so about Monarch Mountain

From the other side of the big mountain, a good Saturday morning to you all~

     I've been watching the webcams posted atop Monarch Mountain a lot these past few days as the winter time storms that have been promised to the high country have most assuredly arrived.  In the last 48 hours they have received nearly 15 inches of snow.  Great for the skiers who long to hit the slopes each weekend.  Not so great for folks trying to get to the other side of it all.  Even for a Kansas farm girl like me, it's hard to imagine a place that regularly gets over 350 inches of snowfall each season.  Drivers here must learn quickly to have respect for the mountain.  The drop down is a little unnerving and that is putting it very mildly.
     With a smile on my face, I remember back to about a year ago this time when we were listening to the news out of the Grand Junction television station and the weather guy was talking about all of the upcoming storms that were fast approaching nearly all of the mountainous areas of this part of the state.  The station's meteorologist was admonishing people to take extreme caution if they were traveling on any of the roads in the state, but especially to be more than careful if they were going to be crossing over any of the passes.  In fact, I remember so clearly his comment to his audience of listeners about traveling anywhere in general throughout the state during the winter months.

"Hey, I just advise everyone that in the wintertime folks should just stay on this side of the Continental Divide," he said.  

I remember equally well my comment back to Mike about what we had just heard him say.

"Well that guy is crazy if he thinks that a snow covered pass is going to stop me from going over one.  He is obviously not from Kansas!"

     In the weeks and months that have gone by since I made that statement, I would like to think I've grown and changed a bit.  So the truth be told, that weatherman probably was more right than I gave him credit for at the time.  Desperately homesick for Kansas last year, I made the journey back and forth countless times.  Mostly it was without incident but I always remembered in the back of my mind that the weather, even when it looked good at the lower elevations, could change just like that once you found the top of the mountains.  I stayed in close contact with Mike, always letting him know where I was at.  I never took out without a full tank of gas, emergency supplies of food, water, blanket and charged up cell phone.  Thankfully they were never needed.  In some cases, it might have been even downright miraculous that nothing ever happened to me along the way.
     It has been a long time since I've seen my old home in Kansas.  By the time that Mike and I return at  Christmas it will have been 5 long months.  To some that may sound a little on the crazy side, to think of 5 months being an extended period of time but to me it kind of seems like an eternity.  When I left Reno County on August 1st, it was still the "dog days" of summer and school had not even yet begun.  Our arrival will be on the day before winter "officially" begins and I'm pretty much certain that it won't be  "flip flop" weather or anything.  But that doesn't matter to me.  I'm going back home.
     Even though we have been able to set aside several days of vacation to visit our family and friends back over there, the time will fly by us at record speed.  This weekend we are sitting down to figure out some kind of itinerary to at least tentatively follow for the days that we will be there.  Both the Renfro and the Scott families are all back in the Midwest.  It will be so wonderful to see them all and spend time with them once again. I'm going to make about a gazillion trips through the Bogey's drive-thru, visit my favorite thrift store on Main Street in Hutch, go to church somewhere on Sunday, and catch up with as many friends as I can.  I'll get to cross off a couple of things from my "list of 60 things to do before I turn 60",  numbers 19, 24, 34, 43, and 46 for sure.  If the weather holds good, I might even tackle numbers 14 and 30.  I have never missed a Kansas Christmas yet and I don't aim for this year to be the first.
     The snow is falling on Monarch Mountain as I type these words to you this morning.  All day long there is a 50% chance for the "white stuff" to continue.  Looking out the kitchen window, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of traffic heading east towards Gunnison on Highway 50 right now.  That might be because all of the really sane people are still sound asleep in their beds at 4:30 in the morning.  I don't know.  As daybreak arrives, cars and trucks will begin their journeys with some going east and the others going west.  Regardless of the weather conditions some folks still have to make the trip to Gunnison, up the road to the east about 60 miles, going through Arrowhead Canyon.  The twisting and winding roads of that part of the drive east can be "interesting" in good weather.  Snow pack, nearly zero visibility, and ice cover only add to the excitement.  Still others must make the trip on eastward as they head towards Salida, a drive of about 130 miles or so from here in Montrose.  Only one thing stands in their way.

Monarch Mountain

     After a year and half of living in southwestern Colorado, I have finally settled in to life amidst the Rocky Mountains. I make my home here with Mike and Sally the Dog and as it is said "Life is Good".  Every Monday-Friday I am blessed to spend my waking hours with 22 most interesting first-graders whom I love dearly as well as to work with the finest of people around at Olathe Elementary.  They are dear and special friends who have now become like my "second family".  No matter whether I lived in Kansas or here in Colorado, God has most surely been with me.  Although I was just about positive that I would die from never seeing my "homeland" again, amazingly I did not.  Homesickness did not get the best of me.  I only thought it would :)

In the wintertime, all of the snow is piled up against the visitor's center and gift shop.  It always seems to weird to drive by it and not be able to read the sign that tells that you have found Monarch Crest.  This picture was actually taken in the spring time as the mounds of snow slowly began to disappear.

Late May in 2013 on the day that I moved here to begin a new life in the mountains.

December of last year~There was no way that I was going to miss it!

It reminded me of a Christmas card when we reached the top of the summit last year in December as we made our way home to Kansas.  There is real beauty on Monarch Mountain, no matter what time of the year you are there.  I have much respect for it.

This past summer in July as we made a day trip over the big mountain, stopping to ride the tram to the summit at 12,000 feet.

On the "other side" of the mountain we found our dear friends from Kansas, LeRoy and Anne in Salida, joining them for lunch in Salida.  The Willis' are good people whom we hold close in our hearts.