October 18, 2010
Dear Family and Friends,
“May you live in interesting times.”
This familiar Chinese curse may have been our mantra
this summer, our first full summer in these beautiful mountains. The
past three months have been a time of baby caps and carousels,
unexpected surgeries, a 209-mile run through the hills of New
Hampshire, area fires and home evacuations, our first grandchild in
college, and our 49th wedding anniversary. Now as the temperatures drop
and the aspen leaves turn gold, we can look back at what might have
been and forward to what the future might hold. In both cases we
recognize how fortunate we are and how optimistic we can and should be
about our future.
TRAVEL:
LEADVILLE
Though we had thought this might be the summer of
our long-anticipated road trip through the Canadian Rockies,
circumstances forced us to stay in the Colorado Rockies. We thought to
ourselves, so what’s so awful about that? Our area
is a destination for thousands (millions?) of visitors each summer:
hikers, bikers, anglers, photographers, and others who gather strength
and inspiration as they drive through. While we plan an RV trip through
Alberta and British Columbia next summer, it was no hardship to have
enjoyed what so many people from all over the country and the world
find when they come here. Judy hiked with a women’s hiking group
and got to explore places we had not seen before. Hughes biked
throughout the area, occasionally with son Michael who has become
passionate about biking (and in the process has lost nearly 30
pounds!). And throughout the summer we enjoyed fresh greens from the
salad bed Judy tended: spinach, varieties of lettuce, arugula, and snow
peas. We had enough to share or exchange with other veggies lovers.
We did decide on a week-long getaway to another part
of the Rockies: camping at peaceful Turquoise
Lake just outside of historic Leadville.
We biked the paved road around the lake, about 16 rolling miles of
challenging ascents and screaming downhills. Judy ran several miles on
the shoreline trail most mornings, the same trail that a swarm of
runners navigated who were competing in the annual Leadville
Trail 100, one of the most challenging trail runs in the country.
Hughes sat with the dogs several mornings along the quiet edge of the
lake pretending to fish for the brown, lake, and rainbow trout that are
not permitted to come within 100 yards of shore. Who knew?
We biked on the paved 12-mile Mineral
Belt Trail above Leadville past the remains of many of the mines
that made fortunes for the likes of (The Unsinkable) Molly
Brown,
Horace Tabor (who left his wife for the infamous seductive Baby Doe)
and David
May (whose retail empire, built on Leadville silver, included
at one time Lord & Taylor, Filene’s, Marshall Field’s, Kaufmann’s,
Foley’s and, of course, The May Company among others). Though most
miners worked hard with little to show for their efforts, some lucky or
smart few made tons of money in Leadville in the late 1800s.
We stopped on our bike ride to tour the site of
Horace Tabor’s fabulous Matchless Mine where his widow, Baby Doe, was
found frozen to death in the winter of 1935, a recluse and penniless.
(Horace had told Baby Doe to never sell the Matchless. It would, he
promised, make millions again when silver came back to its pre-1893
prices—which it never did.)
TRAVEL:
NEW ENGLAND
Months ago Judy was invited to be part of a team of
runners that would take part in the annual “Reach the Beach” relay
race, 209 miles along New Hampshire’s scenic back roads from Cannon
Mountain near Franconia to the Atlantic at Hampton Beach. The twelve
runners on the team would each run three sections of the route over two
days and a night. Six men and six women all over 50 comprised a “Mixed
Grand Masters” team; all but one (from Pennsylvania) was from our area
here in Colorado.
Each was asked to predict their time for a half
marathon, which would provide a predicted time for the team and,
therefore, a starting time. (With 431 teams entered, a staggered start,
based upon a team’s predicted time, was required.) Since most of
the team lives and runs at altitude, they completed the race more than
two hours faster than predicted! As a team they averaged 9-minute
miles and finished 373rd
out of the 429 teams that finished. Not bad
for a group of old folks! Since Judy was assigned to run 12th, she was
the team finisher, though
the rest of the team followed her in as she crossed the finish line.
Judy had a great time. She and the others got
along very well; many had run the 195-mile Wild West Relay in
2008. Her
teams took first (in their category) in both races.
We spent time with Debra’s family in Milton the
weekend before the race and a day with them afterwards before we left
for home. They are adjusting well to being a smaller family now that
Griffin is a freshman at Wake Forest.
We slept in his bed without him
having to rearrange sleeping locations as in the past. Reports are that
he is having a good time at Wake Forest; he has a full and challenging
course load and has been invited to be the newest member of the
cheerleading squad (which has its perks for someone who loves Division
I-A football and basketball). His dorm room is new and luxurious, far
more than either his parents or we remember of their college digs. But
times change and so does college life in many ways. Debra took the
picture below of both grandchildren during a recent parents weekend in
Winston Salem.
While we were there, we shared in the excitement of
Julia’s successful tryout for the romantic lead in the Thayer
production of the musical “Guys and Dolls.” She will perform as
Sister/Sergeant Sarah Brown (remember Jean Simmons playing
opposite Marlon Brando in the 1955 movie version?) and is loving it.
Lots of demanding romantic songs to perform. We hope the video that
Debra makes will take the place of being there in person.
HEALTH
ISSUES
We had hoped to add a week of camping on Cape Cod
while we were there, but medical issues that almost canceled the trip
altogether made a fast return trip necessary. We are sorry not to have
been able to stop for visits with friends along the way. We drove our
RV 2,100
miles in four days.
Getting older, as many of you have also discovered,
is a time for making new friends within the medical profession. Disease
and worn body parts take on greater importance as we have aged.
Thankfully, we have incredibly competent and conscientious area doctors
in a variety of fields to patch us up and keep us going.
Following a routine mammogram in early August, Judy
had a follow-up scan and biopsies that revealed one, possibly two areas
of cancer in
her left breast. After consulting with her two oncologists, the surgeon
who would perform the lumpectomy, and her primary physician, she was
encouraged to go ahead with the trip to New Hampshire and the race
without concern that the extra time would be a risk to her health.
Three days after returning, she had a successful lumpectomy and the
pathology report came back indicating the removal of the cancer with
appropriate margins in one area; the second area of concern was
non-cancerous. Our relief was immediate. She begins follow-up radiation
treatments soon.
It’s at times like this that we are grateful for the
outpouring of support from family, neighbors, and friends whose visits,
phone calls of encouragement, flowers, soups and casseroles reminded us
that in spite of our isolated house in the mountains, we have a strong
and close circle of folks who care a great deal. Many, many thanks to
each of you who reached out at a time that was scary and uncertain.
(See photo at the end.) It
made all the difference.
While traveling as well as watching TV and relaxing
around the house, Judy has been knitting baby caps for moms and
newborns at Boulder Community Hospital. If she works steadily, she
completes one a day; currently she has accumulated a collection of more
than two dozen that need to be taken to the hospital. However, knitting
has apparently not been without some risk. In July, she had surgery on
her left wrist to perform a successful tendon release. She’s back at
work as a hat knitter without the discomfort.
Hughes finally decided to get one of his shoulders
repaired this summer: an MRI indicated problems with a rotator cuff,
bone spur, and biceps tendon. He worked steadily beforehand to build a
generous woodpile for the winter, wash and wax the RV for winter
storage, cleaned the woodstove flue, and other outdoor chores in
preparation for the next few
months. Surgery was scheduled, blood work done, EKG results were in,
but a few days beforehand, a consultation between his orthopedic
surgeon and his cardiologist brought things to a screeching halt.
Because of medication taken following his heart attack last spring, the
cardiologist felt that he should not stop taking Plavix, which the
orthopod determined would likely risk too much bleeding during the
shoulder procedures. So, he’ll go back sometime in the future for those
shoulder repairs. The same is true for any thoughts of knee surgery,
which was going to be next on his list of “get-dones.”
FIRE!!
During our New England travels and health issues,
our immediate area was threatened with two rather frightening wildland
fires. The first, known in the press as the Four
Mile Canyon Fire began September 6, the day before we left for New
England. The blaze
started on a very windy day (65 mph around here) five miles west of
Boulder and about eight miles as
the crow flies from our house. The smoke was visible immediately and
evacuations were made in the area immediately west and north of Boulder
(16 miles away). We left on the trip with the winds moving the fire
away from our house (i.e., to the east), though we know that wind
directions can and do change. Thankfully they did not throughout the
time firefighters were working to knock down the fire. The result was
6200 acres of residential woodlands burned a week before containment,
3500 residents were evacuated, and 169 homes destroyed. It was the most
damaging fire in state history.
The other fire—called the Peewink Mountain Fire—was
smaller and much closer to home: a
mile and half to our north. Word of it came to us while Judy was
running her nighttime leg of the race. Hughes was camping with the dogs
in a campground near the finish of the race. That evening (September
17) he received several reverse 911 calls on our cell phone (how did
they get the number??) requesting immediate evacuation to the Nederland
Community Center. He made four calls to neighbors until he finally made
contact with one who was still frantically gathering things together
for
the evacuation. A 10-acre blaze had broken out on a nearby mountainside
less than two miles away and heading toward our area. Thank goodness
there were planes and personnel close by still mopping up the Four Mile
Canyon blaze who immediately dumped retardant and pumped water on
nearby Peewink Mountain. Within two hours, Hughes received an all-clear
phone call saying we could return to our homes. We dodged two bullets
in the time we were in New England.
[In early
October, a wildland fire broke out on the
west side of the Continental Divide, less than 20 miles from
Nederland. It consumed just over 600 acres of forest (lots of standing
dead from pine bark beetle kill). No structures were burned, but
we were concerned with winds from the west blowing the blaze slowly
moved in our direction. It
was successfully contained in less than a week.]
EVERYTHING
ELSE
Amid all the dramatic summer events, Judy continued
to volunteer at the new Carousel of
Happiness in Nederland, which has been drawing
more and more visitors all summer. She took Lucy to dog training
classes each week. Hughes worked the Visitors Center as usual. We
played lots of bridge, almost weekly and sometimes twice a week. Dick
Sanders returned from Ohio wtih news from the midwest and some intense
Shanghai. We
were busy.
On a much happier note, during time between our
return from New England and Judy’s cancer surgery, we remembered our
49th wedding anniversary. We didn’t buy each other gifts, but began
planning how we would celebrate next year at this time—where we’d be
and what we’d be doing. Something big! We won’t let it slip away in
2011 as we did this year and as we’ve often done in the past. We’ll
accept any and all suggestions, and we’ll let you know what we’re going
to do when we know. Let us hear from you.
All
good wishes,
Judy
and Hughes
[Note:
"21212" refers to the Reach the
Beach team’s number (212) and
the number of Judy’s leg during the race (12)]
