POSTCARDS FROM COLORADO JUNE 19, 2005
Note: Click Here for a Photo Gallery of Eileen's Photos in Colorado.
An amazing thing happened last night. Actually, two things. First, it was 11:00 p.m. before I went to bed and to my shock, there was NO loud band music. I even opened the window where you could hear it blaring and thumping the night before. It was QUIET. Well... all I can say is that I'm sure more than one guest at this thoughtless resort complained mightily as I did.
What a relief!
So, that meant I didn't have to take a sleeping pill. And I didn't. I slept soundly until 5:30 a.m. this morning; got up and had a fortifying and satisfying cup of coffee (2 cups), read my email and transferred some of my photos from yesterday to be burned on CD's. Life was looking great!
Dave got up at 6:00 a.m. and we wanted to be on the Mad River trailhead by no later than 7:30 a.m.. because it was reaching 85-87 degrees Fahrenheit (F) daily and at 7,000 feet, the sun is brutally hot at high altitude. In Arizona, you always get up at 5 in the morning and worked until about 1 p.m. and then, like the smart reptiles, went and hid in the shade and did nothing until the heat broke for the day, around 5 p.m. We decided since the forecast is high 80's all this week, we'll be on our "Zonie" schedule.
I packed a lunch and off we went north of Steamboat Springs at 7:00 a.m. It was in the high thirties as we pulled into the trail head. The Mad River was rushing, pounding and racing nearby. Now, I see why it is called 'mad'... we found out it is a '5' rated river (river of no return if you ask me... water is swift, huge current, huge boulders and nothing but white water).
We no sooner got on the wide, well kept but steep trail and I had photos of flowers to take. Of course, the Salsify, a yellow flower, was still closed up tight because it doesn't open until the sun's rays graces her face. We were in deep shade as we stopped, clicked and walked a few more feet. The Mad River was always on our right, always pounding, roaring, plunging through the narrow canyon that our trail traversed among the sage brush and bushes at lower altitude and later, Oak trees (Scrub) and then, pine and white barked Quaking Aspen groves. On the way up, we saw "Hawk Rock"--a huge gray granite rock on the side of our trail... I had to take a photo because it looks EXACTLY like a hawk head. Pretty cool stuff. We wanted the Swamp Hike because I was hoping to find some rare mountain orchids in the seeps or near the water courses. It was 2.5 miles up and into the area where the swamp was located. There were some mosquitoes and they all went for Dave. Luckily, he had on long sleeves and his hat this time!
The air was cool, the sky a bright cerulean color, the pines dark and thrusting upward along the steep walls of the canyon on the other side of us. I found gorgeous White Evening Primrose in all their glory on many slopes. There was the ever beautiful Wild Rose in a variety of pink shades. The deep blue of Delphinium was startling and rare between the grass and sagebrush of the lower altitude. We kept climbing and stopping and clicking. As we went higher, we saw the lighter Blue Flax, white soft looking Pussytoes and the bright yellow of Orange Sneezeweed. There were plenty of Chokecherry bushes; a bear's favorite in the Fall as it fattens up for the coming harsh Winter.
We got to the Swamp Trail and Dave said he wasn't feeling good. I asked for his symptoms, being a homeopath, and he said nausea and griping in his lower bowels. He also felt very tired and it wasn't that hard of a 2.5 mile climb to this swamp meadow. I thought maybe indigestion but he hadn't eaten a lot last night. I gave him Carbo Veg. 200C, one of his main remedies. It quieted the nausea but his gut was rumbling and unhappy. He said, maybe it was food poisoning. Well, yeah, it could be, so I switched to the chief food poisoning remedy, Arsenicum album 200C. He wanted to eat so we went to a Quaking Aspen grove in the shade, because the temperature was starting to rise, and we had some food. I ate some cantaloupe to replace my fluids. At high altitude hiking, you can lose a lot of water and not even know it. In Arizona the same thing can happen, so we were drinking fluids, fruit or veggies and Fritos.
As Dave rested in the shade, I scouted around the meadow for some elusive, rare orchids. I found none, but three other flowers that I couldn't identify, but did photograph. We could always hear the roar of the Mad River which wasn't far away.
Veratrum album or Hellebore, is a highly poisonous plant. The huge leafy and tall plants were in the seeps and muddy, grassy flat. I was hunting for one that was blooming. There were hundreds of them, and some had buds, but no flowers.
I was concerned about Dave, so came back to see how he was doing. He felt better and we both agreed that it was food poisoning. So, he wanted to start back because he didn't feel like climbing any more, which was understandable. We did detour on the way back to a small path that led right down to the turbulent, roaring Mad River. I found a Hellebore in bloom! Wow!
Was I happy. Dave lay on a rock in the sun, eye closed, like an old turtle warming up. I gave him another dose and we started back, a 2.5 mile trek to the parking lot. The temperature was climbing rapidly now and the trail, which had been about fifty percent in the shade coming in, was 95% in the sun now. As you get older, you don't handle heat stress like you can when you're younger. I asked Dave, again, how was he doing. The remedy was handling his symptoms and he even sounded perkier.
By the time we reached the parking lot at 10:30 a.m., it was 80 degrees Fahrenheit. I gave Dave a fourth dose and we headed back to Steamboat Springs. He even felt hungry now and that was a good sign. We stopped at a Wendy's and he got a hamburger and I got a salad and baked potato. We came home and languished in the cool air of our apartment. Dave took a bath and then felt even better. I gave him one last dose of Arsenicum and about thirty minutes later, he was fine. He was his old self again. Thank goodness for homeopathy. It saved the day again. If he hadn't gotten the correct remedy, he'd been miserable another twenty-four hours before it worked out of his system.
I shot some four hundred and fifty shots on the trail and so I was happy to stay in, remain cool, and burn disks. About 1:00 p.m., we went down to the center of the town and I did my shopping. I always buy something for my mother and she loves bracelets. I found a very nice copper, brass and sterling silver one for her tiny, birdlike wrist, that I think she'll enjoy.
I also bought myself a lovely Tencil blouse of pink with bright red flowers on it. I got Dave a resin Antelope for his desk.
Any time Dave is in the car, we see Antelope along 89A where we live. If he's not along in the car, you never see the herd that eats the grass paralleling the main thoroughfare to Cottonwood. So, finding this Antelope was great and I had the owner box it up nicely to present to him. He really liked it.
We stopped at Steamboat Smokehouse to get something to drink because it was so blisteringly hot. This is a great place. They give you a pail (literally) of peanuts. You can hull them and throw the shells on the floor! It's also known for its barbecue. We ordered two root beers in ice cold glasses and boy, did it go down well!. Dave really liked the rustic, down-home atmosphere and wanted to eat dinner there tonight and I said fine. When we looked at the menu, I got a 'hint' of the spicy hot barbecue sauce when it said in the appetizers: Wings of Death. Now, that's pretty in-your-face, don't you think? ha ha.
I told Dave we should try the sauce before we commit to coming because his digestion cannot handle hot, spicy anything. The 'mild' sauce was fine. The 'hot' was jalapenos in it, I'm sure. The Smokehouse says: "Honest to goodness Texas Style hickory smoked pit barbecue."
I think we'll be giving Dave Carbo Veg 200C tonight because he loves BBQ and tends to pig out (pardon the pun, ha ha).
Tomorrow, up early and we're hitting the "Waterfalls" trail which ought to be awesome--at 250 foot waterfall. I can hardly wait!!
Warmly,
Eileen
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