buckle-up

It wasn’t so much that the year wound up being a typical night in for us, but after spending time babysitting our daughter’s family Margo returned home exhausted so it was more the case of sipping a dessert martini than popping the cork from a bottle of champagne. And yet, to say it wasn’t a cheerful time for either of us would be missing the point entirely – how can you be anything other than happy with a couple of grandkids bouncing in your lap. If nothing else had happened during the year we would be every bit as thankful for the twins having survived the way they have to this point!  Exercising at the fitness center gives me time to scan the many TV screens which are nearly always tuned to news services. Today, when the weather maps were displayed with forecasts being given for different cities, all I could think of was time not being spent on the road! Yes, temperatures at this time of year plummet well below freezing, but for Coloradans this is to be expected and few ...

We have  traveled  some very familiar roads this past month. Even as the month ended up with the Thanksgiving weekend where we were pleased to have house guests joining us for the annual turkey fest, Margo and I could always hear the highway calling. A popular expression between the two of us, having spent so many years traversing the west, when having spent a full month at home was an anomaly, so this month included a return trip to where it all started for us. San Jose, California, and Silicon Valley. As the picture above depicts, we spent the better part of a week at the San Jose Fairmont, an upscale hotel well suited for small to medium events and this one was very familiar. In our days as volunteers supporting the International Tandem User Group (ITUG) we had been fortunate to enjoy the two primary penthouse suits – the Presidential Suite as well as the even bigger, International Suite. Unfortunately, this time it was just a regular room, but with Margo once ...

Not to do an injustice to the lyrical skills of that New Zealand band, Split Enz, but truly, as I look around the township of Niwot I am taken back by just how popular maple trees have become, and this year the display has been fantastic. We have a number of maples in our own yard but they are puny compared to what our neighbors have planted and coming at a time when the golden leaves of the aspen trees have long gone, the splash of brilliant red everywhere you turn makes for a colorful vista. Winter isn’t too far behind the changing of the colors, mind you, but we will take the sunny days we have been enjoying without any complaints whatsoever. All too soon, the reds of fall will join the golds leaving only the soulful pines to throw a little color across the landscape. But it’s not all sadness; winter does bring its own joys of course, and with the end of October we celebrated Halloween by staying right away from the house – with the distance that exists between homes where ...

I am running around town these days in Margo’s Mini Cooper S Roadster and having a blast and I am reminded of just how much fun driving can be once you strip away much of the technology. Yes, it’s a stick shift with six forward gears and yes, it’s really light and yes, I know, it’s tiny. But that’s what is providing the almost instantaneous feedback in any road conditions I encounter – and yes, the continuous feedback through the seat of the pants is unmistakable. Put a tire off the pavement and you know immediately you have been a little too aggressive. As for the shifter, the third to fourth gear plane is the natural plane and it’s pretty strongly sprung and engaging first gear can be hit-or-miss affair. On the other hand, I am now mastering the quickly-to-accelerate third gear launch. Then again, as the picture above notes, it was Margo who received the instructions on how best to operate the Mini.  It was back on Thanksgiving 2007 when Margo and I had made it...