I post this knowing full well that abuse will be heaped on my head because of it. Two of the Worldview Academy faculty, Jay Winslow and Mark Bertrand, are completely sick of hearing Linda and me sing the praises of our new hometown, Canon City (nestled along the Arkansas River at the foot of the Wet Mountains in Colorado, as if you didn’t know). They’ve heard us tell them that the milk here (delivered by a local dairy in glass bottles) is thicker and the locally-grown honey keeps you healthy. Linda even swears that the tap water helps your nails and hair grow faster and stronger!
Jay Winslow, not normally a sarcastic soul, is so tired of hearing about Canon City that, when we met someone who didn’t know where it was located, snapped, “Have you ever seen a rainbow? It’s at the end of the rainbow!”
So . . . Jay and Mark should probably stop reading right now. The rest of this post could also be entitled, “How I Spent my First Day Back Home After Camp.”
It began with coffee on our deck, followed by some upkeep on the vegetable garden. Please note that the tomato plants are as tall as Linda, and that we’ve already got more cucumbers than we can give away. And the green peppers are delicious!
After lunch, True and Kate and I went rafting on Arkansas River, facing rapids still strong enough to throw Kate out of the boat. Along the way we saw a big toad, deer, a blue heron and a huge red-tailed hawk. The high was 96 degrees yesterday, but that felt just right as we splashed along the river.
Brace yourself for the capper: after a quick dinner, we hurried down to Veterans Park to listen to a FREE concert by the lead singer of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Jimmy Ibbotson! This cozy, perfect evening saw Jimmy sign the back of my “20 Years of Dirt” t-shirt (Linda was the one brave enough to ask), and throw us a free copy of his new CD, Daylight. As if that wasn’t enough, the opening act, Sons and Brothers, played some fantastic bluegrass and then closed with Jimmy playing “Will the Circle Be Unbroken.”
Too perfect! So perfect, in fact, that I have to add a disclaimer: it isn’t always like that in Canon City. We do have hot weather sometimes, and we do have a state prison on the edge of town. Wal-mart is so far away that you can’t ride your bike to it. And sometimes the free Tuesday night concerts in the park stink. Come to think of it, Canon City is way too small and unsophisticated to attract anyone. Don’t even think about moving here!
3 comments:
Welcome back to Paradise. Next time, you should put a quarter or some other reference object in the photograph so we can see how large the produce is relative to some known quantity. That would go a long way toward confirming your claims about Canon City. I've actually hatched a clever plan for when I come visit you: I'm going to bring some empty water bottles labeled "Elixir of Life" and fill them up with tap water from your sink. When I get back to Houston, I'll be able to sell them at a premium.
Scoff on, scoffing scoffers.
Okay, who's masquerading as Jay Winslow?! It may be unlikely to catch me eating a green vegetable, but not nearly as unlikely as catching Jay successfully using technology. My only hope for him ever learning to use the internet was predicated on him doing it before he became a senior citizen and thus completely set in his ways. How on earth could a card-carrying member of the AARP who CAN'T TURN HIS COMPUTER ON actually learn how to respond to a blog?
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