A foggy morning

We had a quiet day today in the Alps. The weather was wet and foggy this morning. Late this afternoon it is cool and sunny around Anne and Gilles home. We went to Crolles to shop at the greenhouse and then the Casino grocery store. We bought lamb rib chops to fix for dinner and Mark made a Tres Leches cake this afternoon. Anne and I both decided to read this afternoon which is code for taking a good long nap. I have been reading Malcolm Gladwell's book What the Dog Saw. This is a collection of articles he wrote for the New Yorker. We made our plans for visiting Berengere in Copenhagen. We leave on Wednesday arriving in the evening. We will attend a piano concert on Thursday evening and will be staying at the French embassy where Berengere lives. We are hoping to kayak on the weekend. Berengere said the weather could be sunny to raining so we will pack for all conditions. We will leave most of our things in Lyon and take a small backpack on the plane. This will help us get into Copenhagen quickly. We will stay in Lyon when we return on Wednesday and Thursday, then back to the states on Friday.

Returning from Annecy

Mark and I went to the beautiful lakeside town of Annecy in the French Alps. Gilles' nephew married yesterday and Gilles and Anne went to the wedding and loaned us their car so we could explore the Village of Annecy and the drive around the lake. What a great trip. It appears that French weddings last a long time. The ceremony was to start around 3 pm, it did at 4 pm. Then they had the reception for 300 people at the Chateau of the nephew's wife's father. Later a dinner for 150 people and then dancing. Anne and Gilles let us know they would likely not be home before 2 am. They got home at 3:15 am. Mark and I explored the town with the castle that has been converted to a museum. It was purchased by the town for 10 Francs. They have a natural history section that explains how they clean the lake water that had been badly polluted from industry. It now has the cleanest water in Europe. The lake waters flow through a river and canals through the city. Very romantic. The museum includes landscapes which show how differently artists viewed the alps over time. In the beginning the alps were depicted as dangerous. Over time the Alps were viewed as a friendly back drop to activities of living in the alps. Several examples of alpine furniture to hold clothing and the tables of beds of everyday living. The last section was modern art.

We walked along the shore in Annecy before leaving for Talloire, a very chic beach along the lake. While in Talloire we noticed hundreds for paragliders above us. We climbed the mountain by car then hike to the launching pad for the flyers. Spectacular.

Les Adrets France

Mark and I arrived in France on Sunday. We are staying with Anne and Gilles at their new home in Les Adrets a small Villiage in the Belle Donne range of the alps. They built an energy effient house that has views of the mountains in the Belle Donne and Chartreuse ranges. Stunning! I am blogging on Gilles' computer which of course has a French keyboard. That makes my typing a bit slow. Our friend Noelle came from the Bordeaux region to hike with us. We saw Chamois and moutain sheep along with many beautiful flowers including orchids. It is early Spring in the Alps. Yesterday we spent the day in Grenoble having lunch at a cooking school and walking around the town. Two days ago in Crest we toured the medival tower that overlooks the village. Gilles garden is being attacked by slugs and some of his bee hives are dying. We went to the bee store yesterday to find a new queen for one of the hives. We will visit a brewery this afternoon.

Tabernash

Mark and I came up to Rich and Tim's cabin last night. It is outside of Tabernash in an area called Pole Creek. They wanted us to try out their place as they would like us to buy into the property. It has 5 bedrooms and is beautifully appointed. We hopped in the hot tub right after we arrived. The stars were great. Running barefoot across the snow to the hot tub was the hard part. The steam room warmed us up after running through the snow back to the house. Today we have been hanging out and writing our annual newsletter that we will send out with Holiday cards. The snow at Winter Park ski resort is not that great yet so we decided to enjoy the day here. I am preparing Cornish game hens for dinner.

Summer's passing

It is hard to believe that it has been a month since my last post. Mark and I have continued to have some great bike rides. His family has a reunion at Snowmass every year and the rides to the Maroon Bells and up Independence Pass were beautiful. The berries had not matured yet because of the cool summer. The bears depend upon these berries to get ready for winter and with them still not being ripe has brought the bears into town looking for food. One elderly woman who has feed the bears for years despite the insistence of the Wildlife department asking her to stop was found dead and partially eaten by a bear. They killed the bear that ate her. I think she would have been sad about that.

Our garden is providing us with about 20 pounds of vegetables a day. The tomatoes, squash, eggplant and peppers have been great. The cucumbers are gone now. I think about my grandfather when I eat tomatoes as he ate them three times a day everyday of the year. This was long before we knew about the beneficial effects of lycopenes that are in tomatoes. He lived to be 99. I think about him in the garden too as he encouraged me to plant my first one and was always there with good advice. I think about my grandmother when I eat onions because she loves them. She turned 95 this week. She once told me that if she was about to leave this world she did believe that if you just put a little onion on her lips it would revived her. I love that.

Mark and I are heading to Mexico to visit Larry, Viny and Alberto the last two weeks of November. We had hoped to get there sooner however we did not plan our schedules well enough in advance to accomplish that. We would like to be there during the rainy season one year. We are hoping to take a cooking class during our visit. We both love to cook and the food there is quite tasty.

Halloween is on a Saturday this year, so we are planning a party. I love Halloween. We decorate the house and go all out. We have a 15 foot Spider that John built out of scrapes that we light with black lights. It looks great.

Last weekend Bev Cobain, Kurt Cobain's cousin was at our house for dinner. I had bid on a catered dinner by Gourmet Catering at a fundraiser for the Suicide Prevention Coalition of Colorado. She said she would attend the dinner with whomever won the bid. The auctioneer offered a second dinner to the next highest bidder for the same price as my winning bid. We decided to combine the dinners and so we had 17 people around our dinning table. The caterer did all of the cooking and serving. It was a wine paired dinner and the chef came out to describe each course. It was delicious and the wines were good. Bev has written a couple of books of which I have the once called, "Dying to be Free". Her books are about helping families after they lose a family member to suicide. Bev was the family member that was called when Kurt killed himself. The two groups mingled well. It felt a bit odd for me to have a dinner party at our house and not be in the kitchen. When the party was over the kitchen was spotless. I loved that part.

Triple Bypass

Mark and I got up at 4 am yesterday to get to the start of the Triple Bypass cycling ride which started in Bergen Park. We picked up Jeff a rowing buddy of Mark's on the way. We began the ride at 5:50 am and arrived in Avon at 3:50 pm. This was a good time for us. There are aid stations along the route for food and bathroom breaks. We did not spend a lot of time at the stations. The views are terrific. The first great vista as we were climbing Squaw Pass prompted Mark to say, "This is the second best thing I have seen today, after waking up by you." I love him. The climbing is long and slow, the descents are fast, sometimes very fast. My top speed was 38.5 miles and hour. I enjoy the speed, however several of the descents had strong cross winds which blow one about. I am not fond of them. We we got to Copper Mountain we had a bit of rain which we were able to ride out of. Then a bit of sprinkling when we were in Vail. We arrived at Avon sooner that we thought we would. We had made arrangements to return to our car via the shuttle at 8 pm. Fortunately we were able to get on the 5 pm shuttle which was great especially since it started pouring rain right at 5. My thighs are a bit sore this morning, otherwise I feel great.

I talked with my mother wishing her a Happy Birthday. She is seventy one today and says "I feel just like I am only seventy." My nephew Josh is 30 today. They are all going out to Dave's BBQ in Tulsa. There will be about 26 of them. They like this place because it has a balcony area that they can have for themselves. I got to attend this last year. They serve the food on trashcan lids.

I am going to buy an i Phone today, pull some weeds, then off to a rowing club party. Mark's crew of 8 has won the national title these past two years. They did not enter the race this year so the are having a party one last time with the huge trophy before the ship it off to this year's winner.

I have been enjoying watching the Tour de France. I have not seen a lot of it this year. The intrigue is great with Lance and Contador being 2nd and 3rd places and being on the same team. It is likely to continue to get interesting.

I need to call a bee keeper to come and collect the bee hive that has started on our west balcony. The bees swarmed there about a month ago. I thought they were just resting. They decided to stay and build the hive. It is completely in the open which surprised me. I like the bees but their home is in an inconvenient spot. We like to sit on this balcony and eat. The bees do not bother us but they tend to go for whatever we are eating and that is a recipe for disaster.

The long drive back to Denver

Mark and I met Mark and Kristin at Relish a newer restaurant in Breckenridge that was recommended by a friend. When our waiter Sam arrived at our table I asked him about his being at this place instead of our favorite restaurant Cafe Alpine. He let us know he switched when the owner of Cafe Alpine decided to close the place. This was a shock. It was the best place in Breckenridge and Mark and I loved eating there. The owner paid off all of his debt and decided to go into the consulting business to help other restaurants be successful. He said the landlord of the place was hard to deal with. We were sad to here this news. The sous chef from Cafe Alpine opened Relish so we knew we were in for a treat. The food at Relish is great. So now I suppose this is our favorite place in Breck, although we have another new place to try called Modis.

Mark and I got up late, 8 am this morning so we did a smaller ride. We rode from Breckenridge around Lake Dillion and back, so only 36 miles. The weather was cool and we again had a tailwind riding back to Breckenridge. A rare event and two days in a row. We had seen a new bike trail just over the top of Swan Mountain and decided to explore it. I was a short climb and then a long decent through blooming mountain meadows to Lake Dillion. Definitely a great find and one we will bike again.

The traffic on Sundays from the mountains can be quite heavy and today it was worse than usual. The stop and go traffic started on the west side of the Eisenhower Tunnel which is about 80 miles from Denver. When we finally got to the tunnel the siren went off and the tunnel was closed for about 10-15 minutes. We are not sure why that happened. Mark and I know all of the side roads off of I-70 so when we got to the first exit that we could get off that parking lot we did. I love the side roads because the landscape is beautiful and the road is mostly quiet. Of course we are not the only locals who know this trick so we had some company. The trip that usually takes an 1 1/2-2 hours took 2 1/2 hours. It was slower however I love those back roads. It rained on us before getting home. They say that Breckenridge has had more rain this year than they have had since 1870. Everything is green.

Percy our blue front Amazon Parrot is singing because he is happy we are back.