Weekend Camping

"It always rains on tents. Rainstorms will travel thousands of miles, against prevailing winds for the opportunity to rain on a tent."

-Dave Barry

This Memorial Day weekend Steve and I went camping on Cache de la Poudre (hiding place for gunpowder is the translation) - called by locals and those in the know "The Pooder" - River. The Poudre is a beautiful, raging river that is favored by flyfisherpeople, kayakers and rafters. You feel like you are heading deep into cowboy country - perhaps even at risk of an Indian ambush - as you ascend the canyon. Campgrounds line the river and at around the fifth one up we lucked out with a riverside space. Yay!

The National Forest Service has a camp host program that employs retired seniors. Steve and I will firmly attest that the toilets were as clean as at home...honestly, cleaner and everything else was ship shape, smiles and helpfulness.

Sunsets are generally nonexistent around Boulder, but for some reason they were stellar here.

We relaxed, the campfire and river roared, and we awoke to a dewy tent (a la Dave Barry quote) and broke camp early to escape threatening clouds.

On Monday, we drove to Red Feather Lakes through pea soup fog and marveled at the different topography found that far north in Colorado.

Breathtaking landscape in "The Narrows" of Poudre Canyon.

The Hobbitat - a habitat for hobbits like us - and Steve can stand in it. Pretty cool, eh?

A Hobbitat with a View

This Bud's for you, Claire. Christmas gift in action, including patriotic, Memorial Day-esque theme. Thanks!

Me

Steve's "one-match" fire

Me reading by the campfire (just kidding, it's Steve)

1,000 words unnecessary

Mesa on the way to Red Feather Lakes

Walking All Day

Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time.

-Steven Wright

Steve and I went for a walk today beginning at 1:00 PM and returning after 8:00PM. It was continuous walking for the most part. We circled the west side of the city, an adventure that included the almighty yard sale (nothing purchased), a community garden, friendly dogs, carnival rides, a nan burrito (Indian food wrapped in nan bread), arts and crafts, a drink at a Pearl Street bar, a hike along the foothills, two foxes, sunny skies and home again.

Summer Night

(True, it isn't technically summer yet, but if feels like it.)

The summer night is like a perfection of thought.

Wallace Stevens

It is 74 degrees right now, (9pm), the crickets are chirping, neighbor Karen (Yellow) has her garage door open working on her motorcycle, while Cosmo the cat and Angel the dog laze and play respectively. I just took a short and sweet spin on Karen's cruiser bike, heeding her advice to lean back.

A Colorado Camel in New England

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

-Robert Frost
The Road Not Taken

I was walking around in the woods of Connecticut with Steve and his family - the Gillette Castle woods draped in wisteria and scattered with the remnants of William Gillette's (Sherlock Holmes actor) model train and Devil's Hopyard State Park. The New Englandness of the broad leaf forest and trails and the nearness to graduation reminded me of Vermont poet Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken". It is beautiful here this time of year as the peepers are piping in the ponds (alliteration up the yin yang, eh?) and the vegetation makes the former anticipation of spring worth the wait.

The Daily Camel would like to apologize for the break in communication, but the camera battery charger was left in CO, thus I am using my cell phone camera. Enjoy the lush greenery and water of New England.

Rhododendron

A little taste of history

Gillette Castle

Mary Ellen (Steve's mom) and Steve, Gillette Castle

The most beautiful green

How is it living? (Devil's Hopyard State Park)
**Puritans believed the devil made the perfectly round potholes in the falls, which geologists and much of the rest of humanity believe are formed by pebbles swirling and scouring the softer rock in turbulant water.

Connecticut River from the pirate dock (actually a "private dock, but less interesting, no?)

From the weekend (Eldorado Springs)

Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

-Rumi

Lemon Bars

“Do you know the land where the lemon-trees flower?”

-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"You can't let your grandmother go home. We need her here. I'm over here just cutting off pieces [of the lemon bar] and eating it with milk."

-A neighbor

Now, Gramma believes that the secret to the best lemon bar that has ever passed over these lips might be the fact that she baked it in glass, it could be that she had to substitute half of the butter called for in the recipe with Crisco because the butter supply was low, it could be high altitude baking, it could be that the oven temperature wasn't turned down to compensate for the glass dish. Whatever miracle or miracles conspired I recommend you try them all -even if it require a trip to high elevation- and you will know when you have created the second best ever lemon bar.

The base of her sublime creation:

Sunburst Lemon Bars
from http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Sunburst-Lemon-Bars/Detail.aspx

INGREDIENTS

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 
  
• 4 eggs
• 2 cups white sugar
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 
  
• 1 cup confectioners' sugar
• 2 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. First, the crust: In a medium bowl, stir together the flour and sugar. Cut in the butter until the mixture is mealy. Press in the bottom of a 9x13 inch pan. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the preheated oven, until crust is light golden brown.
3. While the crust is baking, prepare the filling. In the same medium bowl, beat the eggs, sugar, flour and baking powder with an electric mixer until light, about 3 minutes. Then stir in the lemon juice. Pour the filling over the crust while it is still warm from the oven. Bake for an additional 25 to 30 minutes until the top is slightly browned. Remove from the oven and cool.
4. In a small bowl, stir lemon juice into the confectioners' sugar 1 tablespoon at a time until the icing is of a spreadable consistency. Spread evenly over the cooled bars. Cut into squares.

Saturday Explorations

“We must go beyond textbooks, go out into the bypaths and untrodden depths of the wilderness and travel and explore and tell the world the glories of our journey.”

-John Hope Franklin

Gramma in the Boulder Dushanbe Tea House, a sister city. We all shared her hefty order of lemon and almond pancakes and Steve exclaimed about the campfire-like odor of her Lapsong Souchong tea. I think the Hibiscus Cooler is the bee's knees.

Photograph at the Boulder Farmer's Market

Eclectic ducks.

Radishes.

We came upon the Este's Park Duck Races. For those who have never witnessed one, these ducks are not natural in the water.

Glass blowing gallery and studio.

Gramma and me in front of the glass studio.

The Alluvial Fan, Rocky Mountain National Park

Elk, Rocky Mountain National Park

Rocky Mountain National Park


Monastery on the Peak to Peak Highway