Off to Mexico City

Off to Mexico

Eileen invited me to come to Mexico with her friend Barb. As we were discussing the trip, we agreed to fly into Mexico City, spend three full days in Mexico City, and then take the bus to San Miguel de Allende for a week, flying back from Mexico City.

On Tuesday, I got up at 3 AM to catch a very early bus to the airport. The flight from Denver to Salt Lake City was on time and routine, as was the flight from Salt Lake to Mexico City. Delta flies into the relatively new Terminal 2, the first time that I had used that terminal. I then took their monorail from Terminal 2 to Terminal 1, a relatively long trip.

I met Eileen and Barb in the lobby of the Mariott hotel, attached to Terminal 1. They had a routine flight from Phoenix. We took a hotel taxi to our hotel downtown, the Hotel Catedral.

The Zocolo, the main central square, was full of tents and tarps, as the teachers are demonstrating against the government, apparently because the government wants to test teachers, including teachers who have been teaching for a while.

After dinner at the rooftop restaurant overlooking the Zocolo, we called it a day.

North Park Colorado

On Wednesday morning I could not sleep so I got up very early, and hitched up the camper and the boat. I was on the road before 7 AM. I was getting sleepy so I took a nap at the top of Berthoud Pass.
North Park has its own stark beauty. One surprise when I got to Delaney Buttes South Lake was seeing flocks of yellow-headed blackbirds, gorgeous birds. Besides the yellow heads, they have white patches on their wings which you can see when they fly.

Wednesday evening was windy and cold, with a little rain. My neighbors from Boulder called to check on me, to make sure I was OK, apparently the weather in Boulder was bad.
I am a little rusty in terms of packing and setting up the camper, but I got it together. On Thursday morning the camper was cold. After a couple of minutes I figured out that one propane tank had run out; luckily all I needed to do was turn on the other tank. But I went into town to fill the empty tank, so I would not need to worry about propane for the rest of the trip.
At my propane stop I learned that Sheriff Rizor had been voted out of office and replaced with Sheriff Fischer. I picked up a copy of the Jackson County Star, which we used to subscribe to. It has not changed, still pretty funny, especially the police report. Sheriff Rizor's wife is running for county commissioner. If you need to know, the WIFI password of the town library is "colorado".
I have been fishing out of the boat, just off the north shore. Wednesday night I had one big fish on, but he got off, and caught two 13 inch Brown trout Thursday morning, not a bad start for a fishing trip.
My scaredy-cats hid under the bedcovers on the ride over. Dexter is still hiding under the covers, although I did see him out a little Wednesday night. Sally is begging for attention.
Friday was colder and stormy. A big wind in the afternoon flipped my boat over, the first time that has ever happened. Luckily, nothing was lost or damaged in the flip. But no luck fishing today. Maybe Saturday will be nicer weather and better fishing.
One mystery today. There is a huge flock of small birds flying around randomly, probably eating bugs, but I cannot find them in any of my three bird books. Actually, I am sure that they are in the book, but since I am not sure what kind of bird that they are, I don't seem to be able to identify them. Dark with white bodies, and white or yellow on the rear of the upper back, smaller than a robin. I finally got a good look at them while I was out on the boat, and concluded that they were cliff swallows.
Saturday was cold, windy, and rainy. When I woke up, I noticed that the battery voltage was 9 volts, not good. I hooked up the truck and ran the truck motor to charge the battery. The battery must be bad, since I had not used that much power. The fishing was cold, wet, and unsuccessful. Taking it all into account, I decided to head home.
But it was still good to get out, the first time I had used the camper since August. I will take it out again later in the summer.

End of the Road

Marianne reached the end of her earthly road in December. Her cancer ended her traveling and ultimately her life. It had been a good trip, with a good traveling companion, thirty-three years long.

The United Nations, UNESCO, publishes a list of world heritage sites, some famous, some obscure. I figured out that she and I have been to half of the world heritage sites in the US, and half of the ones in Mexico as well. A good trip indeed, one that we were very fortunate to be able to take together.

At this point, I don't know if I will continue to use this blog for my travels or not. Nor am I sure if I will travel in the same way that we have traveled in the past. For example, I do not expect to take any cruises by myself. But my travels will continue in some form, I am sure.

Life is, after all, a kind of journey. Sometimes life is described as a kind of pilgrimage, "Pilgrims Progress", or John Wayne referring to someone as "Pilgrim".

I have one big trip on tap for the fall of 2012, walking in the footsteps of 1000 years of pilgrims. My plan is to return to Europe, and walk another 200 miles or so, on the Camino a Santiago de Compostella, like I did in 2002. An appropriate trip to contemplate the next leg of the journey or pilgrimage of my life.

Please keep Marianne, I, and all our family, in your thoughts and prayers.

Richard

A visit to Electra

We are made a trip to Electra Lake, north of Durango. Marianne's sister Eileen has a cabin on the lake. The occasion was a concert by Eileen's trio.
On our way to Electra on Wednesday, we stopped in Glenwood Springs and had lunch with our friends Charlie and Gail at the Pullman restaurant, near the train station. A good lunch and a good visit.


Grand Junction was very hot, 103 degrees, but cool in the mountains. We did run into some rain as we got closer to Electra. The drive was uneventful, but of course slow on the Million Dollar highway.

We had a nice dinner with Eileen. Pat and Stacey arrived after we had gone to bed.

Thursday midday Pat and I took the boat out on the lake to do a little fishing. Richard caught a 17 inch rainbow trout, which we kept for dinner. Stacey later caught a 13 inch fish off the dock, so we had trout for dinner.

Friday was a quiet day. Pat and Stacey went into town for the day. Eileen went to practice for her trio. Richard fished a bit after dark, no luck.
Friday and Saturday Richard and Pat did some repairs on the boathouse stairs, as well as the boat, tightened up some loose steps, etc. Nothing big, but things that needed to be done.

Saturday was all about the concert. Eileen went to practice in the morning, and we headed over to the clubhouse for the 5 PM concert. The concert was very good, and well attended.

Sunday we left at 8:30 AM. Traffic was light, so we easily made it to Montrose by the 11 am mass. This was the Spanish mass, well attended. The priest seemed like he didn't want to be there, speaking indifferent Spanish.

We picked up excellent fruit and vegetables in Palisade. The rest of the ride home went smoothly, with rain and lighter than expected traffic.

North Park Colorado

Fishing Delaney Buttes Lake

On Friday, we headed off fishing for the first time in 2011. It took a while to gather all the pieces for the boat, etc. When we hitch the boat to the 5th wheel, the entire rig is 62 feet long! The drive over was routine, although the traffic was heavier than usual, due to those leaving early on Friday afternoon.

We were hoping to see a moose, but no luck.

We bought our fishing licenses in Walden, where Richard talked about going out with a guide to try to learn to fish better. The guides suggested that we come back in the fall for a day of guided fishing.

South Delaney Butte Lake was a little more crowded than usual, but we found a decent campsite overlooking the lake. Richard went out in the boat in the evening, but no bites. He chatted in the dark with a fishing bum, sleeping in his van, with an unusual tiny ten foot boat, fully equiped, just big enough for one person on a small lake.

Saturday morning we slept in. Richard did a little midday fishing (it's called fishing, not catching). We headed in to Walden to go to mass; Richard saw an American Avocet on the way. There were about 25 people in the small church. The priest was one we recognized, he used to be in Boulder. There are now two priests covering two counties and five churches. We chatted with an couple after mass. He was a serious ice fisherman, a two time winner of the local ice fishing championship! They had lived in Walden since the 1940s.

After dinner, and around sunset, Richard went out in the boat, and caught a 14 inch trout on the first cast! He caught two more similar fish in the next 15 minutes, then nothing, but good to break the jinx. The fish were right at the legal limit, and Richard did not have an easy way to measure the fish, so he put them back. Marianne wanted him to keep some fish for her friends. Unfortunately, he also broke one of his fishing rods, but we have extra rods.

On Sunday morning we slept in again, and awoke to find the camper cold and the lake glassy. The thermometer says that it got down to 42 degrees overnight. Richard went out on the lake, but got off the lake around noon when the winds picked up. The winds later got strong enough to shake the camper. Richard went out in the evening, but no luck.

On Monday morning, Richard went out on the lake, and caught a couple of trout, one 15 inches and one 13 inches. The photo is of the smaller fish, which we kept. The day started out calm, but the winds returned by the afternoon.

Richard went out for the evening fishing and found himself in a hatch, with groups of fish slurping down something on the surface. Richard had a fish on with the first cast, but the fish headed to the bottom and wrapped around the weeds, so Richard only caught a clump of weeds! He had lots of bites, and some fish on, but only got one fish in his net. Richard found watching the fish activity to be quite entertaining. He never figured out which hatch had the fish so excited.

On Tuesday we drove back to Boulder, making a stop in the Wildlife refuge to go on the wetlands hike.

Cow Head to Colorado

We slept in on Wednesday, as we had stayed up late to see the play.

As we drove south, we stopped to admire a couple of attractions which we had not visited on the way up. One was the wreck of the SS Effie. The other was sea caves.

When we got to Deer Lake, we called several B&Bs which were full, and ended up in the very nice Humberview BB. Marianne wanted to visit Cornerbrook, which is the largest city that we have seen in Newfoundland. We were told that this is where residents of western Newfoundland go to shop, and we saw plenty of shopping there. We drove up to the top of the hill, where a monument commememorates Captian Cook, who originally made his name producing detailed surveys of the coast in this area. There are views of the bay, of the city, and of the paper mill. Not much for tourists, however.

One interesting thing that ties Deer Lake to Cornerbrook is the powerplant. The hydro plant in Deer lake was built in the 1920s specifically to power the paper mill in Cornerbrook. This was the beginning of the town of Deer Lake. The power lines between the two cities look like they date from the same era.

Our Air Canada flight on Thursday morning left as 6 AM, so we woke up at 4 AM to make our flight. The flight left on time, and almost immediately flew into the clouds. When we arrived at Toronto, we were surprised to learn that we would clear customs and immigration in Toronto. This effectively torpedoed Richard's plan to go into Toronto, as we needed to claim our checked luggage inside the secured area. Oh, well, it was a very hot day in Toronto, and we would have had limited time to tour anyway. The secured area is a very large concourse, dedicated to flights from Toronto to the USA. We found that our flight to Denver was already projected to depart 30 minutes late, even though the departure time was five hours away.

Ultimately, we left two hours late. In addition to the forecast delay due to the previous flight being delayed, they took some time to cool the aircraft before we got into it. But when we pulled away from the concourse, the pilot found that his defroster was giving an error indication, perhaps due to the heat. We returned to the concourse, where the technician reset the computer and cleared the error. This put us back to our house about 10 PM, making it a 20 hour day from when the alarm went off.

We really liked Newfoundland, the friendiness of the people, the lack of stress, the scenery, and the fresh seafood. Marianne said that it was one of her favorite trips ever. We hope to return.

Vikings, Icebergs, Thrombolites, and Theatre

We decided to spend one more night in the St. Anthony area, which meant one more night in the Triple Rose B&B. We found that Rose is the maiden name of Irene and Eileen, the twin sisters who run the place, along with their brother.

We woke up to a beautiful clear day.

We first headed back to the Viking site, where Marianne got a demonstration of single needle knitting, and we took a tour of the archeological site. You can see the Marianne swings a mean sword.

After that, we stopped at a nearby craft store, where Marianne bought a hat made by the lady who ran the store, as well as a needle made of moose antler. The hat and the needle were both single needle knitting. You can see the hat on Marianne's head next to the iceberg.


After a pleasant lunch at "The Catch", we drove out to Onion point, where there was an overlook with a bench. Quite a view, and the weather was nice enough to sit out and admire it.

On Tuesday, we said goodbye to our hosts, and headed south. We decided to stop and see the Thrombolites. We were hiking on the trail, but we did not know what we were looking for. These were fossils of single-celled bacteria and algae, one to three billion years old! They grew in clumps or clots, hence the name.


We decided to stay in Cow Head, and see one of their plays, a comedy about two guys opening Ed and Ed's B&B. Pretty funny, lots of Newfoundland jokes. The sunset picture is from Cow Head, at low tide.



Wednesday is our last day in Newfoundland, as we leave early Thursday. We will be sorry to leave Newfoundland, which we have enjoyed very much.