Pickin' and ...

Remember Roy Clark pickin'and agrinnin'on the old TV show "Hee Haw?" I thought of Roy today as I was pickin' and bikin' and grinnin'!  It all started at 9:00 this morning when I left the house to check out the farmer's market in their new location.  Well, maybe the location wasn't new, but everything under all the tents was new--brand new stinky asphalt.  The whole parking lot from the grand stands at the rodeo ground to 4th Street used to be gravel.  Now it is stinky asphalt.  It won't always be stinky, but it will always be aslphalt. I'm pretty sure that's called progress. I call it the end of an era. Frown. I really do prefer gravel.  It gives you that down-to-earth rodeo/farmer feeling.  No more freezing your little sandaled toesies when it's 38 degrees at the farmer's market and you're walking through wet grass to get to the gravel.

Well, as it turned out, I forgot my cash so I couldn't get what I was after anyway.  Probably the words "farmer's market" put you in mind of endless rows of fresh-picked, brightly-colored vegetables: tomatoes, corn, carrots, rhubarb, squash, green beans and the like.  However, that's not why I go to the farmer's market.  You can get delicious, high-priced vegetables anywhere.  I prefer spending my $3.00 on a gigantic cinnamon pretzel from Styria Bakery.  It's not like a pretzel-pretzel.  It's like a cinnamon roll without the roll and the goo.  It's just dough and cinnamon/sugar in the shape of a pretzel.  This is for hard-core carb loaders like people who are heading out to pick up trash on their bikes.

How did that go, you may ask.  Well, my Dry Gulch/Devil's Gulch loop normally takes me one hour and 20 minutes (with a head wind.)  Today it took two hours and 30 minutes (with a regular ol' wind.)  Of course that's because I stopped every 30 feet to pick up a Labatt Blue beer bottle--imported from Canada "every day", a Mtn. Dew can or a Lord Calvert Canadian Whiskey bottle. (Notice the Canadian influence in northern Estes Park.) It was stunning out, so even the annoying part about having to come to a screeching halt for a busted pair of sun glasses just when I got back up to speed could not erase my joyful sense of fulfilling my destiny as bag lady.  Then I spotted a smiley-face helium balloon stuck in a bush.  I parked my vehicle and ran across the meadow to free the captive face.  The long attached ribbon gave me the idea of tying the balloon to the back of my bike.  Off I traveled onto Devil's Gulch road looking very much like the Garbage Grandma Trash Mobile. The balloon slowed my already mediocre pace, but it sure matched my mood, so I let it bounce.

Now the problem with continually hopping off and on your bike is that people passing by think something is wrong with you.  (Something is wrong with me tonight after all that hoppin'.) A couple on bikes slowed down a bit to ask, "Everything all right?"  "Yep.  I'm fine.  This is a blast--you should try it."  I lost them at "Yep," and they sped away.  After a few more miles, a really sweet older couple slowed down to ask, "Are you OK?"  The car behind them didn't know they were concerned about me and nearly rear-ended the nice people in the first car.  I started to wonder if pickin' and bikin' was such a good idea.  If you're just biking along, nobody stops to inquire about your well-being.  I think I'll try the regular ol' way of biking tomorrow.

Oh!  Forgot to mention that my son, Paul, sent me a great picture of snowin' and blowin' on Lone Mountain today.  To quote him exactly, "Gotta be close to 32. It's snowing and very windy, and the power is out."  To kind of twist the song that Alan Jackson made very popular, "It's wintertime somewhere."

Always,
Winter