I could go on and on about the finish to our trip to Colorado that I started last week. In fact I think I will. Mimi and I wound up in Conifer, Colorado as our base “camp” for driving out in a different direction every day. From there we took some nice hikes within about 20 minutes from the house, those hikes afforded us to be able to do a morning 3 or 4 hours, back to the house for a rest up then back out for a shorty day hike to finish with a great meal. Of course the afternoon hike had an ominous storm in the distance as often happens in the Rockies. We kept our eye on that and hustled a little bit, it doesn’t take much to get reminded about how easily the mountain weather can turn dangerous. That’s what these first day hikes were about, to remember what all needs to be in our packs and a boot check so the next days bigger hikes would go smoothly. The next morning we were out the door at 6a so we could drive to the top of Mt. Evan’s at 14,265 ft.
We originally planned to hike to the summit until packing for all that began to completely complicate what we wanted to be stress-low. We were amongst the early ones up there. The drive up is incredibly beautiful. The road hasn’t been updated in a long time, not that it was in bad shape, it really wasn’t wide enough to accommodate todays bigger vehicles. That’s why we were glad to be going up without anyone coming down towards us. This fall when they shut that road down for winter it won’t re-open until sometime in ’26 so they can update, hopefully not by adding guard rails which is a huge part of the experience. The lack of guardrails gives a feeling of really being out there and great views. Hopefully your passenger is in the mood to take pictures because the driver has their eyes glued (mostly), unless a mountain goat or a marmot or a lake appears. I’m easily distracted. There was a gang of goats hanging around at the very top and they immediately circled our car and started licking it. One baby goat jumped up on the hood of our car and scouted out anymore good places to lick.
I was worried some of them might follow him, I’d have some explaining to do to the rental car place. We walked the final 165 feet to the summit ( never thought I’d see the day). We hung out with some of the people who truly had climbed it that morning while helping them by taking their summit photos. We decided to borrow their summit signs and stage a fake summit picture. We figured we deserved it just for getting up early enough to get up there! When we got over that we took a 6 mile loop hike that took us past some great mountain lakes and a shady river where we kicked off our boots for a while and had a good ole hiking sandwich. Everything tastes better on a hike. We were so excited for an otherwise common peanut butter and banana and honey sandwich with an apple. It’s heaven when your pushing yourself, and for me, pushing myself and trying not to show it so Mimi wont trade me in. She assured me that she was totally satisfied with our pace, I think my pace these days is a struggle for her to gear down to. I have seen her get stuck behind people that are poking, heck, when I feel her get behind me in the hallway at home I pull over and let her pass! Mimi told me the other day that she often gets to where a customer wants to get only to find herself all alone, she can see the customer doing their very best to keep up. She tidies up the area while she waits.
The next day we drove far away to the Royal Gorge where we had reservations on the train that runs at the bottom of the 1,200 foot gorge next to the Arkansas River. It’s a two hour train ride with some great sights and whitewater rafters having fun. We took a scenic drive back to our place and, like every where we go, we lamented about what it would be like to live there. It looks expensive and like one harsh weather season to the next, or at least harsh to me. I don’t know how to live in the snow or how to live knowing a fire could spark up so easily, don’t want to know but we love going out there as much as we love anything. We were reminded how nice it is to have a reliable friend who will check in on things back home. Brayden is an employee that has been a real pleasure to work with from the minute he got there, he blended in with us like he has been there forever. Mimi had to go to one of the emergency care places with an employee who had hurt himself. The nurse there asked her if she needed any help at the nursery, that his son was searching.
The timing was perfect, she told him to send him in. Brayden showed up the next day and Mimi hired him on the spot, she’s been doing this long enough to be able to trust her judgement of people. Mimis intuition was correct again. Brayden said he was interested in learning about plants and the nursery world. We’ve heard that before and that can mean a lot of things but this time he meant exactly what he said. It has been so impressive to watch this dude evolve into the nursery guy that he is now. He is working with the toughest of jobs around the nursery as well as help customers with a confident and gentle demeanor. I can genuinely say that he has made our lives at Garden Works better by being just the kind of guy we like having around. Brayden is stopping by our house every day to check on and water those pots that otherwise would be mad at us for leaving them unattended for so long. Without people like that in our lives it would be much harder to de-stress and relax and re-fuel.
Mimi and I believe that this trip will be one for the books. Everything went smoothly and we did things like we haven’t done them before. We were able to make some big decisions about some things that had been previously unresolved. It’s amazing what the mountain air will do to kick start our brains into motion. We spent a lot of time talking about non work stuff while on our hikes, recognizing plants that are native to this region but sold as annuals in ours. We had the we-need-a-hot tub conversation as we soaked in the one at our rental place. It felt so good on our sore and tired muscles, we are not sure how we can live without one. The hot tub kind of erases the hardest parts of our days and brings us to another dimension. It would have to fit in to our scene at home and it would have to fit into our budget, it will be fun to begin yet another search. Searching is free and the ideas I’ve seen since glancing over at Mimi while she busily checks stuff out on her googler look great. As we turned in our baby goat hoof covered rental car we fist bumped and smiled at each other, no words necessary.
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