Aspen Times - Day 1

Mr. Crunchy sat in the garage Wednesday, while I got to honestly sleep in for the first (and probably last) time on this trip. Adair whipped up scrambled eggs, bacon and biscuits for breakfast, and then took me in to downtown Aspen to give me a mini guided tour. I ended up buying some alpaca yarn at one store, and talking knitting shop with the owner of the place, and then we meandered hither and yon.

Back in the SUV, and we headed up a side road or two (or twelve) to get some nice views of the town and the big ski mountains that flank them. Before heading back to the house, we indulged in a treat of an Oriental massage, and my shoulders were a rather knotted mess for that poor guy to try to mangle into shape.

Once back home, the two dogs Ginger and Jordan went for a bit of a trek outside. Jordan is a gentlemanly Golden Retriever, but Ginger is a chocolate lab who has her own set of rules for how things work, and likes to wander far and away. While Adair went out to track them down, I grabbed a few shots of the river behind the house, and a nice shot of the balcony off my room :) When I walked back around the house, I saw a petite lady being walked by a large English sheepdog, the pair of whom I recognized to be Adair's neighbor Annie (lady) and Emmylou (sheepdog). Annie gave me a very warm welcome, having heard of my exploits from Adair, and Emmylou thought I wasn't a bad egg, either. Annie had to get Emmylou back inside, but came over later for a short visit before joining her husband's son's family for supper.


After her visit, Adair and I loaded up the dogs and headed up to the end of Castle Creek road, past the ghost town of Ashcroft, and up a dirt road into some back country, where there were some fabulous shots. Coming back down the road was like riding a buckboard with a lopsided wheel...pretty rough stuff. Back down to the road where the house is, and we headed to the other end, where the trailhead for Conundrum Creek is, before circling around to go back to the house.

At the end of road, we did get a nice treat when Adair stopped the SUV to look at something on a hill across the river. I asked what she was looking at, and she said she was watching this dark shape to see if it moved, to see if it was an animal or a rock. She'd just started rolling again, when I saw it move and called out for her to look. She saw it and was all excited. I asked what it was, and she said it was a bear :) He was quite a ways off, and my stinking batteries died in the camera right after I took the first blurry shot, but it was a big ol' bear foraging for food, and he must have heard or seen us, because he kept looking over our way. After a few minutes, he lumbered up the hill and out of sight.

Adair was all atwitter about having seen the bear, and called Annie at supper to tell her about the find, and Annie was almost as excited, setting a date to go bear looking the next night. (We did go on Thursday, but Mr. Bear was a no show. Annie is sure he'll be back within a 3 day schedule, and has agreed to send me a picture if she gets one of him. Not a bad thing, since she's a photographer by trade :)

As a cherry on top, we went to eat supper at a bar surrounded by a trailer park! Of course, it was the Woody Creek Tavern, which is famous, not only for its authentic atmosphere, but for its occasionally famous visitors, and seriously good food. We didn't see any celebrities, but did have a good meal, and I even bought a t-shirt to go with the 'been there, done that.' Once home for the night, I did a (belated) blog entry, and hit the rack. The agenda for Thursday was to include a visit to the bike doctor to give Mr. Crunchy a checkup. This meant a 40 minute ride to get up to Glenwood Springs when the shop opened, so no sleeping in on Thursday...