The American West

Day 5 of Evacuation for the North Spring Fire in Huerfano County Colorado

/ Laura Lee Carter / 2 Comments

It has certainly been a wild ride for us here in southern Colorado since June 28th! We live north of Highway 160 not too far west of Walsenburg, and were evacuated to a friend’s home in La Veta on June the 30th.

The greatest challenges for us have been worrying too much and finding very little good government information to reassure us. Yesterday I learned that our part of the fire has its own name (North Spring Fire) and finally this morning we got some solid information on structure protection west of our home. It seems they are finally getting the resources they need here to truly do their jobs right. I feel so much better about everything now.

I’m beginning to truly appreciate the level of organization, and the number of men, machines, and planning involved in mounting an operation like this. Multiply that times the number of fires in the West right now and that is the BEST EXAMPLE I CAN THINK OF OUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK.

Next time you think you can go it alone, consider situations like this.

I’ve been locked out of my e-mail accounts for now, but I am posting relevant information on my Facebook page. Thanks so much for your interest and concern.

Childhood Stars, Crazy Ideals and who did you want to be when you grew up?

/ Laura Lee Carter / 8 Comments

We just recently got access to a new channel on DirectTV, MeTV. They show old programs from the 1950s and 60s including classic TV characters from my youth. Watching these old shows reminded me that the only TV character that I ever idealized and wanted to be just like was Miss Kitty on Gunsmoke. It ran for 20 seasons from 1955 to 1975! In retrospect I find it down right crazy that I wanted to be a saloon proprietress. Come to think of it, she was probably also the Madam of the Long Branch brothel upstairs, but nobody talked about things like that back then.

The first career I ever considered was acting, something my college professor Dad would have never approved of. How I got from there to academic librarian is a mystery to me! But I still enjoy watching Miss Kitty and remembering the simple, innocent dreams of a ten year old so many years ago.

Who did you want to be when you grew up and how did that work out?

Anthony asked us: “Are you hopeful?”

/ Laura Lee Carter / 5 Comments

I watched a marvelous one hour special last night called: “Remembering Anthony Bourdain” on CNN. Even if you have never watched any of his TV shows like “Parts Unknown,” you should at least find a way to watch this one hour video.

Anthony BourdainAnthony was a brilliant and amazingly creative man. He took journalism to a whole new level by caring about the people he chose to interview. And by doing that he attracted a whole new audience to “the news.”

During this video his friends and colleagues at CNN explain how younger Americans, who would never watch the news, watched Anthony because he took us to so many unusual places and introduced us to those who live there. Within that process he also included all sorts of philosophical tidbits, like his line,

“I looked in the mirror and I saw someone worth saving.”   —  Anthony Bourdain

His honesty about his own struggles with drugs and suicide are all a part of the tour with Anthony. He admits at one point, “I am certain of nothing.” as we all are if we are honest with ourselves.

But the question he loved to ask his interviewee was: “Are you hopeful?”

I was stunned when I heard his last loaded question…

Retirement in rural southern Colorado: If you don’t take the risk, how will you ever know?

/ Laura Lee Carter / 9 Comments

Four years ago, on June 17th, Mike and I sold our nice home in suburbia and left behind everything familiar to us. After living up in the Fort Collins area for the past few decades, this move felt like a gigantic leap of faith.

906 Deer Creek Lane front view

Here’s a photo of our past home in south Fort Collins. In the past four years it has increased in value more than $100,000! Wow, the prices of homes up in metroland are growing by leaps and bounds!

morning sun on comanche drive

After over a year of emotional and financial struggle, we triumphed over a million difficult challenges to create this passive solar home west of Walsenburg Colorado. We have been quite happy living here for the past few years. Retirement agrees with us, and especially in such a quiet, natural part of the West. BTW, passive solar works great down here!

Most of my worries about moving here never came to pass, and other completely unexpected problems replaced those. The biggest challenges for me have been health-related. My body made a quick decision to start falling apart soon after age 60, creating new opportunities for compassion towards others who suffer. And the truth is, I have met so many here who have been forced to retire early because of health concerns and disabilities.

great Mike photo of snow and Spanish Peaks

Huerfano, meaning orphan, is a poor, rural county down near the New Mexico border, with a total population of around 6,500 and an average age of 54 years. With few good jobs and an abundance of natural beauty, the Huerfano attracts those with less money and more appreciation of rugged country and rural life. We live on three acres in the Pinon-Juniper ecosystem right around 7,000 feet elevation.

Judging by the rapid increase in traffic in Walsenburg, the many homes sold here in the past few years, and how crazy Highway 160 has become in the summer, it looks like this area has been “discovered” by those living up north in metroland.

AMAZING sunrise over the Spanish Peaks January 2018

We have found this area to be slow and quiet, especially in the winter, and windy as hell. If you hate the wind, don’t move here! The slow country ways are what now attract me. I can go into La Veta and always see people I know. I like that.

Laura and Rasta on insulation 2014 (2)

Laura Lee Carter is a professional photographer, writer and psychotherapist. Her midlife crisis included a divorce and the loss of her career as an academic librarian, misfortunes she now finds supremely fortuitous, as everything wonderful flowed from these challenges. Laura now sees midlife difficulties as once-in-a-lifetime opportunities for personal liberation. She has produced four books and one workbook on personal change, midlife psychology and how country living changes you.

Don’t miss her new one: A Memoir of Retirement: From Suburbia to Solar in Southern Colorado

Hot off the presses: The Best of Boomer Blogs!

/ Laura Lee Carter / 6 Comments

It’s summertime here in southern Colorado and the living is dry and HOT!

Colorado drought monitor

We are experiencing “severe drought” this spring, ruining our usual display of early native plant bloomers. In fact, the photo in the header of this blog was taken just a few years ago at this time of year!

Moving on to the thoughts of some super HOT Boomer writers…

Carol Cassara discusses the ins and outs of making good decisions this week:

Have you noticed that good decisions and bad ones look alike? It’s an observation that Carol Cassara discusses and relates to episodes of her own life over at A Healing Spirit.

I bet you didn’t know that this is National Palliative Care Week in Australia? This is a topic we all could learn a thing or two about. We learned about this topic this week when a new friend dropped dead at 69…

Palliative care

Here Sue Loncaric from Sizzling Towards 60 & Beyond discusses why we need an End of Life plan and the need to document our wishes. This is NOT a conversation most of us like to have with our loved ones, but certainly one that everyone should have sooner rather than later.  Not sure where to start?  Sue offers some information, together with a video of prominent Australian’s all discussing this important topic.

Hillbilly elegyOnce in a while a memoir not only tells one individual’s story, but sheds light on a people, their culture and way of life. That is what J. D. Vance’s memoir of growing up amidst the people of Appalachia does. Hillbilly Elegy highlights a group of people that are an enigma to many Americans – Trump supporters. Vance did not do this purposefully. The book was published in 2016. Meryl Baer of Six Decades and Counting highly recommends Vance’s story of growing up in a dysfunctional family and successfully escaping his environment, an insightful, interesting must read.

In this important health report over at BabyBoomster.com  Rebecca Olkowski interviews a woman who discovered she had skin cancer (basal cell carcinoma) after twelve years of being diagnosed with eczema/psoriasis. Fortunately, she was able to find a doctor who could help her before it was too late.

Jennifer of Unfold And Begin returns this week after a short anniversary trip and she has a short but to the point post on why it’s important to keep learning.  Why trying new things is important to all of us.  Read about it in: Anyone Who Stops Learning Is Old.

On The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide, Rita R. Robison, consumer journalist, is having trouble deciding what action by the Trump administration during the week was the worst. Was it bank deregulation, including the weakening of consumer protections in mortgage transactions, or a resolution overturning guidance on racial discrimination in auto lending, which allows Congress to review all federal agency regulations and prohibits them from ever reissuing a “substantially similar” rule if a rule has been nullified by Congress. To cheer herself up, Robison decided to write about her recent visit to Spain where she went cava, or sparkling wine, tasting. She visited, Freixenet, the largest cava producer in the world, Albet i Noya, a small organic winery, and Agusti Torello Mata, a winery named after the man who founded it.

Oregon trailTom Sightings asks if we remember studying the Oregon Trail in high school. Or playing the Oregon Trail game on our computers in the ’90s. In any case, in retirement Sightings has decided to set out on his own trip across the country, following the old route of the Oregon-California Trail. In “Following the Rivers” he tells about his first days out, finding a refreshing spring, a tragic grave, a reconstructed fort, and an important river.

I would only add a bit about my latest post. Here I recommend that we all:

Mike at home

“Hold on to your dreams! Don’t give up when those dreams require taking risks that scare you. Don’t let others talk you out of your most important goals. You have the needed vision to live your dream.”

“The person who says it cannot be done, should not interrupt the person doing it.” –  Chinese proverb 

Making friends in small towns

/ Laura Lee Carter / 3 Comments

A new friend has been through hell lately adjusting to the many strange things that go on when you move to a small town. That is not to say that you don’t also meet plenty of strange ones in cities too, but I have come to think there is something unique about moving to a town under population 1,000 where many people also come and go with the seasons.

My friend got stuck in the middle of lots of confusion and negativity which resulted in bad feelings. In talking with her about all of that, I began to recall how many beginner friendships I had in my first two years here, most of which ended quickly. So I decided to make a list and ended up with well over twenty individuals or couples where some sort of friendship began and then either went nowhere or worse.

I basically met no one worth being friends with for about two years here. Either they weren’t friendly at first, our politics were too far apart, we had nothing in common, or they started out friendly enough, but then went unfriendly fast. What I have found is that La Veta is not so much a close knit community as one with a few main cliches, where few are truly friendly when you’re new here.

A few said they were just waiting for us to leave after a year or two. Four years later that is not happening! Luckily there are enough decent people to go around, so who cares about the rest?

When my friend started lamenting her recent bad experiences with new friends, I told her that I always approach this topic with the certainty that I am a great person to have as a friend, but here I have learned to be pretty selective. A friend is someone who improves the life of someone they care about. Mike and I live by that code. Once we are friends with someone we will help them improve their lives in any way we can. I make an extra effort through this blog and my book about this area, to reach out to those just moving here for the first time. I call that being neighborly.

Good friendships take time. There will always be a period of  adjustment and testing in the beginning. I have found I do best with those with a similar education and background. Jealousy kills friendships. Most people here are quite nice, but I must keep in mind that some moved here to avoid relationships altogether.