Colorado in June

 

Although our trip was very short, we did enjoy a few moments to take in the beauty that was around us.  We drove in one day, loaded up our truck, and headed back to Texas the next day.  No time to just hang around.  Ron is so good about stopping when I want to take a picture or two or three.  

Keep in mind that this in June and there is still a lot of snow on the mountains.  The pass we normally come in through was supposedly open, but we were advised that it was not really stable enough to know an avalanche could not be triggered.  We chose to go the safer route.

 

 

 

 

 

On our trip back home, we made a stop in Alamosa with the intent to visit one of my favorite Colorado quilt shops.  I didn’t have anything particular I wanted to purchase, but I had hoped to take a look around.  It happened that we arrived before the store was open.  It was not a wasted stop, I got to take a picture of the store front, which will become my first picture in my “Quilt shops I have visited” album.  I may modify the name of the album/journal, but I figure I have visited a lot of quilt shops and quilt related events that will just all blend together if I don’t have something to help me remember each one.

Second on my quilt agenda for this trip was to at least drive through Laveta, Colorado to see if I could find Ricky Tims gallery.  We go through part of Laveta on Hwy 160 when we go to the cabin.  It didn’t take much coaxing to get my husband to take a slight detour to drive down into town to scope it out.  Laveta is a neat little town I never would have known was there if I wasn’t on a mission.  I did find Tims Art Quilt Retreat Center, but it was not what I expected.  I at least thought there might be a little gift shop or something.  I walked up to the front door and it was locked.  Justin was walking by and never offered any information… he kind of ignored me.  I walked over to the side door that Justin went in and asked him if the place through the main door was open.  He said no, and it is just a retreat center and nothing is going on right now.  I didn’t want anything from him, just a simple answer to a simple question. His tone was less than cordial…

 

I could have walked away with a nice warm fuzzy… “Boy this would be a neat place to come for a retreat, the setting is so awesome”.   Well, that did not happen.  I’m glad I got a couple pictures. There was a neat train station across the park that dated back to 1876…. and there were some really pretty poppies.  A kitty cat was crossing the park at the same time I did.

 

Total change of pace

Before we left for our trip to Colorado, the last quilt I worked on was the quilt that we have been working on at our Monday quilt group at church for several months now.  We were able to get the top all sewn together, complete with the borders.  We had a bit of a discussion about the choices made for the borders, but I think it turned out to be a nice compliment to our scrap quilt.

Our Colorado trip finally happened, and this time we had guests go with us.  Actually they followed us.  We had some rain along the trip in and I was concerned that Cottonwood Pass would be too messy for a safe trip over. I said alot of prayers as we got closer and the rain subsided enough to allow us to go in through Cottonwood.  Beth who was driving the other car was a novice to the mountain passes, and Cottonwood is paved on the Eastern slope, but it is a dirt road without any guardrails on the Western slope.  Beth was OK driving to the summit, but I jumped in the drivers seat for her on the descent into Taylor Park, for which she was very grateful.  Barb was also very happy to have me driving. 

We did not have any big plans for touring, it was intended to be a relaxing getaway.  Ron & I often don't leave the area around the cabin for several days at a time.  Barb & Beth  were in awe of the beautiful mountains and lakes, and the scenery in general.
Mirror Lake was one of the highlights.  Getting to Mirror Lake is not intended for a normal car... the road is pretty rough and very rocky.  Once at the lake, you are surrounded by the beauty.


On our trip down the canyon into Gunnison they were able to see the expanse of Taylor Reservoir.  The reservoir is surrounded by a multitude of breath taking mountain vistas
The opportunity for pictures are everywhere.

 

Our cabin is situated in the pines where it is not possible to see the sunset very good, so we took the opportunity to drive to the entrance to the sub-division and sit and enjoy the changes in the view as the sun went down.  We didn't get any great shades of red in the setting sun, but we did get a clear meaning of the term "purple mountains majesty".

Hope you enjoyed the pictures.  Now I will have to get back to some serious quilting.

July, where did it go?

The weather outside surely lets you know that we are in the middle of summer.  We have been trying to get out to Colorado to our cabin for several weeks now.  The cool temperatures that we find at 10,000 feet is quite refreshing after you have experienced all the heat that we have here.  We potentially will head out there this week... we shall see if we make it this time.

It's been a while since I posted here, but sometimes things get busy, and before you know it a couple weeks have gone by.  We had company with us on our last Friday "lunch out day".  We have friends that had heard about the Huisache Grill in New Braunfels, but they had never been there.  The atmosphere and food is great, so any excuse to go back was welcome.  This picture is the garden path that leads to the back entrance to Huisache.

I have finished my first I-Spy quilt, but that was more than a week ago, so I thought it was time to put something new out there for those who might visit now and then to see if anything new is going on.  I bought the Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt book and have started at block one and I am working my way through.  I already have 15 done... that is 15 that count as real blocks.  I made one using the wrong size HST so I had to add several more to make it come out to the right size.  I actually like it more than the real one.  The other block is from the book Sylvia's Bridal Sampler.  All of the blocks are the same size, and I am not going to enter any competition with it, so I am going to forge ahead and keep the strays that wander in.

 

I'm using all scrap fabric... somehow at this rate I can't see my stash going down very quickly.  I'm not being fussy about the colors, just trying to stay away from "too bright".  The two on the left are the orphans.

I will likely not have a new post here for a couple weeks... the connection at the cabin is super slow at best. Have a good week, and stay cool.