Returning to the Land of the Living

We had a beautiful little service for my mom last Saturday. We lucked out with the weather and got a gorgeous sunny day sandwiched between two little snow storms. The little mortuary chapel was actually freezing cold, so we moved the whole thing outside into the sunshine among the aspen leaves and mountains.

There are still a few details to wrap up, but my life is slowly returning to normal.

And that means that I'm back in the saddle again!

OK... more like this saddle...

At any rate, this week has been picture perfect for bike riding - sunny days with very little wind and temps in the 60's, so CatMan and I have been out making the most of it before the forecasted storm arrives on Monday.

Tuesday's Bike Ride. View from the C-470 bike trail

You might remember a while ago I wrote a post about Denver in which I talked about Denver's big flood back in the 1960's. After that flood, the city built three flood control dams, and also built a series of bike paths along all of the rivers and streams in the area.

So CatMan and I often ride to one of the three dams. Today we chose the Bear Creek dam.

View from the top of Bear Creek Dam

Bear Creek suffered a bit of flooding back in the September deluge, but it didn't really make the news. This is probably because the dam did it's job and protected the city stupendously. However, the reservoir reached the highest level since the dam was built, and they're still slowly draining it back down to normal levels. They've finally re-opened the roads through the park so we could ride through it.

Bear Creek Reservoir before the flood

So we crested the dam, and cruised down the hill into the reservoir basin. The scene that greeted us was bizarre and amazing. The road we were riding on had been under about 15-20 feet of water, and all of the grass, tree leaves and vegetation that was under water had been killed, leaving an eerie "bathtub line" across the entire landscape.

See the line where the leaves are yellow and green above, but brown below.

In this one you can see horizontal lines on the trees showing the different levels where the water was.

I'm not sure that the photos really do it justice, but it was one of the stranger things I've ever seen, and gave me new respect for the amount of water that fell, and new thanks for that dam! It was sorta funny actually, because every cyclist that came down the hill had the same exact reaction and pretty soon there was a whole gaggle of us standing there in awe taking pictures.

A truly surreal landscape

So, we rode through Bear Creek park, up through the town of Morrison and ended up at Red Rocks. It was incredibly beautiful.

I have to say that the entire day left me with a feeling of awe and gratitude. I guess recent events have made me just a bit more thankful for my life, and a bit more committed to enjoying it thoroughly.

I feel so blessed to lead the life that I do, to live in such a beautiful location, and to enjoy a healthy (if a bit tired) body that lets me get out to enjoy it all. So tell me, what are you grateful for today?