Today the Environmental Protection Agency repealed the bedrock scientific finding that greenhouse gases threaten human life and well being. It means the agency can no longer regulate them and the oil and gas industry are free to facilitate pumping more and more CO2 into the environment.

This brings the EPA into alignment with the CDC which says we don’t need to vaccinate our children against many childhood diseases and don’t take Tylenol because it causes autism.

The truth is now suspect, and George Orwell’s Big Brother is watching us all. I hope you find this message as comforting as I do?

We are so happy we moved to Denver, now more than a decade ago. We had our careers in the DC area and our children were born and grew up there, but now Denver is the town that we are happy to call home. We enjoy Denver and Colorado in all seasons of the year, but the winters do seem to be long at times and you need a break.

This year, with my skiing buddy, Erin, out of the country on assignment with the State Department, the season might seem longer than usual since I most likely won’t be hitting the slopes. Below are some pictures of one of our ski trips to Copper Mountain last year, when our nephew Rob Roschy joined us. We had a great time and conditions were perfect, with a reasonable number of skiers on the slopes and lifts.

As many of you know, we have enjoyed visiting Mexico during the winter, usually contenting ourselves with stays in San Miguel de Allende and Mexico City. This year we decided to add on a 10 day beach trip. Our longtime travel buddies, Bob & Mart Larson, are always up for an adventure, so together we booked some time at very nice condo development in Sayulita, a small but bustling town on the Pacific Coast not far from Puerto Vallarta.

We were very pleased with the condo development and enjoyed our entire stay there. Our rental unit was large and quite lovely with a balcony in front overlooking the pools (one of the them thankfully heated) and a patio in the rear for breakfasts al fresco. We enjoyed some spectacular sunsets and occasional visitors (the birds on the balcony railing are chacalacas, and they have the most ear piercing of calls.) The swimmer in the pool pictured below is Sue; she always loves time in the water, and this warm pool was particularly relaxing for all of us.

We last visited Sayulita some ten years ago; since then it has done nothing but grow and expand–except for the streets–many are still unpaved and others are full of ruts and potholes, but that adds to its charm. We drove to the city in a rental car, but for the most part kept it in the garage and got around town on a rented golf cart, like most of the tourists and residents.

The town is full of tourists from the U.S. and Canada this time of year. The humidity is low with temps in the 70’s and low 80’s. We just dipped our toes into the ocean; it was still a little chilly for this wuss and some of the beaches have formidable undertows, but there were many who chose to plunge into the waves or surf.

We made a couple of short road trips up the coastal highway (Mexico 200) in search of a more tranquil scene. Our first stop was the town of Don Francisco, affectionally nicknamed Don Pancho; quite interesting, but almost as busy and tourist laden as Sayulita. The second, Lo de Marcos, about 15 miles further north of us, was much quieter, although not undiscovered. No matter the beach, there were always the vendors–men, women and children walking up and down the beach, weaving amongst the sunbathers or diners, hawking their wares. You can’t always resist–in the end, we bought a light blanket, a small carving, and some other trinkets.

Our most frequent activity wherever we found ourselves was sitting at a beach side restaurant, sipping margaritas or Micheladas (beer & Clamato juice, over ice–you have to try it to appreciate it), and talking and laughing with Bob & Mart. After some forty years, we share a lot of wonderful memories, and it’s always a lot of fun to reflect and reminisce.

It’s good to get away. At home we sit in front of the TV far too much, absorbing all the political happenings, too often getting and angry and stressed, Here, not so much, but we still catch a podcast or read an online paper, so we do know what’s happening, just not always as it’s happening.

Some of you reading this blog might not share our distress. I hope that we are wrong about the current administration, but at this moment we are afraid and fearful. I am a retired government employee; I am proud of the service I gave and appreciative of the retirement pension I receive. The people I worked with in the US government were hard working and honest, giving their best for the US citizens we served, and I know that tradition continues.

In addition, we are so very proud of Erin and her service in the U.S State Department; we pray each day that she doesn’t lose her job because some over zealous non-elected reformer thinks the State Department is wasting American dollars. We don’t think the government should be dismantled. It certainly can be reformed, but there are procedures and laws to be followed and obeyed. Congress seems to have given up its control over the purse and spending.

Let us pray for calm and order; where is conversation and the exchange of ideas–and as my Granny might have said, let us not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Our democracy is too important to lose.

Have you ever visited a fish hatchery? If you haven’t, you should.

Here in the western part of the country, you often see information signs along the highways directing you to a nearby fish hatchery. A few years ago, when Sue and I were visiting Yosemite National Park in California, we took a detour to a fish hatchery. It was a lovely day and we had time on our hands, as we didn’t really enjoy our visit to Yosemite and didn’t want to spend another day there, dealing with the large crowds attracted to the area. So we decided to take a couple of hours to visit the hatchery. What an interesting surprise, and since then we have visited a number of others.

On our last day in Seattle, Steve and Jennifer offered to show us the locks at Lake Washington and then a fish hatchery. The locks connect Lake Washington to Puget Sound and when they were constructed, fish ladders were part of the project–to enable spawning salmon to make their way back to the stream where they were first hatched. It seems that salmon spend the first part of their life in a fresh water stream or river and then swim to the ocean where they spend three or four years feeding and growing–sometimes reaching three or more feet in length.

Then some instinct tells them to return to their spawning grounds, but many of the rivers have been damned to generate electricity and control flooding and water distribution. These dams do however present a problem to the returning salmon, but the ladders facilitate, at least in part, the salmon on their return visit.

Both at the locks and at the fish hatcher, we saw an incredible number of salmon fighting with others of their species to make their way back to the spawning grounds. Each year many tourists and local residents visit the locks and the hatcheries to witness this struggle. It was a fascinating way to spend a couple of hours, and in truth, a once in a lifetime opportunity that we thoroughly enjoyed. Thanks again Jennifer & Steve for the outing and for hosting everyone on a wonderful Pacific Northwest adventure.

After our visit to the Olympic Peninsula, we caught a ferry for a short ride to Victoria, British Columbia. The city has the most temperate climate of any city in Canada and is a treat for eye and palate. The Butchart Gardens, just outside of town, is a must see sight, and we spent our first afternoon on Vancouver Island rambling around the garden. The entire town of Victoria, though, seems to be in bloom, including around our hotel and the Provincial Capital grounds.

On our second day, we treated ourselves to a carriage ride around Old Town and a great meal at Finn’s Restaurant, a local favorite where we sampled local oysters and Dungeness crab. Unfortunately, two days are not enough, but there was more to see and do back in Seattle, so back we went.

What a delightful place!

Recently, we visited Washington State and the Pacific Northwest for the first time in years as the guests of our friends, Jennifer Parker & Steve Clagett. They are wonderful hosts, and their longtime, but recently renovated residence, made a great base of operations. Joining us were several of our frequent traveling companions, including Blythe Tennant, Mart & Bob Larson, and Kat and Tom Nolan.

After a couple of days in Seattle, our group of nine headed out to the Pacific coast, staying at the Quileute Oceanside Resort in La Push . The Northwest Pacific beaches are so different to the Mid-Atlantic East Coast beaches we are familiar with, notably its sea stacks, massive piles of drift wood, and smooth sea tossed rocks. No swimming for us, but great walks with fantastic vistas and scenery.

There were nine in our traveling group, but we somehow never got a group picture that included us all. The above photo taken on an outing to Rialto Beach includes Bob, Kat, Steve, Mart, Sue, Blythe, and Jennifer. I was taking the photo and Tom was under the weather. It’s hard to describe the otherworldliness of the landscape; that’s perhaps why they used this locale to film the “Twilight” movies.

Another day included a challenging hike through a temperate rain forest to Second Beach. Giant Douglas firs, often covered in thick moss, cedars, huge ferns and lush, dripping foliage populate the green tinted landscape.

And this was only the first part of our stay!

The national polls show that Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are in a statistical tie. According to the NYT, even in every election since the Gore v. Bush 2000 contest, the polls have not shown this close of a contest. Nate Silver stills rates Trump with a 60% chance of winning. Should that happen, Sue and I will be distraught.

So keeping my fingers crossed and sending out good thoughts to the Universe; surely it can’t happen again and the fates cannot be so cruel to give the election to Trump.

It’s still pretty toasty here; high temps have been in the 90s these last few days and that trend is predicted to last a couple more, but Fall clearly is not too far away.

Even with the heat, the mornings have been cool enough that I have wanted a fleece, although I haven’t given up the shorts yet. Just this week I have been able to get back to my morning two mile walk; because of the retina detachment issues, the doctor had cautioned me to reduce my activity levels, limiting my walks to a mile or so these last couple of weeks. It has been good to get back to my normal routine.

Many might say that my walks are boring and repetitive; basically traversing the same path which takes me from our apartment building across Speer Avenue and onto the Auraria University Campus. Auraria houses three distinct and separate schools–Denver Community College, Metropolitan State University, and the University of Colorado at Denver. Located on a common campus, they share the Library and Student Union as well as a number of other facilities on the joint campus.

All that aside, it provides a great two mile circuit for my daily walks. Many days, especially during the summer, I am often the only soul ambling on its paths and walkways. Each morning, I stop by our Community Garden Plot to water and harvest; daily watering is essential in our near desert climate. The yield this year has not been spectacular; I blame the depleted soil in my plot but then there is also the vagaries of the climate and the lack of pollinators. Often when something does produce, the rabbits or the squirrels beat me to the fruit or vegetables. As SNL’s Rosanna Danna (Gilda Rather) used to say, “there’s always something.”

Even though I follow the same path, the scene does vary with the time of year. Often times, I am too caught up in my audiobook to notice too much of what’s going on about me, but yesterday with the changing season, I was more conscious of my surroundings and took a few pictures of a number of sights that caught my eye. We continue to enjoy living in our adopted city, Denver.

It’s been an eventful summer, and one of the most eventful things was having to deal with a detached retina and the series of operations that has entailed.

The first operation was on June 21st, after having returned from my sojourn in Alberobello, Italy. The doctors lectured me for not having come to see them sooner, but being in Italy made a consultation somewhat problematic. I woke up one morning noticing that the vision in my left eye was not right, but had no idea what was the problem. (Google counseled me that I might have had a stroke; fortunately that wasn’t the case.) Far from home and with no doctor at hand, and, since I could see well enough to get around, I decided to wait.

Once I got home, I made an immediate appointment with my eye doctor; she quickly diagnosed a detached retina and sent me post haste to the Anschulz University Eye Clinic. After a thorough examination, the eye surgeon, Dr. Manoharan, scheduled me for a repair procedure the following day.

This photo is from the first operation–the others pretty much followed the same process–no eating or drinking after midnight on the evening before the operation; checkin and waiting; completing the same forms over and over again; meetings with all of the doctors and staff; and waking up during the procedure, sometimes to tell the surgical team that I needed a little bit more “happy juice” as I could feel what they were doing. (You are never fully anesthetized, but only given medication which makes you drowsy and totally relaxed.)

The first repair stayed in place for 14 days; then I noticed that the vision in my left eye was askew. A return visit to the clinic confirmed that the retina had once again detached. The second operation followed quickly; that one lasted all of five days before tearing. Going back to consult with the surgeon, he told me that scar tissue had developed and allowed the retina to pull aways yet again. The third operation took place on August 16. This time they first cut away the scar tissue, lasered the area before suturing the retina to the eyeball, and then injected oil into the eyeball, instead of gas, to put pressure on the retina and hold it in place…and so far so good.

Of course, this all also impacted Sue heavily. She had to accompany me to every visit & checkup and then wile away hours in a freezing cold room for the surgeon to come tell her all was well. Driving to the Eye Clinic located in Aurora is a minimum hour round trip–and we have made a lot of those trips. Neither of us enjoys driving these days, but Sue has had to do more than her fair share these last couple of months. Even when I am permitted to drive, my depth perception is for crap so you really don’t want to be riding with me.

One of the standard instructions after each operation is to try to stay face down as much as possible (55 minutes out of every hour) during the first week of recovery; using a massage chair during the day was recommended as well as sleeping on my right side. All easier said than done. I was never the best of patients, completely lacking in pacience, but the doctor has assured me that my inability to stay totally quiet and prone did not cause any of the repair operations to fail.

Charlie and his best friend, Dylan demonstrated how I might want to use some of the other face-down medical equipment.

Fortunately I never had to resort to that…

Sue and I were riding home from our latest visit with my eye surgeon–that’s another story. After stopping for lunch at 7 Leguas, a local Mexican restaurant which we decided to try today. A great option for lunch.

it was pretty late, after 3:00. The radio came on automatically and was tuned to NPR’s broadcast of the Market Report. The story was on terramation or human composting; I have read stories and heard reports on this a number of times in the recent past, but this time it really hit home.

Terramation is a name for human composting. The website Wikimpedia says “Although the natural decomposition of human corpses into soil is a long-standing practice, a more rapid process that was developed in the early 21st century by Katrina Spade, entails encasing human corpses in wood chips, straw, and alfalfa until thermophile microbes decompose the body. In this manner, the transformation can be sped up to as little as 1–2 months.^[2] The accelerated process is based in part on techniques developed for the composting of livestock.”

For.a long time now, I have known that I didn’t want my family subjected to the traditional body disposal that we have long been subjected to. Clearly, there are many people just like me who no longer think that embalming and burying the body in a sealed casket in a graveyard is the ideal option.

Colorado is one of the very few states now permitting the option of terramation. Sue and I are certainly going to look into it.