'Round about Garfield

I've been having a very relaxing time up here in the mountains, reveling in the 40° nights and 80° days. Although I've also gotten a lot of work done on our place (more about that later) as well as on some personal projects.

Not that I want to make friends sweltering back home feel bad or anything, but I thought I'd share some of the sights and activities I've been fortunate enough to experience here near 10,000'...
It's late enough in the summer that the wildflowers aren't too abundant, but there are still some:

fireweed

The skies have been particularly impressive, with clouds such as you see above. Here is a shot looking the other way that evening...

...and on another day, after a little rain:

There was also the Perseid meteor shower, which was hyped to be one of the best in years. I was lucky enough to have clear skies after moonset on the night of their peak and I stayed up until 1 am to watch (this is quite an achievement for me in and of itself). I logged 11 in the half hour I sat out on our deck. This may not sound like much but it's probably more than I've cumulatively seen before in my whole life! A friend later reported that he got up around 4 that morning and saw many more. Wish I'd been able to do that.

And we've had showers of another kind: a fairly heavy rain of hail…

A great feature of our location is its proximity to great hikes and paths. Just a few miles up the road is the Continental Divide and I took my morning stroll there a few days ago.

the path

a sample view

It's not only a great hiking path, but is considered one of the premier mountain-biking routes in the world! Since I was up there on a Sunday, I saw lots of bikers...

There are nice hikes closer to hand, too, and I've taken advantage of them and their interesting and lovely sights...

caves!

Hi, Clover!

our deck from the creekside below

And here’s that wonderful, noisy creek:

I'm not the only one up here who's been busy this summer, either. I've seen several new homes in various stages of construction in our little village. Here' a pretty spectacular place that's almost done:

You never know what you'll see around here. On one walk I was buzzed (not really, but they were loud) by two military-looking helicopters (only one shows up in this hastily snapped shot). Perhaps on a training run from Peterson AFB in the Springs?

I did discover something unsettling, especially noticable on the walk along the Divide. The pine bark beetle disease, which has devastated some areas of the Rockies, has found our valley at last. We were hoping that the diverse nature of our woods would keep it from denuding our hillsides, and I still think it won't be as bad here as in some other forests. But it looks a lot worse this summer than it has before.