I love this picture…
…M and R and our little book club group at a pumpkin carving/decorating party we had this afternoon.
It was cold, and windy, and we ended up having our party in a barn, and I almost cancelled several times after getting frustrated trying to work around the weather and everyone’s schedules. I’m so glad I didn’t cancel though… look at those faces. They all had such a good time…
Yesterday was a beautiful warm fall day so we headed to Castlewood (of course 😉) to try and find a trail I’d seen on the trail map, but hadn’t noticed at the park.
We ended up driving right past the trail head I was looking for without seeing it, so decided to follow a trail we’d taken before. It was an easy trail for the most part, with only a few stairs and drop offs (which make M anxious).
The fall colors are fading but still beautiful, and I kept stopping to take pictures of leaves… they were just gorgeous and shimmered in the light breeze that was blowing.
M found what looks like a fossil in this rock, can you see it?
The trail took us in a nice little loop back to the car, but it didn’t really feel like much of a hike.
But as we were driving back down the park road I saw the trail head I’d been looking for originally. So I parked again and we headed up the Cave Trail. (See the dark cave opening peaking out just a little above the center of the picture? That was our goal…)
The trail heads up to the cliffs on the west side of the park and is steep and involves lots of steps and climbing over rocks. It was too scary for M almost from the beginning so he waited at a picnic table just off the trail while R and I went on.
We didn’t make it all the way up to the cave (I didn’t want to leave M alone for too long), but it was a very fun, challenging hike. We climbed up and over rocks and even through rocks when the trail passed through a tunnel made by one HUGE rock leaning up against the cliff.
I’d like to come back sometime, without Piper (who is 13 after all… it was challenging for her too!) and maybe with an extra adult for M, who can either wait with him at the picnic table, or give him the support of two adults, instead of just me, going up the trail.
I had to drive down to Castle Rock yesterday evening just at dusk…
…the sunset was breathtaking!
I was almost late for my appointment (despite leaving early) because I kept pulling over to take pictures.
I do love living here…
Today was a beautiful fall day, with nothing on the calendar, so we decided to spend some time hiking at Castlewood. We hiked a new trail for us today, the East Canyon Trail. It heads east (surprise!), under the “bridge to nowhere”* into a preservation area where dogs are not allowed, visitors are instructed to stay strictly on the trail, and it’s closed completely from November through April (to give the wildlife a “vacation” from humans).
It was beautiful, as Castlewood always is, and the trail was different than others we’ve hiked there… going through several different types of environments as we hiked. We walked across huge sheets of rock, wound through forested areas, and hiked across a large expanse of prairie. The canyon walls are dotted with caves and overhangs that provided shelter to the Paleo, and later, Ute Native Americans. Fortunately there were trail markers all along the route…without those markers we never would have found our way around the loop and back. The entire loop is somewhere between 4 and 5 miles and the kids did really well. It’s probably our longest hike so far, and they both managed without any trouble.
I took a ton of photos, here are a few…
Trail markers…
And a few were huge!
M’s hand coming through a hollow tree…
R cooling her feet in Cherry Creek…
And a few more just because they are so pretty.
* Here’s the story of the “The Bridge to Nowhere”:
By the 1930s, the new Colorado Highway 83 (Parker Road) had been paved from Denver to Franktown. Just south of Franktown was the road builders’ biggest obstacle: the 232-foot-wide Wildcat Canyon. (The canyon was renamed Castlewood Canyon in the 1920s). A graceful, arched bridge was designed and built to span the canyon – one of only six such bridges in Colorado at the time. It seemed clear sailing for the road to be completed to Colorado Springs. But plans changed. State engineers were told to abandon further work on the road. The pavement of Highway 83 came to an abrupt end at the north end of the sparkling new bridge, leading to the nickname, “The Bridge to Nowhere”.
We celebrated K and R’s birthdays yesterday with a family get together here at the house. After months and months of not being able to get together in person, inside, I appreciate so much the ability to be together, inside, without masks, eating and enjoying each other’s company.
This is part of our group text from before we got together…
Two years ago, who’d have thought we’d be testing ourselves for a potentially deadly virus before getting together for a simple meal? 😢
It felt so good to get together though, and I insisted on a picture of all of us of course… (all of us except granddaughter #1 who is away at school…and sorely missed!)
We’re kind of a motley crew!
And here’s another one of our favorite newly engaged couple! 🥰
I found this in a book I’m reading and want to remember it…
“There is…something marvelously reassuring about the room, a warmth even in the gloom. The unfinished pine of the walls and ceiling has mellowed, over the years, to a rich honey color, as if stained by the warmth of the people who built it into a shelter…”
~from Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner
We made another trip out to Dearfield today.
We’ve visited several times over the past year or so but have never been when there has been an “event”…
I have to say it’s MUCH better to visit when this tiny historic settlement is filled with people, music, and life.
Dearfield was the largest Black homesteading settlement in Colorado, and during its heyday in the late 1910’s it was a thriving farming community with a several hundred residents. Sadly, a combination of the Great Depression and the dry Dust Bowl years doomed the community. It is now a ghost town…
But today it was alive! There was a great little band set up on the porch of the old Dearfield Lodge, and all the buildings were open so we could wander around inside and get a sense of what things might have been like back then.
Across from the Dearfield Lodge there had been a dance hall, which is gone now, but I could imagine how 100 years ago, right where we were standing, there had also been music and dancing and people laughing and babies playing just as there were today.
The (trumpy ) congressman from that district spoke and seemed to compare Dearfield to Amache, a Japanese internment camp in SE Colorado, and I was offended. Dearfield was built on hopes and dreams, on strength and courage and the desire to create a better world… and through no fault of its inhabitants, it didn’t survive. Amache was built on racism, loss, and fear.
But once the congressman was gone, it was a lovely afternoon with good conversation, good music and a lot of history.
On the way home R kept saying this had been her “best day ever”.
The sunrise this morning was stop-me-in-my-tracks stunning…
I had a nice pasture walk this morning too…
I surprised a good sized group of deer grazing on the hill at the back of the pasture, and admired how everything is putting on new fall colors of every different variation of gold, orange, and red. And, for some reason, the whole pasture smelled like sage. It was a lovely walk.
