attractions in southern Colorado

Boomer World: And the Beat Goes on…

/ Laura Lee Carter / 6 Comments

I must say, when I started this little website two and a half years ago, to share the slow progress on our passive solar home here in southern Colorado, I never expected for it to grow to 23,000 visitors with over 50,000 views. And I most definitely didn’t expect to see readers from over 80 countries of the world! Hallelujah!

blog pictureSomething else I never expected is that I would still be participating in the same Boomer Blog Carnival that I began in 2008! OK, so the members have changed constantly. I’ve even changed blogs since then. But come rain or shine, we are still bringing together some great blog posts for you to peruse each week!

Speaking of which, today over at Heart Mind Soul, Carol Cassara shares how her husband managed a painful surgical recovery without pain meds. And in another great post she tackles a tough question for most of us: Why is it so hard for us to ask for what we need?

Meryl Baer of Six Decades and Counting says: For so many of us computers are an integral part of our life nowadays. When the device runs smoothly we have a window on the world, using it for work as well as for all kinds of recreational pursuits. But when problems occur, those of us who are “non-nerds” become frustrated. That is what happened to Meryl this week. Her long-time computer companion had issues. Here she recounts her experiences in My Technologically Down Day and Hacked! 

According to Rita R. Robison, consumer journalist, Saturday was National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day. If you weren’t able to return your unused or expired drugs, check in your community to see if it has a permanent location. It’s important because medications in the home are a leading cause of accidental poisoning. In addition, if you leave unused prescription drugs in your bathroom cabinet, teens or others may steal them and become addicted to prescription drugs. It happened in Robison’s family; it can happen in yours.

Of course many retirees like to travel. And Tom Sightings says, if you do, more power to you. He admires your sense of adventure. But as for the rest of us, he argues in If You’re Retired Do You Have to Travel? we shouldn’t feel that we’re missing out on something by staying closer to home. Travel is one thing to do in retirement; but it’s not the only thing, and it’s not something we should feel required to “check off” in order to fulfill our retirement dreams.

You tell ’em Tom! Our retirement dream was to move to such a natural, peaceful place that we wouldn’t feel the need to leave much, and I believe we succeeded…

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                        This is our view this morning from our solar perch with the sun pouring in!

laura-rasta-xmas-2012-croppedI created a journal version of all we went through to end up in our toasty warm solar home in southern Colorado:   A Memoir of Retirement: From Suburbia to Solar in Southern Colorado    Let’s work around Amazon (the evil empire!) Contact me directly to order your own signed copies of any of my books!    Cheers, Laura Lee  (email me: MidlifeCrisisQueen@gmail.com)

                        

In Praise of Natural Sounds and Night Skies

/ Laura Lee Carter / Leave a comment

“The joy of listening to the quiet symphony of nature and the wonderment of seeing the Milky Way stretching overhead are unique experiences that can still be found in many of our national parks.”   — Natural Sounds and Night Skies Division, NPS

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I was so pleased to discover this week that our National Park Service maintains a Natural Sounds and Night Skies Division. These are a few of the joys I have discovered and begun to fully appreciate only by moving away from cities. By living rural I can finally hear the great animal orchestra composed by nature, and look up to find some of the last remaining harbors of natural darkness in our country.

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Now that I know, I wish to preserve and provide opportunities for everyone to experience this critical resource.

To learn more, go view this CBS video: Recording the Sounds of Nature’s Quietest Places

April Arrives: Welcome to Spring, Boomers!

/ Laura Lee Carter / 9 Comments

We had our own private April Fools Joke yesterday morning around here, no power again for 13 hours! Absolutely not funny, but at least we know the drill now…

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We also woke up to half a foot of snow…again! Oh well, all’s well that ends well!

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We have some beautiful snow-capped peaks to look at this morning with a high of around 55 degrees! This is the view from our front door today…

But enough about us, this is the day I share with you some wonderful Boomer blogs written by my virtual friends everywhere!

First off we have Meryl of Six Decades and Counting. Though not a fashion maven who normally ignores fashion fads, this week two news articles caught her attention and triggered some fashion deliberations. Here she ruminates on the topics of jeans and leggings, and the dilemma of whether or not people of a certain age should ever wear this attire. Go read her comments on Fashion Sense and Nonsense: Leggings and Jeans.  

sleep more forget about nonsenseHer final words at left, express her feelings perfectly, from one of the greatest writers of the 20th century, Franz Kafka. This is also a perfect expression of my general feelings about our present century and watching the news! LOL!

Writer Carol Cassara discusses a different topic this week: Can you really sit back and manifest your heart’s desires? Over at Heart Mind Soul, wise woman Carol gives us some useful instruction in what else is necessary to make dreams come true?

March is Taste Washington Wine Month. To celebrate, Rita R. Robison, blogging at The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide, decided to go to Taste Washington, a huge gala in Seattle with 235 wineries pouring wines and 65 restaurants offering food this year, the 20th Anniversary of the event.

washington-state wine country map

Robison decided to taste wines from the wineries that she’s personally visited. Among her favorite wineries whose wines she tasted at the event are Airfield Estates, Woodinville; Silver Lake Winery, Zillah; and Tsillan Cellars, Chelan.

And finally, Tom asks: Did you play an April Fool’s prank on someone this past weekend, or have one pulled on you? In Are You Ready? Tom Sightings admits to a good one he fell for a few years ago. But then, you too might have gotten a little nervous in his situation.

EASTER-EGGS1Wishing you the best of Aprils! I know I am going to enjoy it because my birthday is always right around Easter, and I have every intention of celebrating surviving the worst winter of my entire life health-wise!

Easter chocolate Bunny cartoon

A Drive Northwest of La Veta Colorado…

/ Laura Lee Carter / 1 Comment

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Since we finally had a sunny day yesterday, we decided to take a drive out west of La Veta. We took off west on Francisco street on the county roads and soon started seeing wild turkey everywhere…

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and amazing rock formations too!

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There were also abandoned cabins.

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As we made our way back up to Highway 160, we saw a different side to Mount Mestas than we’re used to from our home.

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And on our way back to Navajo,

IMGP5892I took a few more photos of the old adobe school house on County Road 510,

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as it continues to tumble down…

Southern Colorado is Closed Today and Tomorrow – Slipping off the Grid!

/ Laura Lee Carter / 12 Comments

You would not believe how we spent the past three days…

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We got a BAD lightning and ice storm on Thursday night around midnight. I know because it woke me up. The combination of rain, hail, and then ice took out our electricity since Friday morning at 6AM… 3 days ago! No heat, no cooking, no nothing except Mike did set up a generator to keep the food in the frig cold.

We used our camp stove in the garage to heat a few things and eventually got the TV and coffeemaker working…priorities you know.

All in all this was a thought-provoking experience. We drove into town today at lunch for a hot meal and some heat. Low and behold, the power came back!  Hallelujah!!!

In an interesting twist, the TV stations who say that they cover southern Colorado, never noticed when the thousands of Coloradoans who live in the poorest counties in the state, went without power for days! Money still talks….

Anyway, I did write while we were cut off from power. Here are my impressions from Friday morning, the last time we had power:

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The view out our door on Friday morning…10 inches or so!

Why get up?

Nothing like waking up to a foot of thick, wet, snow and all the power is out. This is the best example I can think of that old ZZ Top song: “Why get up?”

The first thing I want is coffee and maybe a little news, but I cannot make that happen. Furthermore, when I contact our electric company, they tell me every town within 50 miles is without power, so even if I could go somewhere, they wouldn’t be open…

Which brings me to the next line of that before mentioned song:

“This whole world’s gone crazy think I’ve seen enough. Gonna sleep forever, why get up?”   …What better description of the Trump presidency?

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       After the storm… If you want the rainbow you must have the rain!

laura-rasta-xmas-2012-croppedI’m a newcomer to rural southern Colorado.  After two years I decided to compile a short journal about the ups and downs of moving from a good-sized city to rural America to build a passive solar retirement home:   Memoir of Retirement: From Suburbia to Solar in Southern Colorado   Please share this information with your friends if they are considering similar life changes. Feel free to contact me directly to discuss any of these challenges, and to order your own signed copies of any of my books!                         Cheers, Laura Lee  (email me: MidlifeCrisisQueen@gmail.com)