It’s time for the second US post. (again…) We had a server update problem, which wiped out half a dozen of our most recent posts. Fortunately, our most recent backup was able to restore all but one post- the one for Pagosa Springs and Silverthorne. So, I’m going to do a quick job of re-creating that post.
After our time was up in Durango, we moved a couple of hours east to Pagosa Springs. We stayed in a small townhome, so had our own private entrance. Like before, our Covid lives were pretty simple. We went to the grocery store every week or two, got take out food on occasion, and mostly hiked and caught up on other projects. And, we gave each other haircuts. Actually did this in Hurricane, but forgot to include it on the last post.
Pagosa Springs was more of a quiet residential layout, so we were walking mostly through neighborhoods. But we quickly found the quieter paths around the lakes which worked well for daily hikes. And on occasion we would drive a few miles North to a nice regional park for hikes.
Along with our daily hikes/walks, we both found other projects to keep us occupied. Deb continues her knitting, and has also started a class on teaching English as a second language. Our hope is that this might open up access to a country such as South Korea or Japan for a longer term stay. Since we might be limited in traveling for a while, at least this might give us an option to spend a year in a country that is culturally very interesting, and also one that is managing Covid well.
Tim is keeping busy working on photography, finances and programming. The big changes in the stock market have allowed us to modify our investments, so that has taken a lot of research. And although Tim used to do a lot with Labview programming, this is no longer practical for him. Labview is primarily a Windows based program, and we are now using a Mac. And Labview is very expensive, not an issue when 3M was happy to pay for it! After doing some simple programming in Swift, Tim has settled on Python as a good open source programming language. A big change going from a graphical program to a text based one, but Python has a few distinct advantages. It’s open source (free to use) and has tremendous support with online learning, reference materials and modules that add such things as graphing, complex math, machine learning and vision. Fun tidbit- Python wasn’t named after a snake, but instead after Monty Python!
The days in Pagosa Springs were pleasant, though starting to warm up enough that we were ready to move further North. So we headed to Silverthorne Colorado, a couple hours West of Denver. Again we ended up in a townhome, with easy access to mountain hiking. We had a large wall of windows in the townhome, overlooking a stream and large hill. And even better, a family of ground squirrels lived just past our patio. It was fun to hear them chattering away during the day, and see them standing up like little prairie dogs to watch for hawks.
Hiking was great, we just had to walk about half a mile through some condos, then had a series of nice trails up the mountain. Like our entire time in the US, we timed the spring wildflowers well.
So now we’re up to July, with our US plans completely thrown off by Covid. Originally we had extended plans to hike in the UK for the early summer, spend the late summer in Scotland, then head down to Germany/Austria for the fall. So had to cancel all those plans as well. And with Covid we can’t travel and see family and friends, which is why we came to the US in the first place. And lastly we have international health insurance, good in any country in the world- but with time limits for the US. (Since the US health care is dramatically more expensive than anywhere else in the world) So we really need to get out of the country if possible. Which is difficult with all the travel restrictions. But we started making plans to head to Ireland, which still allows US visitors. There is a mandatory 2 week quarantine, but we can live with that. And after that, we are hoping to head off to Spain to get a one year students visa, where we will spend a year learning Spanish. Assuming we can get to Spain from Ireland…
All things considered, though, we still consider ourselves to be very fortunate. Although our plans have been disrupted, we are still healthy and doing well. And we’ve had nice places to live and hike, even though our routines have been a bit limited. So right now, we’re making plans to head to Ireland- including selling our “new to us” car! We don’t know if the borders will close before we can go, but with the numbers in the US continuing to rise we’re concerned that if we don’t get out now, it may be even harder in the future.
By the way, the last photo with the angled trees is a bit of an illusion. The trees go straight to the skies, the hill is what is angled. I just took the picture on the angle for fun.
