Summer, Plans, Beautiful Things

DK left two days ago for Chicago first, then Berkeley for his last year of law school. It was a good summer with him here; a significant change from two people to three in our medium-size cottage; and the only thing I would change would be for him to be around more. From his blog: “Today I leave Texas, and I don’t yet know when I’ll be back. I had an unbelievably great time this summer. I could not ask for more.”

The plan as it stands is to head back to Colorado next month. Current thinking is for me to start with the Ute Creek semi-loop, a 25 mile lollipop loop in the Weminuche Wilderness. I’m giving myself a few extra days on the trail to go slow and acclimate and hoping I don’t go too slow so I get a few days in Fort Collins (the town of my dreams). Then I’ll meet David in Denver and we’ll go back to the Weminuche to hike the Elk Park/Chicago Basin shuttle loop. We’ll catch the train from Durango and get off at the start of the hike, hike a 40 mile loop, and then catch the train back to Durango. We’ll go back to Denver, he’ll fly to Berkeley and I’ll drive back to Dallas.

My inability to get up the hill in New Mexico with Jim Z was a major wake-up call. Shortly after returning home I joined the Lakewood Gym and have been working out five days/week since then. Last week I biked around White Rock Lake Sunday and Tuesday (14 miles each time and the hard part is the hills on the way home) and worked out at the gym three days. This seems like an excellent schedule that addresses cardio and legs with some upper body as well. I’m pretty excited about it all – glad that I’m getting it done kind of like cardiac rehab before an MI. I’ll have 7 weeks to get to an improved condition.

Along with the same theme of health, or something like that, a week ago I bought a Cuisinart ice cream maker for $5 at a garage sale. The test case was basic chocolate ice cream and it’s grrrreat. Since I started baking, especially around the holidays, I’ve been thinking it would be a good idea to be able to make some primo vanilla ice cream to go with certain pies or some dark chocolate ice cream or fresh peach ice cream – so many possibilities, like mixing in chocolate covered peanuts, other things from bulk... The next test will be to make that primo vanilla, the one with 1.5 cups milk, 1.5 cups cream, a vanilla bean, 2 eggs and 3 egg yolks, and some sugar. ¡¡Ay Caramba!!

And now to the photos. In the top photo there's more beauty here than is first seen. Lupe’s daughter, obviously, and her hair(!) - and also that she's planning to cut her hair and give it to an organization that makes wigs for people with cancer. And there's the man in the photo, Alan, the dermatologist who gives several days each month to the poor – he’s beautiful. And the room they’re in, the derm room, started by Carrie K when she was a resident and still going years later while Carrie’s gone on to teach at UPenn – the room is beautiful (not to mention Carrie!) and then there was Kelly (in the photo here), who worked in the derm room for three years and who passed on at such a young age. That was one of the saddest things - and she was beautiful.