On the range

This weekend, I discovered the truisms of some of the songs I learned in grade school. Italian and I ventured out to Colorado to celebrate our 10 wedding anniversary and during the trip, we found home. The West remains uniquely American and the Rockies were the most beautiful background to a remarkable trip.

For starters, we checked into the Highland Haven Inn, where a cute little cowboy duckie greeted us.

From Fly Fishing Colorado

Bear Creek, one of the many trout streams around Denver, not only ran directly through the town of Evergreen, but also ran through Highland Haven, making the place even more serene.

From Fly Fishing Colorado

On our first night in Evergreen, CO, right outside of Denver on the western side, we gazed in amazement at the purple mountains. When the sun sets, the fading beams hit the pinkish granite of the Rockies and the mountains are washed in purple which fades from a light lavendar to a deep rich purple. It was awesome in the purest sense of the word.

From Fly Fishing Colorado

After sleeping that night with the cool mountain air filling the room from the open window, we woke up to head to Cheesman Canyon, our first fly fishing destination. To get to the river, one must hike half a mile into the Canyon. At the top of the hike, we stopped to take in the view.

From Fly Fishing Colorado

The South Platte winds its way through the canyon and is punctuated with large bolders in many places.

From Fly Fishing Colorado

Those boulders you see are as tall as a person, and provided perfect places for hiding fish. Italian, landed the biggest of the day.

From Fly Fishing Colorado

All of the trout we caught were wild trout, so they fought with a gusto and zeal hatchery trout just don't possess. Occasionally, they would take us on long walks along the river as we worked hard to land them. The majority of the streams in this area are also catch and release, which means that each of the fish are returned to grow bigger.

While at Cheesman, I did put my pole down a couple of times to capture a few sights.

Denver was experiencing a swarm of ladybugs.

From Fly Fishing Colorado

The wildflowers were beautiful.

From Fly Fishing Colorado

From Fly Fishing Colorado

I also managed to catch a few trout.

From Fly Fishing Colorado

The second day, we decided to do something completely different, and our guide, Pat Dorsey, gave us the experience of fishing a meadow stream. Wow. Really, wow. The drive to Spinney was one of the most incredible drives. From Evergreen, we wend our way through the mountains, going higher and higher until we reached an elevation of 8600 ft. Towards the end of the mountain pass, we took a slight turn until the mountain on our left cleared to reveal an expansive prairie beneath us. Italian and I, who weren't saying much to beginning with as we took in the sights, both stopped breathing, gazed, and then exclaimed, "Wow!" There are no words to describe what we saw. We did immediately start singing "Home on the Range," though.

Fishing Spinney was quite different than fishing Cheesman. For starters, the scene is an expansive meadow of wildflowers and wild sage.

From Fly Fishing Colorado

Cutting through the meadow is another winding stream, punctuated every now and then by old farm buildings.

From Fly Fishing Colorado

The sky was cloudless when we first arrived, but as the day progressed, clouds began to build up and roll along the expansive blue above. Pat, our fishing guide, had an incredible knack for seeing the trout in the water and taught us how to fish in lots of different conditions. If you ever go fly fishing in the Denver area, call the Blue Quill Angler. Their guide service is top notch, stacked with friendly knowledgeable guides.

Finally, on the last day of fishing, we had the luxury of fishing the North Fork of the South Platte. Again, the view was picture perfect.

From Fly Fishing Colorado

The stream is nestled against the side of the mountain, with a bit of pairie on the other side.

From Fly Fishing Colorado

Pat again helped us land beautiful fish and his strike indicator really is the best one we've used.

From Fly Fishing Colorado

From Fly Fishing Colorado

At the end of the day, we couldn't pass up the opportunity to stop by the Coney Island hot dog stand, complete with boardwalk.

From Fly Fishing Colorado

The view we had while we ate our elk sausage dog only added to the wonderful flavor.

From Fly Fishing Colorado

Yep, we'll be going back soon.

From Fly Fishing Colorado

Oh how I've missed it

For the last few weeks, nay, months, I've been sock less, and not just because it is a Delta summer. I've been knitting on many other things. I've knitted 6 sweaters (Noro Sweater, Little Green Shrug, Little Diamond Pullover, Luscious, and Undulating Cables). I like knitting sweaters. Heck, I love wearing sweaters and seeing others wear the sweaters I've made. But oh, I have missed knitting socks. They're fast and squishy and yummy and I'm bouncing with enthusiasm to have socks on my needles again.

From WIPs

I'm also loving the yarn. Having Trekking slide through my fingers brings back many happy memories of previous sock knitting experiences. The colorway doesn't look like most Trekking colorways with long swaths of color. Instead, it has much shorter color repeats. I opted for a slip stitch pattern, basically, the Aquaphobia pattern, but without the cables along the sides. When looking at the leg versus the foot, I'm amazed at the impact the slip stitch pattern has in breaking up the color. I love the socks even more, and when I slipped it on my foot. It fit like a glass slipper.

So know, I'm wonder if I really love knitting socks, why am I going to leave them again, at home, while I fly away to Colorado, to knit a scarf.

Red, White, Blue, Green

For the last few years, we've had a family tradition of meeting Papa and Nana Clover at a lake cabin for the Fourth of July holiday. This year was no different, so we made the trek out to Middle Tennessee. Papa and Nana Clover had forgotten some food and asked if we could stop by their house and pick it up. We, of course, agreed. Our own cooler was rather full and we didn't have room in the car for the larger cooler, which meant we needed to stop by a store and buy a smaller styrofoam cooler with some ice.

We rested up at Papa and Nana's, packed up the food, drove to the store, purchased the cooler and ice, and went to the car. "Ok, where's the food?" Italian asked.

"I thought you had it." I replied.

We had left it at the house. This food was not meant to go to the lake. We turned around anyway and picked up the twice forgotten grocery sack and made our merry way to the cabin laughing. Once there, we relaxed by swimming in the lake.

From Irish Clover

Italian caught a few bluegills and Little Clover caught his fair share of frogs. The annual 4th of July banquet was as lovely as ever. Seriously, our neighbors at the cabin have an amazing flair for entertaining. The food is always excellent, the wine is always flowing, and the company is always outstanding.

From Irish Clover

There was plenty of time for me to knit as well. I knitted on the boat, on the deck, and by a campfire under the stars. It was the relaxation I needed.

Before leaving for our holiday, I did manage to finish a little baby sweater for a friend.

From 2009 Finished Objects

The pattern is from Bouton d'Or, a French pattern book series for children. If you have a boy who has not grown into men's patterns, hunt down these books. They are filled with the best boy sweaters I've seen. The gauge is small, this sweater is knit with fingering weight yarn on US size 3 needles, but it knits up fast. The pattern was easy to memorize and I love the construction with the buttons at the neck. Little Clover found these, and I must say, they are cute.

From 2009 Finished Objects