Road tripping

I never blogged about our weekend/day trips to see the fall colors in the high country, so here's the tale of our adventures and a few pictures for you to enjoy.

A few months back, we planned a two-day trip to the Aspen area in late September, around the time we thought the colors would be at their peak. Well, we were a few days too early. The warm fall days slowed down the changing of the leaves this year. We enjoyed those two days but decided the following Saturday (Sept. 27) to do a power road trip in a day.

We left at 3:30 a.m., drove four hours to the Maroon Bells -- probably THE most photographed site in Colorado -- and spent the morning there taking pictures and hiking. Then we headed south on Highway 133 over McClure Pass, then over Kebler Pass to Crested Butte. It sprinkled/drizzled much of the way over Kebler, but we still had a great time. The colors were amazing -- we highly recommend it to anyone looking for a great place to see fall in Colorado. It's a dirt road but totally accessible by a passenger car.

We pulled into Crested Butte around 5 p.m., grabbed some coffee for the road and then headed home through Gunnison on Highway 50 and Fairplay & Bailey by way of U.S. 285. What a day! In all we were gone 19 hours. But seeing the fall colors at their peak in some of Colorado's most spectacular places was worth it.

The following weekend (Oct. 3 & 4), we decided to do another road trip of all road trips -- hey, you have to do these kinds of things while you have the time and opportunity, right? We drove Friday afternoon five hours to Montrose in western Colorado. The next morning we went to the Dallas Divide, another well-known place to take photos in Colorado. We had never been there before, but we know now where we're going back next fall. We drove into Telluride, probably the most out-of-the-way of Colorado's ski resorts. We went back to Montrose via Last Dollar Road, which is really a four-wheel drive road but we did it in our Nissan Sentra -- yes, it can be done if you drive slowly. This road has some beautiful aspen forests and spectacular vistas of the San Juans. We headed back home via Olathe, Delta, then again over Highway 133 and McClure Pass. The pass was ablaze with color that day, but we couldn't see much out the car windows because it was a downpour.

Needless to say, last weekend we did absolutely nothing. After so much road tripping, it was nice to sit around.

The fall colors in the mountains are done now. It has since snowed, and now it's that quiet, kind of lifeless season between the glory of fall and the activity of the winter ski season. The first of the ski areas opened today, believe it or not, but the season won't be in full swing until late November. It's fall in Denver now, and we're scouting out places this weekend to take more pictures.

Then we're off on another crazy road trip - a trek across Kansas to our final destination of Columbia, Missouri. The Colorado Buffaloes are playing the Mizzou Tigers at Missouri's homecoming on Oct. 25. We're going to the game and will spend the weekend in my old stomping grounds -- Mizzou is my alma mater. (With the Missouri football team at No. 11 in the polls, this is payback for my college years, when Colorado had the good football team and Missouri was terrible.)

And undoubtedly we'll see another part of the country ablaze with fall colors along the way.

At the Maroon Bells near Aspen

The Dallas Divide -- the gateway to the San Juan Mountains in southwestern Colorado
The town of Telluride
One of my favorite shots of the Maroon Bells
Maroon Creek

Talking politics

I thought this article in today's Rocky Mountain News was great.

For the newspaper feature writing class I'm teaching this semester, it's an excellent example of how to take a topic that real people can relate to -- talking politics with others in a heated political campaign -- and turn it into a story.

I'm not sure I'll even try the tips the story suggests, and there are several reasons for that. Mostly I'm just tired of the political campaign season and its emotionalism. The mute button on the remote control has become my saving grace -- I just can't take another political ad. I skip most of the political stories online and in the newspaper. I already know who I'm voting for and what I'm voting for/against in terms of ballot issues, and nothing anyone says -- even a discussion, heated or not, with friends or colleagues -- is going to change my mind.

In the classroom, I keep my mouth shut (for the most part) regarding politics. I feel like I'm outnumbered about 25,000 to one on campus -- you can guess my political affiliation from that statement. My family is definitely divided on politics. The good news is my husband and I see the same way on most everything, so at least there's peace at home. The bad thing is we have such similar temperaments, and this political season has just made us mad. We've both had to avoid all things politics lately.

There's a group of senior citizens at a local Starbucks I frequent who show up about the same time every day and talk -- you guessed it -- politics. They've been doing this for several years, and I find it entertaining to listen to them. The Republicans seem outnumbered by the Democrats in the group, but it's rather heartening to me that they're all still friends. I never hear any shouting come from their corner of the coffee shop. Perhaps we all have something to learn from them.

Media overload

I'm not sure about you, but I've been overwhelmed with the last few weeks of media coverage of the country's financial woes.

Between the recent events in Congress and the upcoming presidential election, I've hit what I call "media overload" -- and I keep telling myself I ought to go on a media fast. Yes, fast from all the "talking heads" for a period of time, clear my head of the preponderance of opinions. My husband and I have done this sort of fasting before -- once on accident while we were on vacation at a hotel where there were no TVs in the rooms, and once on purpose because we needed to clear some space in our heads. It's amazing how worry, anger and strife dissipated during those fasts.

I'm not sure I'll actually follow through on this desire to give up the media for a while. It is, after all, election season, and even if I tried to fast from it all, I still can't get away from the advertising on fliers and bumper stickers, can't escape the discussions and opinions I hear walking the halls where I teach, etc. Even trying to mind my own business and drink a cup of coffee at Starbucks, I inevitably overhear someone pontificating about these issues. It's also awfully hard to fast from the media when you're in it and teaching it to other people -- particularly in the middle of a presidential campaign like this one.

This evening I read a story about the financial situation that was a bit of a breath of fresh air, which is the next best thing to the fast I probably won't do. I wanted to pass along the link. It's the only thing I've read in the past two weeks that looks at the issue from a spiritual perspective. I don't know about you, but I need that perspective today.

Click here to read the story