Tag: Beautiful Things

Electric Bikes

On By rrainefioreIn Beautiful Things, UncategorizedLeave a comment

I’m in Japan for an ATP workshop.  We arrived a few days early to check out the small town near where the workshop will be.  We’ve covered most of the village of Bessho Onsen on foot so far.  We were told by our Airbnb host that the town had bikes we could use for free.  There’s another section of town we could get to and explore if we had bikes.  There are some more temples we could see also.  We went down to the train station to “rent” the bikes.  They are electric bikes.  I’ve never ridden an electric bike.  They do seem to be all the rage lately so this should be fun.  This is a mountain village so it’s not flat.  The electric bikes should help with the steeper sections of journey as well.  But, of course, there is no flat open place to practice.  Nor did I have any thought that I would need practice.  I get on the bike and pedal to cross the street from the train station to the sidewalk on the other side of the street.  One half pedal rotation was like three.  I shot like a rocket across the street squeeling like an 8 year old girl.  For some reason, unexpected speed made my body think it needed to turn the handle bars sharply to the left.  I almost spun out in the middle of the street.  I managed to correct the turn just before getting to the curb.  What have I gotten myself into?  A whole afternoon of this?  Of course, the sidewalk was steep in the beginning and didn’t level off for about 15 minutes.  By the time it leveled off, I was a little more use to riding.  Starting remained a challenge most of the afternoon, though.  We got to ride through a more residential area of town which was wonderful.  I love to see neighborhoods and see how people live.   It’s fun to see what’s different and what’s the same.  It’s fun to try to imagine what it would be like to live there, where you would shop, where you would exercise, who you might know.  We went up into the hills and saw some temples.  The bikes were so helpful for climbing the small hills that would have been a huge challenge on a normal bike.  Now I want an electric bike.

Secret Balcony

On By rrainefioreIn Beautiful Colorado, Beautiful ThingsLeave a comment

Near the end of ski season there was a big party at the base of the ski resort.  There was a live band a people were dancing.  I met a couple new friends there for a drink.  The day was warm and the atmosphere was celebratory.   After a drink and some snacks, the people I was with were ready to go, but I wasn’t.   I was enjoying the nice afternoon and the sun.  I had run into some other friends as they came in from skiing, but I didn’t see where they went.  So, I texted one to find out if they were still hanging out around the festivities.  His response was “yea.  We are on the secret balcony, hanging out with the cops”.  Huh? I waited a few minutes expecting more information to come in, but none did.  So I asked him if was going to tell me how to get to this secret balcony.  He told me to go to the elevators past ski school and go up to 3r.  I had a heck of a time finding the elevators by ski school.  In fact, I didn’t really ever see anything that said ski school, but I hunted around the building for an elevator.  I found an elevator down a hallway that didn’t quite look like I should be in the hallway.  But, of course, if it’s a secret balcony, I guess it shouldn’t be easy to find and I shouldn’t feel quite like I’m supposed to be there.  The elevator had a 3r so I pushed it and ended up in another hallway.  At the end of the hallway looked like what might be a balcony, but no one was there.  Finally my friend poked his head out a different door.  I followed him through a room that looked like where kids might eat lunch – lots of low tables with small seats. On the other side of the room was the secret balcony.  It sat just above where the live band was.  We could look down on the crowd below.  But we had to sit on small children sized chairs.  It’s nice to know people with access to secret places.

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Spa Light

On By rrainefioreIn Beautiful Things, UncategorizedLeave a comment

I use to do ear candling more often, but over the years of living alone, have done it less often as it’s not a safe (or possible?) thing to do by yourself.  I found a place that will do it for you.  I felt like I was getting a sinus or ear infection so I decided to pay someone else to do ear candling for me.

I went into the massage office and was shown to a room.  The room was dimly lit, cozy and warm.  The soft light made you want to nap.  I laid down to wait.  The whole ceiling broke out into fluffy clouds of soft light.  Upon closer inspection, it looked like the whole ceiling was covered in lace.   When I looked around the dimly lit room, I realized the entire room was also fluffy clouds of light.  There was a large metal light in the middle of the ceiling.  It had tons of tiny holes as well as flowers cut out of the metal.  The light fell out of it in soft shapes all over the ceiling and walls.  I’m not sure if the lamp or it’s effect on the ceiling and walls was more pretty.

Tubing

On By rrainefioreIn Beautiful Colorado, Beautiful Things, Uncategorized1 Comment

The winter season is winding down.  The ski resort is still open, but it’s mostly slush, not snow.  It’s less crowded.  One of my friends got $5 tickets for the tubing hill at the ski resort.  And it was the last week the tubing hill would be open.  So at lunch time, three of us went tubing for an hour.

On our way to our first run we heard a little kid screaming very loudly in giant protest when his parents made him leave.  We all thought we might feel like that when it was our turn to leave, when our hour was up.

There were four tracks.  We went down a couple, taking turns before we found out we could go down all at the same time holding onto each other’s tubes.  That was a game changer.  We tried all four until we found our favorite one.  We hooked our tubes together and went down screaming and laughing like teenagers.  It was amazing how little control you had, just hold on and giggle.

This is where I live.  These are my friends.  This was my lunch break.  How wonderful.  I was sad to go, but was able to keep from screaming and crying in protest.

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Trough Road

On By rrainefioreIn Beautiful Things, UncategorizedLeave a comment

The fastest route to go west of where I live is not to go down to the highway, but to travel west through a couple small towns and then west along a long dirt road (Trough Road) through the mountains.  I have taken this route a few times now to get to Snowmass Village where some of my friends live.  The first time I took the route, I just let google maps direct me and I was quite shocked when it took me down this long, steep, not very wide road for over an hour.  After looking at maps closer, I realized, this really is the quickest way.

A large storm was due to hit Denver the day I was supposed to be going to Snowmass.  My plan had been to drive to Snowmass in the evening.  The whole city of Denver was in a panic over the storm.  You would think the end of the world was coming.  Grand County got the edge of the storm.  Schools were closed and the news was covered in warnings.  At one point I looked at the traffic maps and almost every highway was closed.  I debated leaving earlier to go to Snowmass, but I was afraid to get on the highway and I was sure Trough Road would not be navigable.  Plus, the mountains had been trying to kill people with avalanches lately and I was very wary of the avalanche danger.  Many areas that haven’t had avalanches in 10 or more years were covering roads and highways.  I watched the snow plow go down my road at least 5 times during the day even though I could barely see the end of my driveway.

At one point in the early afternoon, the storm lifted a little.  The clouds were still there, but they rose a little higher in the sky.  The snow slowed and I could see the end of the driveway.  I thought, if I’m going to go, now is the time.  The hardest part of the drive was my own driveway since I didn’t shovel first.  All the roads in Grand County were cleared pretty well.  I think the county has a shortage of plumbers, but an excess of snow plowers.  As I was driving, I was wondering what Trough Road would look like.  I was wondering if there was avalanche danger or if the snow would be so thick you couldn’t drive on it.  I got to it and it looked like it had been plowed.  So, I took a chance, hoping I wouldn’t get stuck if it wasn’t plowed the whole way.

It was plowed the whole way, still covered in snow and slush, but not so deep that you couldn’t drive through it.  The clouds stayed low and threatening, but it didn’t snow any more and the wind was calm.  Everything was a monotonous grey.  I saw deer, lots of deer, crossing the street, walking down the street.  I saw some elk also.  I even saw big horn sheep, which I hardly ever see in Colorado anymore.  I only saw one truck.  It was this very quiet world in slow motion as if I was in a secret bubble hidden from the storm, hidden from other cars and other humans.  It was just a pocket of beautiful nature and me.

As I got to the end of the road and close to where I would get on the highway, the road became dry.  The clouds were even higher in the sky.  The western part of the state hardly saw any of the storm.  Instead of terrifying, Trough Road had been a tunnel of safety between the storm and the highway.

Wild Animals

On By rrainefioreIn Beautiful Things, UncategorizedLeave a comment

I miss seeing wild animals from my house.  When I lived in Evergreen, I had a fox that visited regularly.    There were lots of deer, elk every once in a while, and bear.  I saw a black fox once which was very neat.  The squirrels told me stories every day and the chip monks terrorized my house.

When I lived in Morrison, I had a bunny factory under my porch.  There were lots of deer, some rattle snakes and I even saw one bobcat.

I was excited to move to Grand County, thinking I would have even more wild animal sightings.  But so far, there haven’t been any sightings near the house.  There have been footprints in the snow in front of my office window so something has been visiting.  I can’t tell from the prints what it is, only that something small has been there.  Is it a fox, a small wild cat, or something else?  Then one day, I finally saw I white blur go running in front of my office window.  It was difficult to see since it was white on a background of white snow.  Maybe I would see it again the next day.  I did see it the next day, and the next and almost once a week.  It was the small white house dog of my next-door neighbor.  Roughly every few days he goes tearing through the neighborhood in the pure excitement of being outside and able to run.

In a Cloud

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I always get a kick out driving through the mountains and seeing the clouds dip lower than the tops of the mountains.  You feel like you are driving through the clouds.  Actually, I guess you are.  I have the opportunity to see this more often now.  It’s not often you get to come out of the mountains and see the city hanging in the clouds.  One morning, as I was coming into Denver, the whole city was engulfed in a large cloud.  Only the tops of the taller buildings were visible.  It looked like a floating city.  The clouds were a fluffy white and the buildings were shiny in the early morning sun.  It was a very fantasy world sight.  I also got to see this later in the week when I was driving down into Steamboat Springs.  This time instead of clouds, it was more like fog.  The fog looked like you would see in an 80’s rock concert, creaping across the landscape low to the ground, swirling slowly.  It was fun approaching the fog, just above it all and then finally dropping into it.  I didn’t get pictures of the Denver cloud, but the Steamboat fog pictures are below for you to enjoy.

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Ice Fishing

On By rrainefioreIn Beautiful Things, UncategorizedLeave a comment

I had seen advertising around town for the upcoming ice fishing tournament.  I didn’t think much about it as this seems extremely unexciting to me.  I went to the town of Grand Lake to go hiking.  As I was driving by Lake Granby I was amazed at how many tents were on the ice.  The lake was covered in ice fishing tents.  It looked like someone had spread confetti on the lake as each tent was a different color and no part of this large lake seemed to be  untouched.  You couldn’t see individual people as they were far away, but you could see movement, snowmobiles wandering between the tents.

I went for my hike.  On my way back by the lake I was shocked to see how few tents were left.  In a couple hours someone had swept most of the confetti off the lake.  I had wanted to get better pictures of how covered the lake was, but I guess the fishing was done and everyone went home.  Mother nature did treat me to a yellow glowing ball of fire sunset instead.

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All those “rocks” in the distance are actually tents.

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All that was left after everyone was gone

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If you want more info on the tournament:

https://www.facebook.com/3lakesicefishing/

Ice Crystals

On By rrainefioreIn Beautiful Things, Uncategorized2 Comments

I think I mentioned before that I sometimes have to drive very early in the morning to Denver.  And that it’s cold very early in the morning.

This morning as I was driving tons of gook was coming off the streets and up onto my windshield.  So I sprayed some washer fluid on the windshield.  It sprayed blue splatters on top of the grey gook and then the wipers did their thing clearing it all off.  Then the slight bit of moisture left on the windshield turned to ice.  It wasn’t a solid ice, but a moving expanding array of crystals.  Geometric shapes appeared and and moved outward in all directions across the windshield.  Then they were gone.  What shiny magic is this?  So, I did it again – washer fluid, wipers, magic.  This time the shape and pattern the ice grew in was different.  It danced across the windshield as the shapes moved and expanded in ever growing circles of fractal beauty.  Then they were gone as fast as they had appeared.  Of course, I continued to do this most of the way to Denver, partly because the roads were so wet and partly because the art show was so delightful.  I swear each time it was different.  The shapes were smaller or bigger or moved in different directions.  How could the drive get better than this?

Then I got to the part of the highway where I get to drive directly east, directly into the sun itself.  Often this part of the drive is terrifying as the sun tries to remove my eyeballs, wondering if I will ever see again, wondering if the car behind me will ram into me since that driver is now blind too.  I was lucky today.  It was painfully bright, but just short of dangerous.  I hit the washer fluid again so that I could see better and the crystals began to spread only this time they were iridescent, rapidly flickering between 6 or 7 shades of blue and purple.  Oh my god, just when you thought it couldn’t get better, the sun brought color into the show.  I continued to recreate the blue crystals until it got too warm and the show was over.

Bonfire

On By rrainefioreIn Beautiful Colorado, Uncategorized3 Comments

My little town built a Christmas tree out of old pallets.  It was put up by the Chamber of Commerce and strung with lights.  By day it looked like a jancky pile of pallets with some lights wrapped around it.  At night it actually looked like a Christmas tree.  So what does a small town do with their wooden Christmas tree after the holidays are over?  Yep, you guessed it – Bonfire!

The bonfire was held at the dog park.  I walked over with one of my neighbors.  The bonfire had started before we got there so you could see the glow from it as we approached.  As we got closer you could hear the country music playing.  There were probably about 60 or 70 people standing around the bonfire.  There was a small pop up tent selling beer and soda. I heard stories of how it took a lot longer to light the fire than they had expected.  It was fun watching friends and neighbors catch up with each other and watching little kids running around.  I met some of my neighbors and heard some of their stories.  Once the fire started to dwindle we headed back home.  It was nice way to spend a few hours of the evening.

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