October 12-14, 2021 Carbondale, Colorado

 We are on the road again!! We left Denver on Tues, hoping to beat the snowstorm on the passes over the Rockies. 

The roads were clear. We saw the storm ahead as we approached the tunnel under the pass. It was rain until right at the tunnel. The roads were just wet, but there were many accidents. We had a 20 minute delay and then got through ok.  

The other side of the tunnel was sunny and the roads were dry. We passed through Silverthorne, Frisco , Copper Mountain ski area, even Vail pass- the second of the ones we needed to get over and the road were dry. Glenwood canyon was wet, we could see the snowline just above us.

There were fires 2 summers ago in Glenwood canyon, now when it rains rock slides still cross the highway, closing it. This is one of the canyons the rock slides come down, it is full of sandbags here. Beautiful historic downtown Glenwood as we passed through.

Mt Sopris as we approached Carbondale. We made it and are now parked in front of our friends Martha and Jimjim's house in Carbondale. John is chatting with John by the bus in the sunshine. 

The view of Mt Sopris with a red maple from where we are parked. John, Jimjim and Martha are admiring the new engine in the Subaru. 

I helped Martha harvest her garden before the upcoming frost and she gave me all these fabulous fresh vegetables. Potatoes, carrots, tomatoes and chives. 

Martha cooked us a wonderful dinner. Jimjim, Martha and John around the table. The snow has started with HUGE flakes. It was lovely, but it melted about an hour later. 

Jimjim , Martha and Chili dog walking around the nature park, dog park. We had a nice stroll around the perimeter. Snow by the picnic table.

Basalt Mountain in the distance. Lovely fall colors still. 

Looking down on the Nature Park. The bear on stilts at the entrance to the Nature Park in front of fall scrub oak. 

Buddha consented to hold the latest masterpiece for photographing. The center is a large glass hot air balloon with wildflowers. It is made from natural and dyed pine needles, glass beads and polyester thread.  It is 14 x  12 x 2 inches. 

The new masterpiece from the side. I started in a couple years ago and it was originally a wall hanging with not sides, I added the sides. Gives it more shape. This is the newest masterpiece in progress. The center is a piece of red dichroic glass topped with opaline glass, gold dichroic southwestern designs edged with black. I am using pine needles dyed black. The thread is mint dental floss. The dentist always gives us a few samples each time we go and we don't use them,  so we have a bunch of them. They are being recycled into a basket, that smells like mint.  It is 4 1/2 inches in diameter so far. I will run out of dental floss soon, so it won't get too much bigger.