May 28, 2013 Summit County, Colorado

 

It is that time of year. Skiing and boating gear out at the same time.  I stayed at Katy’s condo in Wildernest for the night. Don’t want to have to get up too early.

Lake Dillon from the Condo deck. Sunset over Buffalo mountain.

Woke up to snow. Woo hoo, powder day. Guyot and Baldy thru the clouds.

Met Rosie at Arapahoe Basin ski area for some spring skiing. Rosie and I have been skiing together for maybe 30 years.

Sue and Rosie on the lift. There is still lots of snow at the Basin. Beautiful day and beautiful ski area mostly above tree line.

The sun was in and out. You can see Keystone to the west, and a snow squall blowing in.

These huge snow/thunderstorms blew in and out. Rosie on the ride, you can see blowing snow. Rosie riding great powder down west wall.

Rosie, Sue and Rosie at the top, with the east wall behind us.

It started to seriously snow as we left. Lake Dillon finally thawed last week, I think that may be one of the latest thaws  since I have been around these parts.

I had dinner with Mary , Linda and Barb- techs I worked with when I worked at Summit Medical Center. We are all retired now.

May 27, 2013 Fort Collins, Colorado

The Poudre is up, we have been kayaking. John more than me. John boating the hard stuff and me the easy.

Mandy, Gary and I arrived at the take out of the Filter plant and John, John and Lei had food , drinks and flamingos waiting for us.

These flamingos traveled all the way down the Grand Canyon to the Poudre. My masterpiece hanging in John and Mandy’s kitchen.

Mandy typed up this great description to post under it. John appreciating artwork in old town Fort Collins.

More Fort Collins Artwork.

May 19-26, 2013 Fort Collins, Co

Pretty exciting days. Waiting for the bus to come back. Getting business taken care of.  Working on glass and kayaking. Visiting with good friends. In the midst of all this I had to go back to Denver to have more views of my mammogram taken. Pretty scary idea, but they all came out negative.  While I was there I finished the fence, started up the sprinkler system, cleaned the gutters on the Denver house, had dinner with J and my brother Jerry, breakfast with Katy Hales.

John putting new rear brakes on the car. We both went to the dentist. John got fillings replaced, and will get an implant this week. I got two new crowns and a filling replaced. The dentist took pictures of my mouth, then designed the crowns with an AutoCAD program, then milled them in his office. The mill has two drill bits both shooting water and it finished in 19 minutes with the first one.  Kind of like a 3D printer. Then they glaze it and fire it all in the office. Got the crown prep and the crowns all in one visit. This system would have great applications for art . . .

Finally got a design for the next masterpiece. Took me days of procrastination and hours of work on the computer in Photoshop. This is the transparency of the design on top of the glass. The glass was first cut into two circles, I fired them together, then air brushed on copper luster and fired it on. I will make a stencil from the transparency. Seen on the way out to dinner in old town Fort Collins. New switch on panhandling. Bear spray me for $100. Didn’t see anyone spray him. . .

My brother Jerry visited us. John cooked us a scrumptious dinner. Here he is having dessert in the Chocolate Café. John in having a chocolate martini. I had water. The sacrifices I make to keep my girlish figure.

The masterpiece continues. On the left I have the stencil on and have sandblasted it. The right photo the stencil is off. The black glass is now matt finish from the sandblasting.

Pieces of colored and dichroic glass on top, in the kiln ready for firing.  After firing, the glass is melted into the piece and it is all shiny and fire polished. I still need to paint gold paint on and then fire it again and install it into it’s frame.

The bus is fixed and back. John completely emptied it, threw away the mattress  and had it cleaned. I am allergic to something-possibly east coast allergens   and if  they were  on the bus they have  been cleaned away.  We got a new Denver Mattress Co Madison Eurotop RV mattress. I am putting the protective mattress cover on.  An RV mattress is 5 inches shorter than a house  mattress.  The slide is in in this photo. When we are parked and living in it, the side slides out 2 feet so there is more room in the bedroom.

May 18-19 2013 Fort Collins, Co

 

Mandy took me biking on the Poudre bike path. Dinner with John, Mandy and John  in their newly remodeled kitchen. Mandy is a wood worker and she made all the cabinets.

Kurt demonstrating a squirt, with Mandy watching from behind. Floating down the Poudre river with spring green trees and a back drop of trees burnt in the High Park fire last summer.

John (not Moran), Julie and Mandy watching Hillary popping up from a roll, with more burnt trees behind.  John (not Moran) completing another successful roll. John Moran boated a more difficult section of the river while I boated the filter plant section with John, Julie, Hilary, Mandy and Kurt.

My darling husband took me out to lunch at Mishawaka on the deck over the river. The fire memorial on the front of Mishawaka. The firefighters saved the building and the fire burnt everything else around it. They did a great job of saving most of the structures along the river.

dichroic figures I made for use in my masterpieces. Pendants from the new Florentine pattern dichroic glass I just got.

Multicolored pendants I am working on.

May 15-17 2013 Denver, Colorado

Back in Colorado for a few weeks.

Drinks with Jim, Diane, John, Eric, Holgar and Jeff Sambur at Old Chicago in Fort Collins.  We keep running into Jeff all over the country. The view of downtown Denver from the top of the Kaiser Franklin building in Denver. I spent three days in Denver visiting friends and my dr’s. Had dinner with Barb Flowers, Katie Lahaye and Reed Fink. Reed is renting and taking care of my house in Denver. Lunch with Julie and Kathy from Franklin where I worked before Arapahoe.

The garden looks pretty good, even without my loving touch. I cemented two fence posts in to hold up the sagging back fence.

I had lunch with Carol Nelson, and visited her studio after lunch. Carol is a famous artist now who teaches workshops all over the country. She taught me how to make marbleized paper, one of the many things she teaches in her workshops. Carol and I used to work together at Humana Lab many, many years ago.

Pam Triest in the remodeled Arapahoe lab where I worked before retirement, Pam took  my job running the lab on weekend evenings after I retired.  Dinner with Linda Bell, Toni VanCleave, Pam Barton and Yvonne. I worked with them at Arapahoe. Linda and Toni also retired this year.