Fall's Annual Apple Harvest

Every fall Mr X and I go to a local apple orchard and get about 3/4 of a bushel of apples so that we can make and can our applesauce supply for the year. We just finished our last remaining jar from the previous fall's canning back in August. The varieties of apples we get always depend on what weekend we go to get our apples and how the weather has been for the year. It's usually a mix of heirloom apple varieties. This year we got Akane, Ginger Gold,  McIntosh and Jonathon apples.

This year, for the first time, I tried dehydrating some apple slices. I didn't do anything to them - no spices, sugars, juices. I just sliced them and dried them. They turned out great. Now I wish I had dehydrated more. Oh well, there's always next year.

We made 14 pints of applesauce this year. I re-make up the recipe each year. This year I didn't use brown sugar but turbinado sugar instead. That's why it's lighter in color.

Summer Visitors: The Bill Nye Family

At the beginning of August, Mr X's sister and her family came through town for a brief visit. They were en route to a family reunion on the Nye side but we were lucky enough that the occasion afforded them to swing by our place for a couple of days. I haven't see the Nye family for about four years! Crazy. I met the youngest one, Sam, for the first time. (He's not pictured below as he's only 18 months old and that's not a particularly suitable age for standing on a rock bridge above a waterfall.)

While I worked Mr X took the Nye family up to Mount Evans, then fishing, then to Idaho Springs. The next day we all headed up to Winter Park for some family fun riding the longest alpine slide in Colorado and exploring the mountain town. While at home the kids made forts in our back yard and the adults practiced their aim with a pellet gun.

Hiking the Continental Divide

This summer has been weird. First, Mr X missed several weeks of the beginning of it away for work. I'm going to miss several weeks of the end of it away for work. And it's been really rainy. In short, I feel like I got shortchanged on my summer. Not nearly enough time was spent hiking, biking or camping. :-) But then again, I think this very same thing every summer. I guess that's just how it goes when your summer is a mere 4 months long. We typically get our last snowstorm of the season(and when I say snowstorm I mean 12+ inches) in May and our first one in October. Anyway, so I'm bummed about the prospect of summer quickly coming to a close. But just give me a week or two to get over that and I'll be really antsy for our first fall snowstorm already. 

Anyway.....

So we did manage to go on a few glorious hikes this summer. Here's a few photos of us hiking the Continental Divide and enjoying the extended wildfire season (due to the aforementioned abundance of rain this summer). 

Summer Visitors: Mr X's Parents

At the end of July Mr X's parents came out to visit. We ran them around to various places like Garden of the Gods, Rocky Mountain National Park, Boulder, Downtown Denver and the Denver Temple. I thought it was a really nice visit - I hope they thought the same. Here are some photos taken during their stay:

(If you click on this photo to make it bigger you'll see that there is a marmot perched on the rock overseeing his kingdom.)

(Also a better picture when viewed larger - mountain goats!)

Skiing With Friends

While Mr X was gone most of my time was spent with work, home buying, packing and moving and being sick. However, I was able to get out and have some fun a few times. I convinced some friends to head up to the mountains for one last play in the snow. I had a really nice time.

Boys Trip Add-On

During The Boys' snowboard trip we did several days straight of boarding, so we decided to take the last day off - and go gambling. We played some slots and did okay but we spent most of our time at the "Boobie-Blackjack" table. Gib, Nate and I did well. Mr X lost his allotted play money and Dan watched and sampled the free sodas and popcorn.

Winter Throwback

I keep meaning to post photos of The Boys' snowboarding trip out here this past winter. It was loads of fun. Here's proof:

We got lots of fresh powder and beautiful sunshine.

Nate, Dan and Mr X ready to go...

...waiting for Gib to get set up.

The Boys cruising: Mr X, Gib, Dan.

Gib looking ready for the back bowl.

Gib

Dan

Mr X

Nate

The Boys

A New Mountain

There are 27 ski resorts in Colorado (I could be wrong on that, but I think I'm close). I told Mr X when we moved here that I want to eventually have skied or snowboarded at all of them. Then I found out that Silverton is for experts only and you have to have a guide and you use ski cats to get around and people die there every year. I'm not that brave. So I amended my original request and told Mr X and I'd like to eventually go to 26 of the 27 resorts in Colorado.


Here they are:

Ski Granby Ranch, Howelsen Hill, Durango, Sunlight, Beaver Creek, Keystone, Vail, Telluride, Eldora, Snowmass, Powderhorn, Loveland, Winter Park, Crested Butte, Copper, Aspen Highlands, Aspen, Buttermilk, Snowmass, Ski Cooper, Breckenridge, Steamboat, Wolf Creek, Monarch, Silverton, A-Basin,
and Purgatory

So far I've been to 9:

A-Basin, Monarch, Steamboat, Copper, Crested Butte, Winter Park, Breckenridge, Vail, and Keystone

I have a long way to go. Each year we try to go to one new resort. The first year it was a bunch since it was our first year here. The second year it was Crested Butte. The third year it was Steamboat. This year it was Monarch.

We spent two days there and the snow was incredible! The first day we had almost a foot of fresh powder. The second day we had 14 inches of fresh powder. That much snow was exhausting - and I mean that in the most exciting and fun way possible. My only two complaints about this place was that the crowd on Saturday was a little much (the mountain is rather small so it doesn't hold a crowd well) and that the runs are pretty short. Most are only about a mile and I think there's a couple that are 2 miles. Of course load of fresh champagne powder trumped both of those issues.

I didn't take photos (again, I know, I've been bad about that lately) so these are courtesy of the interweb:

This resort is 3 hours away from our house so we decided to stay overnight since we wanted to go for two days in a row. We like to try out hot springs here and there and we've sampled many here in Colorado. Pagosa Springs was our favorite to-date. But this place, Mt Princeton Hot Springs, took over the top spot for us. Great facilities, lots of soaking options, great water temperatures, very low on the sulphur-smell factor, beautiful scenery. Mr X especially enjoyed the natural pools nestled in the rocks next to the river. You can hardly make them out in the first photo but just look at the river and the rocks on the left-hand side of the photo contain some scalding hot pools of water. You can arrange the rocks so that more river water comes in to cool down the water temp.

Snowshoeing in Rabbit Ears Pass

On our way home from Steamboat we stopped at the top of Rabbit Ears Pass to go snowshoeing. It was 9 degrees (F) outside. We had a bottle of water stashed in Mr X's backpack and about an hour or so into our hike we pulled it out to have a drink - it was half frozen already. Mr X had to poke a hole in the neck and then shake it up like crazy to break up the ice enough so we could actually drink from it. 

We were essentially making fresh tracks as you can see the previous tracks are nearly covered with new snow. It is exhausting to make fresh tracks.

When we started out we were both pretty chilly.

Once we got going we quickly started roasting

 

Mr X, catching his breath and waiting for me (I'm a bit slower, as usual).

 

 

Mr X trudging up, making nice tracks for me to follow.

Heading back the way we came, using our old track, thank goodness!

 It was fun, but maybe next time we'll try it with cross country skis instead. We'll see.