Thursday, July 6, 2006
Shady Acres Mobile Home & RV Park, Lafayette, CO - May 26-July 5
Friday, May 26 brought us full circle back to where it all started --Shady Acres was where we parked our rig in preparation for going full-time, and where we said many a tearful good-bye as we started off on our adventures 6 1/2 years ago. We've since stayed here 3 more times, each time vowing that it would be the last. But camping options are extremely limited in the Denver metro area, and when we were in the neighborhood (staying at St Vrain SP) we decided to check it out, and, in all fairness, it is significantly improved (not that it doesn't have a long way to go). There is now a full-time on-site manager and laundry facilities. The manager took down an old power line that was hanging down so low that, the last time we stayed, it tore one of our vent covers. Loud "boom box" cars still frequent the car wash next door a little too frequently, but one must take the bad with the good -- it's right across the street from a grocery & a library, and conveniently located for visiting friends.
Much of our time here was spent selling our house in Boulder, then finding & buying a condo in Longmont that we may retire to after we give up, or at least curtail, our nomadic lifestyle. By "exchanging" the rental property in Boulder for the condo in Longmont, we managed to avoid (or at least postpone!) quite a large tax bill. Also in buying the condo we made a new friend, realtor Leah Haenselman, who hopes to meet us out on the road someday -- maybe even this fall.Even more time was spent trying to donate Doug's old house in Wheat Ridge to the Humane Society of Boulder Valley (where we used to foster kittens & cats) in exchange for a lifetime annuity, called a Charitable Gift Annuity. If we were expecting a straight-forward transaction we were in for a big surprise, since the deal still has yet to be completed. It is looking quite promising, and when/if it is finalized, will enable the Humane Society to provide this option much more easily for future donors at all levels.
When we weren't pulling out our hair dealing with one or another house frustration, we managed to see 4 movies (probably more than we've seen in any year on the road): The Da Vinci Code, X-Men 3, An Inconvenient Truth, and Prairie Home Companion. We longed to also see "Wordplay" but just couldn't fit it into our busy schedule. We strolled through Old Town Lafayette on their "Chair-ity Walk" -- painted chairs to be auctioned off for charity. We enjoyed a Sierra Club Benefit Concert in Denver (Chris Daniels & The Kings). We attended an Oberlin College reception with its Alumni Assoc Exec Board. And we were underwhelmed by the "Body World" exhibit at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science: an exhibit of actual human bodies that have been "Plastinated" (replacing body fluids with clear plastic). 
In most cases, the skin had been removed & the individual posed (eg kicking a soccer ball). Each of the individuals had voluntarily donated their bodies for the process, but even so . . . as an anatomy aid for medical students, maybe, but as an exhibit solely to satisfy the curious, this was a little too much. Most others are quite impressed with this exhibit, we just happen to not be among them!
We also got to go birding -- 3 times with Boulder Bird Club & 3 times with Bill & Becky Eeds. Even though summer is not the best time for birding in Colorado, we managed to see three lifers: Cassin's finch, dickcissel, yellow-breasted chat (all common in their range but still unseen by us until this year).
One of our trips with Bill & Becky was to Rocky Mtn Natl Park, where on a half-mile stretch of trail we saw eleven different species of cavity-nesters -- both parents flying in & out of holes in trees frantically feeding their chicks. 
Speaking of Bill Eeds, he was one of a handful of people who were selected to go to Arkansas last winter to try to verify the existence of the ivory-billed woodpecker. We attended a 90-minute multi-media presentation by Bill & two others on their experience, and although they found no further evidence, it was interesting seeing pictures of the buggy, spider- and snake-infested swamp that they endured for two weeks trying to see that bird
(and that hundreds of thousands of others would have gladly traded places with them!).Bridge also played a central role in our whirl of activities -- social bridge at the Longmont Senior Center (if we're going to live there the bridge has to be acceptable) and best of all, bridge with dear friends Penny & Sue, as well as several other games with various friends. We just recently realized that we are not going to have such a high level of bridge for many months to come.
We found time for geocaching & letterboxing (we finally got an acid-free notebook, stamp & pad for letterboxing!), introducing Mark & Susan to these pursuits. Susan took to geocaching right away -- she found the first two when the rest of us were stumped. An interesting letterbox in Lafayette is "The Daytime Resting Place of Fodor Glava". Fodor died in Dec 1918 after moving here from Transylvania, and right about where his heart would be grows a tree, supposedly from the wooden stake that killed him.
And there's always music -- both making & hearing. Willie played violin with "her" quartet and we were treated to a fabulous lunch both times prepared by violist Judy Cole. Doug bought a digital keyboard from good friends Sheila & Tom and enjoyed playing it in spare moments (Sheila & Tom also had us over for 2 parties). And a free 4th of July concert by the Longmont Symphony gave us a chance to see some old friends still playing in that group.
Since there wasn't enough stress and confusion in our lives, we decided to investigate getting new flooring for our trailer. This was something we'd been considering for quite some time - the carpeting in our main living area was really getting stained & ratty - and since we found a flooring company one half block from our trailer, figured we would never get a better opportunity. We thought about Pergo, but the installer nixed that -- he was afraid the slide-outs might cause it to buckle. So we chose a high-quality wood-grain vinyl, and it really looks great, and is easy to clean. We crossed our fingers on moving day as the slide-outs slid in, and then again as they slid out, but we happily could see no ill-effects on our new floor.Last and certainly not least, cats took up a lot of our time and more of our pocketbook. Amber was on antibiotics for a urinary tract infection and eyedrops for goopy eyes. Not to be outdone, Rainbow had to see a cardiologist for arhythmia, thankfully diagnosed as "mild", but is now on medication for high blood pressure. Trixie wonders why she stays healthy and gets less attention than the others.
# posted by Doug and Willie @ 5:44 PM 
