Latest Articles by Sarah Canice Funke
To celebrate Evan's safe arrival in Colorado, we drove up to Denver to visit one of my friends, the lovely speech pathologist Mimi Urish. Since we couldn't waste a trip to Denver, we wandered over to the 16th Street Mall, which eventually took us to the Denver Art Museum. Though we decided against coughing up the admissions fee, we nevertheless enjoyed all the free public art surrounding the museum building and visited the restrooms.
If you ever get a chance to visit the DAM, please do properly hydrate yourself prior to the visit. The restroom will be the most worthwhile exhibit you experience. The bathroom sinks serenade you. I had great fun running from sink to sink, trying to get the voices to overlap. Since they start on different pitches, with different timbres of voice, I wished I was fast enough to create some sort of singing sink composition.
And so the moral of the story is that you should always wash your hands.
We also visited the Denver Public Library, which currently features an exhibit on the Presidents of the United States of America (the executives, not the band). For each President elected after the invention of the radio, we were able to hear a snippet of their inaugural address. Curious to see what Calvin Coolidge might have to say, I pushed the button on the recording under his name. Absolute silence.
And so the moral of the story is that if you are going to have defective wiring in your display, make sure to place it in the most appropriate place.
Anna was successfully initiated in the refreshing deliciousness of a frothy mug from A & W's. Ah, that mug evokes much nostalgia for fencing tournaments.
After smooth sailing from Boston to Dallas, I was all set for a quick hop to my final destination in Colorado Springs. Until the pilot announced that there was a huge storm system covering NE New Mexico/Pueblo. Until I noticed lots of lightning out the plane window. Until the captain instructed the flight attendants to strap themselves down. Until I noticed that we were flying straight into the lightning. Such a display of fireworks and turbulence I hope I never get the privilege of experiencing again.
I honestly thought I was going to see Jesus before I saw my family, but God decided I should stick around a little longer. And now the weather in Colorado is bright and sunny. Vacation is truly begun.
...the sky was all overcast tonight. Did anyone else get a chance to see the meteorite shower?
For the past three days, we have been experiencing torrential downpours north of Colorado Springs. Our pond is maxed to capacity. I only hope to escape the wrath of the Atlantans, who are sweltering through high levels of smog and triple digit weather.
The Funke Farms continues to be hotel central for the summer. After Evan left this Saturday, the intern at FPC and his family moved in this evening and will be with us for a few weeks. On Tuesday, we will host two Chinese men for a number of days. Right now, there are toys strewn across our floor as the two-year-old finds all sorts of exciting things to do at our house. He spent the first 20 minutes running up and down our sidewalk, totally enthralled with the wide open space. The pitter-patter of little feet is enjoyable, but the sheer energy of the young simply amazes me.
We have some dang beautiful mountains in these here parts.
Crested Butte:
Maroon Bells (backside)
Crested Butte again (coffee house with license plate siding)
Black Canyon
Blue Mesa Reservoir
Back in Crested Butte
The Painting Pirate
Piled High
..I was just smoked in a pick-up basketball game by 10-year-old boys half my height. But they were cool. You meet some interesting people in RV parks. Perhaps I shall write some anecdotal stories when all is said and done.
Less snow, more sun in Gunnison.
Interestingly enough we have wireless but no cellular service. So I catch up on emails...yesterday my dad and I went biking along U.S. Highway 50. Feels good to get some exercise.
Cooling off in breezy weather. Coors is made in Golden. Support our mountains! Drink Coors Responsibly.
A photo essay of the family trip to Estes Park.
Estes Park town proper.
The answer is blowing on the wind. (Mary Jane wrapper on the bridge in Estes Park town proper. And by Mary Jane, I mean the candy. Not the illegal substance...)
Down by the Old Mill Stream
Christa
Flower rapids
Flower children
Hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park
A Bridge Too Far
Flora
Fauna
My dad called this Slime Lake, but it looked pretty from a distance...
My dad the eager beaver
Atlas Shrugged
Cascade
Whither?
A River Runs Through It
Fern (Gully) Falls
Wuthering Heights
Ice, ice, baby
Faux Fern Falls (a little further down the trail)
The Stranger
Aspen Grove
Mountain View
Sense and Sensibility
Sunshine on a Cloudy Day
Snow
Apparently one of Sarah's favorite things about summer is (and I quote) "making lists of things you plan to do and then doing completely different things." Making Summer Resolutions is more challenging than making New Year's Resolutions because you only have about four months to fail at them than the usual 12 months. So you have to be that much more efficient regarding your procrastination and motivational relapses.
A Statement of Good Intentions
(Evan noted once that "statement" was a better word to use than "promise" because you can break a promise whereas what can you really can do to a statement?...)
First things that NEED to be done:
1. Finish the thesis.
2. Find a job.
3. Win the lottery.
Next come things that sound nice:
4. Attend some local concerts and submit reviews to the local paper (attempts at building freelance connections.) Even if no one takes my reviews, at least I will have gotten a concert out of it, and that's good for something down the road. I'm already excited that Denver attracts music. I love Denver. I want to marry it.
5. Write some letters.
6. Learn the lindy hop. (Anna has been attending swing classes at the local USAFA, pronounced "You-Saw'-Fa".) Note: Listening to her tales, I think I will forego any intensive training in aerials. Somehow getting slung over someone's shoulders upside down does not appeal to me. Although I suppose there are worse ways to flirt with certain death. After all, it's not every day you get to die accompanied by a backbeat...
7. Write less facetious and more entertaining blog entries.
8. Read the books sitting on my newly organized shelves. This sounds decadent. I used to read rather fast. In my youth, my parents imposed a "one book a day" limit to curb excessive trips to the library. Sadly now it takes weeks to finish something. I resolve to use the summer daylight hours to return to ravenous reading levels.
9. Try to persuade friends to come visit me in Colorado.
10. Try to persuade friends to share musical adventures in Denver...this could be harder than one thinks...
11. Traipse across BC in the family RV. "Camping" seems a bit misleading when one can place one's chardonnay into the appropriate cup holder in one's rather comfortable fold-out chair, or else microwave one's cold mocha in the morning...such decadence reminds me of tales of British safaris across Africa. The china tea cups were always at the ready...
Things that would make me a better person:
12. Teach 1st and 2nd graders in Summer Sunday School
13. Rediscovering the certainty of God's sovereignty (see item #2).
14. Getting myself to a Bible study
15. Organizing a few choral arrangements for church.
16. Sitting still.
17. Going on long walks in the shadows of the mountains.
18. Riding the horse.
19. Talking to people.
So, there you have it. A list of things. One doesn't always do everything on one's list, but if I don't write it down, I shall probably forget all about it. Here's to a productive summer...
To commemorate Mother Day* and the acquisition of a new RV, the Funke family traveled up to Tarryall for an overnight stay. Many adventures ensued along the way, including a brief power outage that was resolved only by someone tightening a wrench on the battery whenever we wished to start the vehicle. (Something was wrong with the circuitry connecting the battery to the engine and other electrical accessories. Accordingly, our clock resets every time we start the engine.)
After a few dead ends down impassable roads, we lighted upon the perfect campsite. The babbling brook (which contained no leeches as far as we could tell), the soft breeze, the gently climbing terrain--all these accoutrements of nature conspired to bring about mass contentment.
And so the funke girls went exploring and took many pictures. A photo essay in short. We commence.
Sarah and her mother. Guess which of us is which. My mom is such a young-lookin' thang.
Anna paves the way through the water. We hopped many boulders till, as the Oklahomans! put it, we'd "gone about as far as we could go."
Idyllic, no?
Anna does ballet
Anna resists falling in
Anna scouts a reliable trail through the water
Christa wades away.
Sarah looks for an alternative route
Sarah has a drink, on the rocks
Sarah uses her fencing skills to lunge to the next rock
Christa wades back
Anna and Sarah go rock scrambling and Anna figures out how to work the timer on Sarah's camera
Sarah finds cave and grunts in satisfaction
Christa remains in sight of the camper, maintaining what we call "camp-sight."
Sarah dives off cliff
Anna clings desperately to cliff face
Anna lives to tell the tale and journals adventures in the ship's log.
THE END
Animal Collective is coming to Denver on May 21st and my tried and true concert buddy Abbie is going to be out of the country. Ditching me for Scotland of all the nerve....and without Abbie, how will I meet Panda Bear??? And well, who's going to see the Zach and Jason movie with me??
:(
I played Sweet Road for my mom to try to convince her that she should go with me, and she liked it. Then I played Leaf House and she wasn't so sure.
I've noticed that almost anything my mom likes involves an acoustic guitar. Perhaps because she play(ed) one. Back in her high school days she could pick out a Cat Stevens song with the best of them.
Maybe freak folk will grow on her...
And this is what I didn't get my mother for mother's day...drat...
And in other news...
Me riding the horse bareback. Check out the stylish riding pants. But riding bareback does a number on your wardrobe and so I chose the oldest attire I could muster out of the closet.
The results of this week's sewing project:
Organized at last!
An odd mixture of music stickers, oxford paraphernalia, and pictures of people that I love decorates the walls...
Radiohead surrounded by a halo of light and pictures of people I love (including the Beatles....)
PS The blue tape around my posters is temporary. Until my posters decide that they will stop uncurling themselves and falling off the wall. I will see if they are flat enough to stay put in about a week or so.
There are two M.C. Escher prints on either side of the window. The white smudge on the right hand corner of the top window ledge is a bust of Bach from a German friend. The tea cups frame a Hard Rock Cafe beer glass, filled with dried rose petals. The brown mug is from my sister's trip to Uganda.
This room is a conglomeration of several eras of my life...
The organization battle continues, but the end is near. I wish organizing my closet were as easy as archiving my gmail. To have my stuff disappear into the void until I needed it would be quite heavenly. Of course, my stuff already disappears, but without the benefit of virtual spacelessness. So basically I deal with material bulk that is paradoxically not-there in the sense that I can access it in any meaningful way, but ever presently "there" in the sense that I trip over it.
And so my closet is Exhibit A for a discussion on Berkeley. You may begin when the instructor notifies you. Please use No. 2 pencils.
One of the benefits (?) of being home is that I can now enter into the latest passions of my family. My dad has embarked on a self-directed mission to become fluent in Spanish, and the latest tutorial revolves around the telenovela. Should I be embarrassed to admit that I have gotten hooked? We have an adopted grandmother at church who hails from Mexico and my dad was describing La Madrasta to her. "Oh! That is such a good one!" she exclaimed. And then proceeded to tell my dad how it ended, much to his dismay. I do have to say I have never seen so many family members whose exact relation is a mystery to me (except, of course, when a Mexican family of 17 individuals visited us one summer). I think I will have to draw a family tree. The confusing part is that in Season Two, the actors all switch roles (sort of like the role-playing game in For Your Consideration). Talk about versatility. So just when I figure out that Carlos is Rafino's son who is the step-brother of Servando who might be the father of Esteban, I will have to start afresh.
Anna leaves this morning for a wedding in Virginia. I get to take care of the horse while she is gone. I might even be up for a bit of bare-back riding. The horse foundered a while back and is just now back up to riding speed. (Foundering is basically overeating which in turn causes the hooves to go soft.) I did a little riding yesterday and can feel how little my riding muscles are used these days.
I got rather far on my skirt-making project yesterday until I realized I didn't have zippers. Despite my transition from the prairie girl look, I am still up for modesty, so I should probably put in a zipper. But I am going on errands today, so hopefully the project won't be sidelined for long. (You know you live in a rural area when "going to town" is a big deal.)
And finally, thanks to my super-hip aunt (who has original LPs of the Velvet Underground, by the way), I have a copy of What is the What. Reading the first few pages, which describe the robbery of this man's few possessions (and yet more than he had ever had before), makes me think more deeply about my own stuff. An inspiration to keep downsizing the clutter. But also to clear out the junk of cluttered opinions. I accumulate other people's evaluations of myself till the mess obscures reality. Who am I? I need to find this out. But then I remember that the quest for individuality and self-knowledge is an ideal that comes from my American surroundings. If God knows who I am, my individuality is assured: He can distinguish my being from the matter of the universe.
Lately I have been feeling incompetent. In some ways, I feel that I was more mature about 5 years ago, especially regarding spiritual matters. Or is maturity like a cluttered closet: the process of cleaning creates a bigger mess until finally the organization sets everything back into place?
So I am cleaning out my closet in the vain hope that I might have some room to store the mountains of books and CDs that I keep accumulating...but I fear that I might have to install bookshelves under my bed or something. As I have said before, I sleep in a library.
Other projects for this week include picking up some cheap but brightly colored fabric at Walmart and making some cute skirts. And maybe getting a few brightly colored tops to go with. Organization of my closet has revealed an over-representation of dark purple, dark blue, reds, a few pinks, lots of browns, and lots of blacks. So I feel it is time for something that looks like spring. The snow that fell last night is quickly melting, making me more optimistic about outdoor activity.
In a moment of transition to adulthood, I folded up all the dresses I had made in high school and got them out of my closet. I am never going to wear them again, I decided. I am done with the "prairie girl" look. About, like, ten years ago. I can't believe I haven't gotten rid of some of this stuff already. I feel so empowered throwing it out or putting it in the Goodwill pile.
So perhaps we will not have to play croquet in the snow with our friends after all. Although I would have enjoyed the challenge.
So after 25 and a half hours of traveling cross-country, me, my sister, and my car all made it back to Colorado. We discovered that cruise control kills the gas mileage. And that advertisements for Colby, Kansas leave "See Rock City" in the dust. And that Kansas is currently 40 degrees hotter than Colorado right now. We might get snow on Monday.
My sister plows driveways.
I am in shorts right now. Trying to figure out how to fit my apartment into my car. I think I need a couple more boxes and it will all fit. But my youngest sister might be riding back to Colorado on the bumper. :)
So I wore my sandals in the snow today, determined to be spring-like even if I froze to death. I wore a hat so at least my ears were warm.
The Urishes came for dinner, along with two "homeless" cadets. We talked Wes Anderson. It was fun.
And Abbie forgot her CD. Good thing we are going to the Space Symposium together on Tuesday.
And Jon S. made it safely back from Iraq after seven months of service. God is gracious. And Mr. and Mrs. S were very happy in church today. And Celeste was home! Easter is happy for reunions.
I have finally found my state anthem, Grizzly Bear's Colorado.
Jeannette was talking about Wide Open Spaces earlier, and someone mentioned the West....which except for the occasional mountain is one wide open space. I think this song does a much better job than the Dixie Chicks in tone-painting the sky that stretches for ever and ever into eternity, amen.
And so I am not the only one who thinks they sound like Animal Collective's kid brother.
Not to over-write an oft-mentioned topic (i.e. the snow in Colorado), but these are just too beautiful not to share....
Currently listening to Our Endless Numbered Days...
~Anna, when asked to describe the sensation of having a pile of snow steadily accumulate in one's lap~
Let me introduce you to the time-honoured tradition of tractor-sledding. Part sledding, part water skiing, the sport merely takes a good covering of snow on the ground, a stout rope, a goodly tractor, a practiced driver and a willing heart. After tying one end of the rope to the sled and the other to the back of the tractor (using all the while sturdy bowline knots), proceed to sit in the sled and, making eye contact with the capable driver, yell in the customary water-skiing manner "Hit it!" The driver will take such exclamations as authorization to put the tractor in gear and start forward. However, a word of caution: two passengers in the sled may prove more sociable but the foreward weight of the front sledder may reduce aerodynamic slide, resulting in an accumulation of snow in one's lap as the sled sloshes through the snowbank rather than over it. The temperature of fresh snow is somewhere below 0 degrees centigrade, in other words, not a very pleasant cargo to transport in such close proximity to one's body, no matter how well-protected by jeans it happens to be. Continue being pulled behind the tractor until someone falls off or the trail ends. Scream loudly to get driver's attention. Repeat as necessary. Throw frozen wet jeans in the dryer upon return to the house.
Tractor-sledding. It's the next best thing since cow-tipping. I'm telling you.
This is my favorite excerpt from the Messiah. And not just because the altos get the first say. Such triumph and joy and majesty. Pointing ahead even while looking back. Situated in time and all times.
Sledding at the Johns...after our limbs started to freeze, we enjoyed hot chocolate and peanut butter cookies indoors. Jenni and I amused ourselves by planning out the Pride and Prejudice musical that we think really ought to be written someday (I suppose Bride and Prejudice might count, but personally, I think ours was better...)
My flash was blindingly bright, which made me not the most popular person for a while, but I did manage to get some pictures.
Incoming
Anna and Elaine
A full toboggan
One or another VanderHart, jumping off the back porch (into the snow bank below)
More leaps of faith
Hannah Joy and Elaine
Christa and Jenni
A drive during Christmas is a drive during Christmas, but a drive after a blizzard...? Ah! It was a nightmare in Colorado Springs today. I saw a few cars half-buried in the ditches by the roadside. The lane markings are semi-buried and of course no one really cares anymore. But the sun is out and but for the fact that we are due for another storm tomorrow, we might well have had no snow left by Christmas. But I finished my Christmas shopping and feel no need to venture out of our house again, unless it be to go sledding at the Johns tonight. For sledding I will brave anything...
They've shut down I-25, Academy, and pretty much all the other major arteries of traffic through Colorado Springs. My grandparents won't be coming till Saturday. People abandon their cars on the roadside. The weather alert tells us not to leave the house except for emergencies (i.e. "We have better things to do than rescue stupid mall-shoppers...")
This is Denver's 4th worst storm (supposedly, I am not sure what they are comparing this blizzard to). Apparently we are famous worldwide. According to Philip B., even people from Serbia know about this storm.
I think we'll have a White Christmas after all...
I have a room in the basement. I woke up to this:
The outside perspective
Notice how there are seven foot drifts next to bare ground. Not atypical of where we live. It's the biting, blinding wind that does it.
Snow, snow, everywhere
The old doghouse, on the back porch
Anna, snowshoeing across the drifts (that's our barn in the background)
We always said it was hard for Anna to make up her mind. She prefers to sit on the fence...
Our little range pony, snug in the barn...
We have this crazy Christmas tradition in which my dad takes this Santa ornament and hides it in a different spot every day. The rest of us then have to find Santa. Usually we just forget, till a moment of serendipitous discovery...the absurd at its finest...we are suddenly made aware of the things-at-hand...
The sideways-snow, blustery, visibility-nearly-nil sort of blizzard. We go nowhere for now.
EDIT: 11:49am
My poor grandparents were trying to fly in today to visit us. :(
The drift in front of our garage door...
Gingerbear Cookies
Anna made this one. She called it the French Bear. Three Guesses as to why...
The Monty Python Black Knight Bears...
Is it now legal to carry small quantities of marijuana around? And did gay marriage gain significant ground? And Colorado has a Democratic governor for the first time in since before I can remember?
And the Ted Haggart thing still seems so unreal. I guess maybe because his daughter-in-law worked once for my dad and so I feel as if we have a small if slight connection. And so many acquaintances and friends of mine went to his church, New Life.
The tradition of gathering Forestgater folks at the Funke Farms for a Barn Dance stretches at least back into the mid-90s, quite possibly all the way back to Grade 6 or 7 (for me). The festivities started as a Halloween alternative, but weather considerations have pushed it further and further summerward. Even so, the participants in the tractor hayride last night braved gently falling snowflakes.
The Funke Farms Barn Dance is more technically a Garage Dance, but such terminology hardly sounds folksy. This event is an excuse for my dad to have a clean garage once a year, as the family moves out the vehicles and sweeps the floor. One year we strewed woodchips on the ground in an attempt to authenticate the experience, but too many people suffered from asthmatic sorts of reactions, so now it's just the plain concrete that supports the heels of innumerable toe-tapping reelers. Those who desire genuine barning can go visit the one out back and pet the llamas.
The Barn Dance has been the source of much excitement and anxiety over the years. Will anyone ask me to dance? Is it okay for girls to ask guys to dance? Will people think I'm ugly if I just dance with a girl? And so and so forth. But as one grows past the stressful drama of middle school and enters the stressful drama of high school and then leaves for the stressful drama of college and then matures into the stressful drama of post-graduate life, one realizes one thing: there is no one thing to realize.
Except that I've had some profoundly fun times with the friends who've shaped my childhood and I miss seeing everyone got up in prairie/cowboy garb. I miss standing at the end of our 1/2 mile driveway, waving at the arrivals as the cars steadily pile up along the road. I miss the potluck suppers. I miss watching the awkward stages of the Chicken Dance (traditional first dance of the evening), as newcomers warm up to the idea, and we decide we can finally be crazy with each other. I miss the static on the old 45s and the caller's instructions miked over. I miss dancing with people from kindergarten to senior citizen. I miss keeping the kids from falling off the haybales.
My dad sent me a piece of all that. The clip hardly does justice to the event. But it's a piece of home. My home. And I share it.
Starring various Johns, VanderHarts, Raders, Culbertsons, Odells, and my own sister.
The Futorans came and visited us on their million and three mile journey across America. Not ones to let a trip to a Welcome Center or Gift Shop pass them respectively by, Mr. Futoran took Tim and Kelly (and Anna and myself for good measure) up Pikes Peak and then to USAFA. We ran out of time for a trip to Focus on the Family, but assured Tim that Whit's End is something of a disappointment, especially for longtime listeners of Adventures in Odyssey.
As usual, it was cold at the top, but this time, it was snowing. Kelly had already made a break for the gift shop. We would momentarily follow.
Since he didn't have time to hike the whole trail, Tim posed by the trail's end sign instead. He was going for the "I've just hiked 13 miles up a 6,000 ft increase in elevation grade and am about ready to die" look. I think he succeeded.
The inside of the USAFA chapel, Protestant section:
The USAFA chapel organ: the stained glass diffuses the light inside.
Tim and the chapel, front view. Anna claims that the USAFA chapel was designed by the same architect who did Covenant's chapel. She might be basing that conclusion on the fact that both roofs leak. Any other opinions out there?
--My cousin Luke
"Didn't know your name was Pikes Peak, Luke."
--Me
Drove up Pikes Peak today with the cousins. Walked down the trail to the 16 Golden Stairs, turned around, and pretended to have trekked the entire 13 miles from the base.
Scenic View
Nervous? Not Such a Long Drop, Really....
Mark the Mad Bomber, or It Was Kind of Cold at the Top
Jenna on the Edge
The Other Funkes: Luke, Uncle Andy, Jenna, Mark, Aunt Debbie, Laura, Kara
ShadowLands
Atlas Clouds
Sarah and Luke, Sitting in a Tipi...
Sluicing for Gold (Mark found a sluice tray and made a boat out of it. We backed up the water source and then "ran the rapids")
Reflecting on the Trip: Luke, Kara, Sarah, Mark
Colorado welcomes me home in her stylistic manner. I woke up this morning and my throat tried to crawl right out of my mouth in sheer desperation to find something liquid to sooth the parched airways. Then I looked out the window:
I also helped my mom set up a xanga account. Her site is melodramamama. I'm hoping that she will maybe use the space to comment on films or plays, since she watches more than I do.
Pikes Peak. There's no place like home.
My family went hiking for Anna's 22nd Birthday yesterday. In honor of 5N, I asked my dad to take a picture of my shoes at the top. 9, 500 feet may not be the top of the world, but it's close enough.
Also of note along the trail: painfully obvious or vapid trail signs.
"In extreme situations, forest fires can be a source of danger and destruction."
"Does man change the forest? Of course. But how did the forest change you?"
"As you continue up the trail, you will notice changes in the vegetation. These changes aren't good....they aren't bad....they just are."
And now, we really are leaving...(see previous entry).
What promised to be a gentle 10 mile hike round the back of Mt Hermon, a distance stretching from Monument to Palmer Lake (two towns off I-25 on the way to Denver), became an adventure when the trail five hikers were blithely following suddenly vanished.
"We came to a fork in the road," Christa Funke, age 19, stated. "The map said to follow the 4-wheeler trail, and the path going up looked rather 4-wheeled. The other way just looked like a road." Prompted by these considerations, five hikers, all from the Colorado Springs area, decided to take the trail leading up an adjoining ridge, rather than following the road any longer. A pleasanter view and more rugged terrain rewarded the group's choice. "Yes," said Sarah Funke, age 23, "I was glad we had taken the road less traveled by." However, just as the hikers topped the crest of the ridge and managed to glimpse their destination--Palmer Lake Resevoir--the path disappeared, and the travelers were left with no distinct direction to follow. "It was like there were no omens anymore. Every choice from here on out was clearly up to us," S. Funke mused. Mrs. John, age undisclosed and family friend of the Funkes, intrepidly began bushwhacking her way down towards the resevoir. Traversing boulders, steep terrain, and undergrowth thick enough to obscure vision beyond 10-15 feet, the hikers finally reached the edge of the resevoir, only to discover that they had arrived on the wrong side. "We were pretty discouraged by that point," Anna Funke, age 21, noted. "I had spent the last stretch of downhill trying to keep from thinking too much about falling to my death." "Yeah," Sarah agreed. "I looked like I had fought a cat and lost. Speaking of cats, that place would have been perfect for mountain lions." Brief discussions regarding the possibility of walking across the resevoir dam were squelched by a large chain link fence and a "NO TRESPASSING" sign. A very wet-looking lake bordered one side of the dam, and boulders dropped off into a canyon on the other side. At this stage, the group divided over possible procedures. One half argued that the best course of action would be to return the way the group had come and find the right path. The other half looked across the canyon at the road, only a tantalizing half mile away. Mrs. Funke, age undisclosed, began to count the snack and water supplies the hikers still had left while her oldest daughter tried vainly to remember how to set up a bivouac type shelter for the night. "Nerves were getting a little tight," Mrs. Funke noted.
The group finally decided to hold a time of prayer before continuing down into the canyon. Mrs. John managed to feel out a passable way towards the creekbed. The terrain providentially leveled out enough to minimize the scraping and sliding that formed the main method of downward movement. The hikers found themselves at the creek just where two or three boulders provided a safe crossing. Some more scrambling brought them out onto the road, from which point the hikers enjoyed a leisurely and much relieved stroll back to the car, noting how steep and marked by cliff faces much of the remainder of the canyon was. Said Sarah, "On second thought, we definitely did not take the trail less traveled by. That was the trail NEVER traveled by." Mrs. John made a mental note to write "Stay on road" on her map, everyone drove back to their respective houses, and Sarah discovered that her email server had overflowed its quota and was sending emails back to sender.
But the group did find wild raspberries along the trail. No one, however, was brave enough to test what the group thought might be choke cherries, but couldn't really be sure. Another day, perhaps.
Latest [and last] pictures from Pikes Peak (Forestgate Climb, July 30, 2005).
We started at 4am. We hiked about 12.6 miles.
I told Celeste that this picture would be going on the blog, and since I don't like to break my promises...
Barr Camp: Half-way there by 7 am.
Esther and Mrs. J: Above timber line, about 2 miles from the top. Approximately 9:15. It would take us another 1 hour 30 minutes to go the last two miles.
Group at the Summit. The two guys made the ascent in 5 hours flat, and had been waiting 1 hour 40 min till Celeste, the next hiker, arrived to join them. I arrived approx. 6-7 minutes later, after Sarah R. and Esther J. I claimed the distinction of being the first person over 21 to the summit. The next group of hikers arrived an hour later. The last hiker finished at 12:30pm.
Solo Summit
View (Anna took this picture)
Car Ride Down
I went up my first 14k today, Grey's Peak off I-70 near Loveland Pass, north of Denver, a member of the Front Range (i.e., Colorado Rockies). I have proof that I made it: a picture and a signature on the "guest book" that was rolled up in a PVC pipe chained to the rocks. The picture is here. If you want to see the signature, you will need to make the hike yourself. :)
Ah..snow, real snow. Not the three flakes and a breath of ice that cancels school in sun-clad Georgia, but the driving, swirling, car-engulfing, field-swallowing blizzards of the Rocky Mountains. The kind that necessitates storing extra provisions and blankets in one's vehicle, should he be so brash as to venture into the storm. The kind that piles up in drifts that one must crawl over lest he disappear into the depths. One crawls...belly scraping surface...spread-eagle in order to shift the body's weight over the greatest possible surface area. The livestock greet you with frosty faces, ghostlike and hungry waifs. And the wind! Blinding, whirling, horizontal precipitation. Eyes sting, then freeze. All sound but the wind shut out. One is locked in Emerson's tumultuous privacy of storm (The Snow Storm).
