Last Thursday, Red and I hit the road promptly at eight-thirty am, and I envisioned clear roads for the 490-mile drive to Denver, where I was scheduled to speak at ProGreen Expo on Friday and the Landscaping with Colorado Native Plants Conference on Saturday.
The roads were clear, even if for the first hour and a half (photo above), the landscape on either side was distinctly snowy. But by the time I wound through the Wind River Canyon and turned east toward Casper, the snow-pack decreased markedly.
The Wind River Canyon, with its towering cliffs of Paleozoic limestones and dolomites, one of my favorite parts of the drive.
Only the wind started to blow. For the 90 miles from Shoshoni to Casper, it was mostly a tail-wind. That was good.
From Casper on, that changed, and the gusts walloping Red grew stronger and stronger. The overhead warning signs on Interstate 25 advised the road was closed to light, high-profile vehicles because of gusts 60+ mph.
I can attest to the “plus” part: as I was exiting at Wheatland to fill Red’s gas tank, I watched a semi truck and trailer blow over in a particularly vicious gust, the whole rig toppling slowly onto its side. A highway patrol car stopped right away, so I headed on to the gas station, where I had to hang onto Red’s side mirrors to keep from being blown off my feet!
The gusts continued, and the air temperature continued to climb, until when I finally stopped in Boulder to pick up my cool new retro microwave at Big Chill appliances (more about that later), it was 78 degrees. Quite a change from the 25-degree temperatures as I left Cody that morning.
The next day, I wandered the trade show at ProGreen, talking to tree farmers, nursery-folk, and vendors of mini-excavators (I got to sit in the cab of one and play with the controls) and arborist’s tools (I bought a wicked new pruning saw), among others. (ProGreen is the annual convention of the region’s “green industry,” landscapers, maintainers of public gardens and golf courses, equipment providers, and nursery folk.)
My talk, “Terroir in Landscaping: Restoring Local Flavor,” was in the last group of presentations of the four-day conference, and it was 80 balmy degrees outside, so I wasn’t sure I’d get much of an audience. To my surprise, more than 100 people showed up, and they were completely absorbed and attentive through the whole hour. (This column from Houzz explains one facet of terroir as that French word for local flavor applies to landscaping.)
Afterwards, an eager group came up to thank me and ask questions. One guy said, “Best talk of the whole conference! Thank you.” Wow!
Then my friend and fellow plant nerd Erica Holtzinger and I went out to lunch and talked plants and kids and life. After which I went off to do big-city errands, and then braved rush-hour traffic (where do all of those people come from?) to stay with another friend, Connie Holsinger (no relation to Erica, although we have all worked together) of the Habitat Hero Project and Terra Foundation.
The next day was an all-day immersion in the second annual Landscaping with Colorado Native Plants Conference. I had the honor of welcoming the participants to the sold-out conference and MCing the opening panel, after which I taught a workshop on Design with Natives, ate lunch with a table-full of eager attendees and answered questions, and then served as introducer and time-keeper for another session, and then helped move and re-arrange tables and chairs at the end of the day.
Great job, Jen, Ronda, Amy, Deryn, Jim, Irene, Nick, and Karen!
So if I look a little tired in the photo above of the Conference planning committee, all of us giddy that we pulled off another successful conference, it’s not surprising.
Connie, who also participated in the conference, took me out to dinner at Zucca Restaurant in Louisville that night, and we both ate so much delicious Italian food that we were sorry we hadn’t walked there and back. (I was tempted to lick my plate after finishing off a serving of pumpkin ravioli with browned sage butter.)
The next morning (yesterday!), I was packed and ready to hit the road by seven-thirty. It was damp, chill and cloudy, but I could see blue skies to the north, and Red doesn’t care what the weather is like–she’s always ready for a road-trip.
We stopped in Cheyenne at a Home Depot to buy some bath fixtures, LED lightbulbs and other house-renovation supplies, and then drove on. The wind wasn’t blowing (much, for southeastern Wyoming), the sun was shining, and I was ready to be home.
At four pm, I pulled Red into the garage. And then came unloading, including that new retro microwave, which I immediately unboxed and put on its shelf (it’s on the right in the photo below), and as I hoped, it provides the perfect aqua counterpoint to my vintage wall oven.
Officially the coolest kitchen I have ever had…
And then I walked into the living/dining room and discovered that Sam, the electrician who installed and programmed the amazing wifi light-switch system that meant we didn’t have to rewire the entire house, had also unpacked and installed Sputnik, the retro chandelier I had ordered for the dining room.
Of course, I had to find the LED Edison light-bulbs I had gotten at Home Depot and install them. And then I had to turn Sputnik on and play with the wifi dimming switch for a few minutes.
Sputnik in all his glory…
After I finished unpacking Red, I walked to the Post Office, and when I returned, I found a box from Kerry and Dave Nelson, dear friends and former proprietors of Ploughboy, Salida’s late lamented local-food grocery store. I opened it and carefully lifted out a container of spring: bulbs in a beautiful yellow metal pot just the color of my kitchen cabinets. (Those jonquil sprouts are still yellow as well from their time in the box in transit, but they’ll green up in a few days.)
There is still an enormous amount of work (and money) required to bring this house back to life: we need to finish updating the electrical systems, re-do some plumbing, replace a few floors, paint all of the walls and ceilings (my office is the only room that is more-or-less finished), tear off the horrible carport that makes the front entry bay a dark tunnel, add insulation throughout, replace some windows, and clean more accumulated grime. Then there’s the yard: the snow blanket has melted and I can now see the mess (including the scary half-collapsed garden shed) and mud I will have to deal with come spring.
No matter. I love this place already. I feel so fortunate to be here watching the evening sky turn pink and listening to the pair of great-horned owls hooting their soft duet from the spruce trees just outside.
And to have friends and family and colleagues who offer support and kindness from near and far. Bless you all!