A Little Bit Like Finland

Today Gretchen and I went up on the Grand Mesa, just to stroll through the woods and look for mushrooms. As it turns out it was a fine fine day for both. I gathered a bagful of chanterelles and boletus'. So the next step on my agenda today is to make a pot of mushroom soup.

The weather was remarkable. This is really the best time to be there. There are fewer tourists and virtually no mosquitoes. The temperature was in the high 70s. The unfortunate part of it is that the nearest pine tree to my house is still 50 miles away. You can see the stark differences in the landscape here. If I go slightly west, I hit landscapes like this:
But if I drive east, I find landscapes like this:

The Sound of Silence

I feel as if I'm floating in some other space and time. I've been on the go since I arrived home 3 weeks ago. Camping all week, then daughter and grandkids here in GJ for 3 days. They just left and everything is now eerily quiet - just the tapping of my computer keys and the drone of the refrigerator. And my tinnitus. This will pass, this will pass . . . .

The cable company dropped by Friday afternoon and I said, sure, Y-not? $30/month, no contract. Let's see what television is like these days. We watched some the past couple of days. Very interesting, very interesting. I didn't really 'grok' it. A lot of reality television, which I think is just normal people being filmed as they go about their affairs. They are so bizarre. I particularly like the interesting ads for condoms. It will be fun watching it, like being a new arrival from a distant planet.

It's hard to tell what the economic state of GJ is. The houses around the center of town look a bit rundown, though the downtown shopping area looks vital and there's lots of new housing. The streets, sidewalks and bridges are being repaired under the Stimulus package. Lots of new stores. So it feels like it's prospering overall. Interesting.

Rollin', rollin' . . . .

I barely arrived home than I took off for a 10-day camping trip, which was shortened by two days by cold and thunderstorms. We drove out of the Collegiate Peaks campground on Thursday in a rain of hail and a lightning storm. Michelle and grandkids have come to GJ to visit for 3 days instead. Here it's hot hot hot. I wanted to go to the National Monument yesterday, but by 11am it was already getting sweltering and we decided to jump in the swimming pool instead.

I of course haven't settled into any kind of routine yet. Mostly I've just been packing and unpacking, touching base with people, trying to figure out what my next direction is. There is no lack of volunteer opportunities. Paying work may be another story. :o) We shall see. GJ looks like a boom town. I can't believe how much construction has taken place here in the past two years. I guess this is all part of the economic stimulus package. Seems like a good idea - roads being repaired, bridges, city landscaping. It's good.

I was going through my photos, looking at Tblisi photos, what a fun weekend that was, what a pretty place. It's so hard to keep from having that surreal dream feeling as I look back over the past year and a half. Before I left for Armenia I had been traveling in Mexico and Central America. So in the past 18 months I've visited 20 countries!: Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Armenia, Thailand, Dubai (UAE), Georgia, Turkey, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Albania, Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Estonia and Finland. It becomes most amazing to me when I spell it out like that! Especially considering I spent 10 of those months in one country. Whew. I'm tired. I think I'll go back to bed.