rocks, no
cave explorers, just us.
From there we headed towards Hanksville and then on to Bull Frog
Basin. Along the way the greening of spring was showing and the
green of the willows and the red of the soil made a vibrant back
drop. At Bull Frog basin the water in Lake Powell is so low that
the marina buildings have moved down the ramp so that the
services that serve the boaters would be near the water.
The area they left was empty except for junk and beyond
the junk it looked like a Tamarisk farm. The Tamarisk plants
looked like they had been planted in rows and no one was
making an effort to discourage them. Maybe they think the
water will rise again so it doesn't matter. The RV park was
not full, but we drove around and saw the sights, bought some
fuel and went on our way.
As we drove along the river it seemed that perhaps the bugs the
forest service has let loose on the Tamarisks was working. We
saw lots of black Tamarisk plants.
We headed toward Natural Bridges National Monument, but found
a random spot to camp between UT95 and UT275. We were off
the road and behind some rocks, but had a perfect view of Jacob's
Chair! After a short hike I fixed another late supper and we were
soon to bed.
By now it is Friday and we headed toward home with a stop in
New Castle, Colorado on our way. My good friend Betty Wilson
is recently widowed and I wanted to stop and spend a little
time with her. We've been friends for almost 45 years and been
though a lot together. Betty was administrative assistant in
the Advanced Study Program at NCAR. Back in the early days
we occasionally would enjoy Friday lunch at the Lamp Post in
Boulder where we could have a bowl of clam chowder and a
martini for $1.50 plus tip!?! Great lunch!
We had brought supper so Betty and I fixed dinner of
spaghetti and salad and fresh-baked bread and a glass of
wine each. And we talked.....
Checking the weather in the morning we decided we'd stay
for lunch and leave by 1 PM. The weather was again pretty
iffy, but it turned out the roads were fine. We made
it home before 5 PM.
Getting home I was happy to see that the branches that lined the
road from the spring clean up of the creek had all been chipped
and pretty much disappeared. There are still some big things
to get rid of and we're hoping the county will supply us with
a dumpster. I've e-mailed to ask for help in that area. That
remains an open question.
The helicopters have dumped a couple of loads today despite it
being very overcast. I assume that means they will be running
again tomorrow. It was nice to get a way from the burn, the
flood danger, the helicopters and the mess from the creek. But,
as always it's good to be home.
