First things first.  We hope everyone had a Very Merry Christmas and we wish you all a happy and healthy 2018!  We took a few days off and spent them down in Colorado Springs.  My daughter and her husband flew in from Houston for a quick visit and I had my first appointment at the VA Clinic there.  As a quick aside, it’s a very nice, modern facility with a caring, helpful staff.  I know the VA has had issues and other vets have some legitimate complaints, but I’m happy to say that all of my experiences have been quite positive.

We had been expecting several inches of snow and single digit temperatures, but the weather was actually pretty mild, which allowed us all to come back up to Cripple Creek so the kids could see our project.  Despite the cold, they also enjoyed shooting up a couple of boxes of ammunition, and my son-in-law wanted to try his hand at splitting firewood.  Who am I to say no?

Their visit ended too soon, as they flew home on Christmas morning, while the other kids headed north to Denver to spend the day with his family, so Sandi and I went back to the hotel to hang out.  I found a John Wayne marathon on TV, while she took a very long nap.  Our plan had been to walk across the parking lot for dinner at the diner next door, but we discovered they closed at 4:00.  Off we went, in search of an open restaurant with not a lot of luck.  We finally found an IHOP, though with the slow service, cold food, sketchy patrons, and food shortages, it was far from our best dining experience.  Oh well, we managed to avoid starvation for one more day.

Almost daily, I find myself sort of drafting a new blog post in my head while we’re working, but it seems that by the time we call it quits for the day and return ‘home’ to the trailer, I’ve talked myself out of actually sitting down and typing it up.   As with most everything else, I can generally come up with a whole list of reasons:

• The day wasn’t really very interesting and chances are, nobody is really going to care that I spent a really boring day hanging drywall.
• I’m tired and would rather sit and watch the news and Jeopardy than type. (Though, to tell the truth, I’m about fed up with the news these days.  Add to that list daytime talk shows, late-night talk show monologues, and any comedian / sports figure / musician / or actor who somehow thinks their celebrity makes them an expert on current events)
• We’ve made progress, but we aren’t done….  I’d rather wait and show completed Before & After photos.

But, we’re still a ways off from actually being done, so progress updates are about the best I can do for now.

The Kitchen:  We cancelled our original counter-top order.  The price was changed on us midway through and we really weren’t happy with the customer service, so we found somebody else.  We made a trip up to Denver where we found the stone we wanted.  We reserved two slabs of a very pretty granite and made arrangements to have it installed.  To make a long story just a little shorter….  The stone got cut, delivered, and installed and we’re very pleased with the results!

Despite having been up here just a few days before, the owner decided that his 2-wheel drive pickup would work just fine to haul a couple thousand pounds of granite up here in the snow and fairly loose gravel.  He didn’t make it much closer to the house than this and they ended up carrying the pieces a lot farther than they wanted to.  I’m glad it wasn’t me.

We still need to install the upper cabinets and put down the flooring, but it’s actually starting to look like something!

Bathroom:  The walls of the half bath on the main level have been textured, primed, and painted.  I’ll start putting down the tile floor in the next couple of days, and then we can install the vanity (shown at left in the photo above), sink, toilet, mirror, and towel rods.

Pump Room / Laundry Room:  It took a little extra time to move the door, outlets, switches, lights and water fixtures in the laundry room, but, like the bathroom, the walls have all been textured and the pump room has even been primed.  The texture in the laundry room should be dry enough to prime today and both will soon get paint, finish work, and epoxy on the floors.  This is what it looked like a couple of days ago:

Becoming Colorado Residents:  I don’t remember if I wrote about our first attempt at getting Colorado driver’s licenses.  It was a wasted day going all the way down to Colorado Springs, only to find out that the social security card that I laminated over 35 years ago is no longer valid.  But, our second effort, with a crisp, new, SS card in hand, and we are now official!  My truck has brand new, Colorado license plates, as well.  What a shock that was!  Unlike Washington, the fees here are figured based on the current MSRP and age of the vehicle.  Annual renewals should get cheaper, but this year, it cost us nearly $1,200.  Almost makes me wish I had held on to that 2003 3/4 ton!

Happy New Year!!!

I’m not sure why, but from the feedback we’ve received, it seems that this blog has been fairly well received.  I’m grateful that our readers are interested enough to follow our exploits here at 10,000 feet, but I also have to admit to a bit of surprise that so many have chosen to join us in our little ‘adventure’.  And by ‘adventure’, of course, I mean our mid life crisis decision to sell our house, move halfway across the country, store everything we own in a barn and live out of a 34 foot trailer parked at nearly 2 miles above sea level so we can enjoy our own personal, seemingly never-ending season of Fixer-Upper.  (Except that in my episodes, there would be a lot more bleeps for what some might consider inappropriate language.)  Don’t get me wrong, we have all of the comforts of home (sort of), though the porta-potty that seemed like such a luxury just a few months ago really could use a seat warmer on those 2 degree mornings.

I sometimes wonder why people are following us.  This blog began simply as a way to keep our widely scattered friends and family updated on our progress, but I can’t help but think there must be something else.  We started by sharing the link with those closest to us, and then posted our updates to Facebook so others could see what we’re up to, but lately, I’ve been noticing complete strangers have begun to follow us.  I welcome you all, but it still doesn’t answer the question of why you’re all here.

At times, I like to imagine that some people are, perhaps, a bit envious; wishing that they, too, could simply leave it all to go follow a dream.  Sometimes, I let my ego actually think that you’re showing up to enjoy my wit, charm, and writing ability.  But, I know that probably isn’t the majority.  The truth, I realize, is that most of us humans have a pretty major flaw.  When we drive past a car wreck, we just can’t stop ourselves; we automatically slow down and stare, secretly hoping to catch even the slightest glimpse of the carnage we just know must be hiding behind those yellow sheets.  When we see someone trip on the sidewalk, we show concern because society says we’re supposed to, but deep down, we’re all sort of giggling just a little.

I think that on some level, that’s what’s happening here.  I’ve told the story about how the lightning took out everything this summer; the electricity, the Internet, our satellite tv, and even the well pump.  I told you about how we drove over 1500 miles in a rented, 26 foot moving truck without a single incident (well, except for losing our cat at the very first rest stop we parked at), only to get stuck at the base of our driveway which had been washed out by monsoonal rains.  I’ve kept you all posted on the difficulties and challenges we’ve faced getting our electrical system working, and I shared photos of all of our freeze-split, copper pipes.  You all know Digger Guy, and followed along as we tried to get a simple septic tank installed.  I have a feeling we would have lost most of you back around August if I had simply logged on each week and told you that everything was going according to plan and life was great.  Yeah, yeah, I know…..  if we’re going to slow down long enough to read this thing, we’re going to need to see some carnage.

So, while much of the country,especially down south, enjoyed some rare and unexpected snow this week, we were getting a light dusting as well.  This isn’t so unusual, I’ll grant you.  It’s December.  We live in the mountains.  It’s bound to happen, right?  In the past week or so, it’s snowed twice, we’ve had wind gusts of up to 60 miles per hour, and gone several days without seeing temperatures rise above freezing.  Since we were going through two tanks of fuel every week and a half or so, we decided to try to save a bit of money and augment our propane heat with an electric heater my mom sent along with us.  Here’s the problem……  Our trailer has what’s called the ‘polar package’.  Among other features, this means that it has a sealed undercarriage with a duct from the furnace to keep the water tank warm(ish).

The electric heater had things nice and toasty inside the coach all night long… to the point that the furnace never kicked on all night.  I’m sure I saved some propane, but since it got down to a rather cool, 5 degrees that night,  and I didn’t have any of that warm air blowing on the water tank for several hours, I ended up with a very large ice cube in my water tank.  Imagine my surprise the next morning when I opened the faucets and nothing happened.  In fact, nothing happened for three days, despite the fact that I cranked up the furnace (so much for saving that propane!) and even pointed a small space heater directly at the pump.  Not having running water definitely threw a wrench in my otherwise comfortable existence up here.  I say “my” because Sandi has been in Minnesota for most of the last week.  I made coffee with bottled water (it takes 3 1/2 bottles to fill the coffee maker, by the way), and bathing was nothing, if not a challenge.  I’d call it a “whore bath”, but that’s probably politically incorrect, and I certainly don’t want the blog police shutting me down, so I won’t use that term.  I heated water from a jug in the microwave and took care of personal hygiene business that way for a few days.  It didn’t come come close to my record of 56 days without a proper shower (no, it wasn’t by choice), but I was sure glad to find the system working properly the other day when I came up from working on the house.  I’m pleased to report that everything seems to be fine now.  We don’t have any ruptured hoses or other noticeable damage, and everything seems to be working as it should, thanks to slightly warmer weather. Sorry, but that’s the extent of my carnage for the week.

Oh, wait!  I cut myself.  I was cutting a piece of sheetrock and the razor knife jumped right off the gypsum, ran down the T-square, and opened up my left index finger.  On a side note, I was thrilled to discover the local grocery store sells butterfly bandages.  Given my history of injuries, I think this might be a handy piece of information for the future.

On a side note:  When we first looked at this property, there was quite a bit of garbage and debris strewn about.  In our one and only conversation, Kevin, the Marine Corps sniper-hero-dude that used to live here, told me he had taken most of the vinyl siding off the barn because he was planning to “do something different”.  Sadly, most of that material was simply dumped over the bank and it spoils this otherwise beautiful piece of property.  Hopefully, in the Spring we’ll get a 10 yard roll-back up here and get things cleaned up.  But, while we can clean up the various pieces of siding, the assorted lengths of pvc pipe, and boat seats (don’t ask me), the one thing I haven’t figured out how to get rid of is the camper.  Digger Guy sounded like he might want to take it, but we haven’t heard from him since he bounced that check to the County.

Kevin told me how he was living in it while he worked on the house, but complained about how vandals (the same ones that stole the hot water tank and hardwood flooring to trade for drugs?) had come up here and flipped it over.  Either the vandals have come back, or those 60 mile per hour winds pack a bit of a punch, because this is what we found the other day:

On the upside, just a few more wind gusts (I mean, visits from those pesky vandals) like that and the damned thing will be over in the cemetery, and then the city will have to deal with it.

I need to get to bed.  That boss of mine probably expects me to actually work in the morning.  The good news is, Sandi will be back tomorrow.