A Gazillion - Plus a Few - Deer

Kara, John and Stirling decided to spend this weekend in Gunnison, a small town about 140 or so miles west of Woodland Park. They invited us to come along. When Mom and Dad found out we were going they immediately got busy baking cookies and scones and made a batch of Rice Krispie Squares - all for my nephew, Patrick, who is attending college at Western State in Gunnison.

John reserved rooms for two nights for us at a place they often stay. It has been really nice, spending two nights by ourselves, so to speak. And it has been great spending time with them and a bit of time with Patrick during the day.

One of the reasons we decided to go was it became an experiment to see how well I would do traveling for longer distances and times sitting. I also knew I would be spending more time standing and more times getting up out of chairs (something that can be quite painful to my leg muscles if the chair is low).

We left Friday morning. Due to all the snow we've had recently, including an inch or so the night before, we couldn't drive out to the highway. The car just slipped and stopped on one of the switch backs. Mel had to get out and sand/gravel the road, spending almost half an hour to get it done. That was just the beginning!

The drive across South Park was amazing. There were very strong winds and they were blowing across the road, piling up snow drifts and creating black ice for almost 70 miles. At one point we could see two semis coming toward us. What we could not see at all were the two smaller cars that were in front of them! As is typical of ground blizzards, the sky was mostly clear - it was just the 10-15 feet above the ground that was at times totally invisible. It was a very tense drive.

Monarch Pass was deep in snow. There were places along the road where the snow was piled 20 or 30 feet deep. Traffic was very slow both directions. The winds were strong but at least it wasn't snowing on top of the ground blizzards! We passed several snowplows and one snowblower that was chopping off the deep side drifts and blowing that snow higher up on the side of the mountain. The 'cliff' it left was over 12 feet tall.

Over in the Gunnison River Valley the wind was hardly blowing. But oh my, the snow is deep over here! Not as deep as in Idaho where my sister lives, but it is over hip deep on the deer and around 3 feet deep here in town in everyone's yards.

Speaking of deer - The Gunnison River Valley is known for the thousands and thousands of deer that populate the area. Deer and elk and to the west, big horn sheep as well. I am pretty sure that we saw well over 1,000 deer between Monarch and Gunnison. Fortunately they were almost all up away from the highway. Only a few dozen were close to the road. The Department of Wildlife is feeding the elk due to the deep snow, and of course the deer are also being fed. They are beautiful creatures - when they are far, far from our car!

I was exhausted by the time we got to the motel. Immediately laid down on the bed and went to sleep for almost 90 minutes. The good news is I did ok as far as pain in the knees and leg muscles went. The night was really restless, though, and I had to sleep with a pillow between my knees. I'm hoping that tonight it will be better.

The infections in both incisions are completely gone, just as I thought they would be. Yea!