The Veracity of Love

I was talking with a dear friend about the state of their relationships and that led to a discussion of my past relationships.  An interesting fact that I never really thought about came to me.  I loved my ex within a month of the start of our relationship.  I loved her through multi-day arguments.  I loved her for months after she gave up on me.  I loved so much that I let structural issues in our relationship go, modifying my own behavior instead of dealing with them head on.

While I still have love for her, I am not in love with her anymore, and I never will again.  (Interesting how a single event can change how one feels.)

But that is a fact, immutable, in my past.  I know I have moved on, that I can have true love with someone else.  Nonetheless it is there.

It's not something I want to dwell on or talk about, really.  But it came up and I thought it was worth writing about.

Be good, have fun,
Jon.

Bonus Track:
I've started dessert making lately.  It is a change of pace from my normal routine and it is a great way to show appreciation to those around me.  I think this is what I'm making next.

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/best-brownies/

Road Trip - Grand Junction and Palisade

In my last post I talked about the outdoors stuff we did on my weekend road trip.  We also spent some time in Grand Junction, which is a lovely place with a nice downtown and cute neighborhoods.  That was all overshadowed by an odd bit of city planning choices.  On our way into town the first time we noticed a sign for a road named "29 1/2 Rd".  The next road was "29 1/4 Rd".  As our stay continued we found there were many fractional roads in Grand Junction.

I looked up the history of the road naming, and it makes an odd sort of sense.  The original road naming were establish by the county and were spaced widely apart.  As the town grew and filled in streets they named them with fractions.  Eventually the town switched to "normal" road names.

But it actually gets a little worse, as Grand Junction has a second set of numbered streets.  The county roads are marked with "Rd", while city streets are marked "St".  This caused us some confusion and leads to "26 1/2 Rd" changing to "7th St" when it crosses "F Rd".  (East/West county roads are lettered.)  Given the pattern with numbered roads, this really shouldn't be a surprised.

But, that is not what I came here to write about.  I want to talk about alcohol.

One of the goals of the trip was to visit a couple of Grand Junction breweries and try some beer we never had.  Frankly, we were a little disappointed.  The two places we visited were OK, but not special.  Since Palisade is nearby and is the center of Colorado wine, we decided stopped there and try out a winery.  While we were there we found a distillery and I got to sample high quality spirits for the first time.  (I have not been much of a hard liquor drinker.)  It was lovely.  The bourbon was lovely and the other offerings were quite interesting.

Next door was a winery where I found a couple of wines that I enjoy rather than just be OK with.

Next door to that was a brewery with a wonderful collection of beers.  I've always found a brew I enjoy at most every brewery, but here I found that I enjoyed the entire selection. Here is a picture of me and the flight we shared.

So, if you are in the area, I highly recommend going to Peach Ave near the tracks and try out these three alcohol providers:

Peach Street Distillery 

DeBeque Canyon Winery Tasting Room

Palisade Brewery 

Be good, have fun,

Jon.

Bonus Track:

Inside joke for Kat.

Road Trip - Hanging Lake and Colorado National Monument

Last weekend my buddy Kat and I took a road trip out to Grand Junction and Palisade Colorado.  Mostly because neither of us had visited there yet.  While  on that side of the state we also hit a couple of great outdoor spaces, Hanging Lake and Colorado National Monument.

Hanging Lake

Located in the middle of Glennwood Canyon, Hanging Lake exists in a high crevice nearly at the top of the canyon wall.  Due to its unique location it has a unique ecosystem, including bacteria species that don't exist elsewhere.

The approach trail is only a little more than a mile, but gains 1,800 feet of elevation.  This makes it strenuous hide when dry.  On this day, however, the trail was half covered in snow and ice, and half covered in melted snow and ice (commonly called mud).  I made it in good hiking boots, but Kat had an easier time using her trekking poles.

Which brings me to an interesting point.  Don't try and do these things if you are not prepared! Hanging Lake is right off the interstate, easy to get to and well known.  This brought a lot of people to the people to the trail head, to read the sign that said how difficult the trail was.  Yet we still saw people in dress shoes, gym shorts and other questionable choices in hiking wear.  In all likelihood they never made it to the lake, and hopefully did not get hurt in the process.

For every unprepared person, however, we found several others well enough prepared for the conditions.  Lots of people taking the effort to see a unique and beautiful place.

Colorado National Monument

Colorado National Monument wasn't even on our itinerary. We had a few hours to spare and found a great big green area on the map.  Much to my pleasant surprise we had found ourselves in a stunning canyon on a winding road climbing up and over the rim to panoramic views like this one...

That is Kat on the side there taking a panorama picture herself.  Panoramception!

I will be back there sometime to explore it more.

More Pictures

Here are some more pictures from these two lovely places.

Next time I'll write about what we did in town.

Be good, have fun,
Jon.

Bonus Track:
I don't know why I'm late to this.
Welcome to Night Vale