Reality, Once Again Rears Its Ugly Head

   Reality bites it creeps into your fantasies and to your writing dreams and says, "Get a job!" I know many writers, write novels when they are commuting on subways, and trains. I am working at scheduling my writing early in the morning. It lends to a clear mind and good work. My work is physical and I find it difficult to write after a full day of work. It doesn't mean that I haven't sat down at the end of the day, relaxed and found myself working well at something. However, I think if I wanted to let myself dream and go, I would prefer to work at research and fleshing out my Historical Work on a more full time basis. I suppose that it is my job to make it happen. It is my reality right now. So the advice I would give to myself is that if you want it to happen that you should buckle down and work harder at making it happen.


     On the bright side my work on Out of America is progressing well. My Chapter, Ford's Porch was a 1200 words when I opened it up and it is decent. The rest, Children of a Greater God, and the opening Chapter, which needs to be rewritten to include a perspective of what my Heroine thinks of the main character, needs to be totally redone. Unfortunately, from a personal perspective, I have no clue what that was. I guess that is why they call it fiction. Invent it and make it real. Sell it so to speak!


   The very best part of being in Grand Junction is that the Real Estate Market with The University becoming a real University and not a State College the growth is tremendous. There is a wonderful opportunity in investment right now. It is possible to leave the area with increased assets by investing in local Real Estate. All of which takes time away from any kind of writing schedule with working full time. A juggling act for sure. I guess that is where you set and make your priorities in life. I want to try harder to move writing to the fore front of the list. Happy Writing and Trails to You.

A Cute Little Song
 "Delirious" Luka Bloom

Hiking Colorado

 This Easter I am thankful for the wonderful Mountain Trails and River Walks that I have been able go on in Colorado. Enjoy your life and your day. Go for a hike or go climb a mountain or a hill. Get into the outdoors!

Maroon Bells- Twin Fourteeners Near Aspen, Colorado.  Each Peak A Song In Itself!

Grand River Recreation Park


Today' Songs Twin Songs for Twin Peaks
"Dust In The Wind" Kansas
"Carry On My Wayward Son" Kansas

Ski Season Off Season (The Mud Season Blues)

   No longer  living in a Ski Area, I already have the Mud Season Blues. What is the off Season? What is the Mud Season? If you have never lived near or at a Ski Area. Most Ski Areas in the West close by April 15. Sometimes if they have a lot of snow they will extend there use permit with the Forest Service, (most ski areas in Colorado are on U.S. Forest Service Properties, National Forests.) They will extend their insurance and therefore extend the ski season. Most areas do not extend the season unless conditions are incredible. What does all of this have to do with off season. Areas close by April 15, they do not reopen for the late spring or summer season until May15 or sometimes into June. You have no work. The mountains are muddy with melting snow and no one, no one is around everything is closed.


   I have had some of the greatest off season vacations ever. You save your money all season, if you are a waiter, or a ski tech, or ski employee and you take a vacation for a month. I have travelled America and Canada by rail. Gone to the Ocean in California, Baja, and Cancun for a month, joked about how not many girls are ski bums, although I have had some great girl ski companions it is rare.
So when we went to the sea it was in search of sun, sand, skin, and sisters. I have a short story that I use  that line in Titled (The Rolling Reverend.) It is actually a very good story. Perhaps my best yet, I think it is probably the most commercially sellable story any way. The reason is the humor and the topic. I became stuck in it when the reverend attempts to give his version of the Sermon on the Mound. Anyway there are three to four more ski stories I need to button up for my collection.


   Back to the off season blues, the most memorable off seasons I have spent are in the ski areas that I did not leave. Everyone is gone the towns are empty and a few local pubs and stores stay open. The real hard cores stay. You take your skis and walk up and ski the soft vanilla cream melting snows and then come down through the muck and mud and running streams of mountain water and have lunch with your local friends. Just too much fun and excitement, too much adrenaline. Dodging rocks and large areas of gravel and green growing grass.


   Vail was my most favorite. Late at night walking around the village and up the trails to the restaurants and bars from lower to upper Bridge Street. You could hear all the Mountain Streams breaking the silence in the dark running downhill. The Mountain was alive and thriving in the growth of new life. Aah! the off season, thinking about it now, don't think there was anything blue about it at all. These days I don't have off seasons, I did when I lived and worked in Aspen, recently. However even those days have ended. Perhaps I will again in the future when I move to Oregon. Maybe I'll experience and Ocean off season. I almost had the perfect off season set up. Living in Vail in the winter and Charleston, South Carolina in  the summer. Someday I will tell the story of the Former Georgia State Trooper who stole $50,000 dollars from our packing and shipping companies Western Union and dashed our dreams of opening packaging and shipping stores in the Mountains and the Ocean, every year. Not Today Berta! Truly and Off Season Blues Story.


   I have had somewhat of an Epiphany regarding the research for my Historical Novel. For almost all the time I have researched and thought about the work I have fixated on Arapahoe Basin. I know the principles and have spoken to them about the work. I have completely excluded half of the equation. The half I have neglected is the mountain of Keytone, which eventually bought Arapahoe Basin. I know it was started by Max and Edna Dercum and Earl Eaton. Max wrote a book. Titled, It's all Down Hill from Here, Edna. The thing about it is I don't know who the principles were in 1978-79. I have aways believed it was Ralston Purina owned by Senator Dansforth. I could be total off base because I have neglected to do my  research. It not only opens up a whole new chapter of the work. It may hold the key to the truth of the event that I have been seeking. The truth is I didn't pursue the Senator in my research I omitted what is most likely the most important piece of truth and fact. What was Keystones motivation to own Arapahoe Basin? The Mountain at the time was probably the second largest ski area in the world. Second only to Vail. It was almost seven miles long in frontage on the highway with terrain in the mountains. The History of both of these areas is so new that the truth is there isn't that much. Excepting the interviewing of the principals involved. I suppose it is public record who owned what and the time frame they owned it in. I do know that after Keystone purchased Arapahoe Basin and Copper Mountain, they were forced to sell off Arapahoe Basin in an anti-trust lawsuit. What was that about and what brought that on?


   I have just recently ventured on to the Campus of Mesa University. It shouldn't be too hard to take a trip to their Library and see what information and documents are available. The Summit County Historical Society and Mary Ellen Gilliland are also excellent sources of information. I was also told to attend the Legends of Skiing Dinner in the Fall and that there are key individuals to interview regarding the history. I look forward to the day that I become financially independent enough to pursue this full time or that I get my writing act together enough to get a contract to do it. In the meantime it still is an enjoyable hobby and pursuit. I am at the stage with it to want to pursue it on a more aggressive level. Time does indeed take care of things. I hope it is on my side. I don't know how long or how old the key principles are. Will they still be alive to be interviewed.?

   Off season no such thing in the city, just people going to work and living there lives. They don't know of skiing rocky terrain or even owning a pair of mud skis so you don't wreck your good skis. It seems that they know of the blues, just a different kind of them.

   Today we need to celebrate Spring. I decided on two songs for the occasion. The first is what it feels like to me to be in a city. The second is the Best High Lonesome Loser Cowboy Song that I have ever heard.
"The Weight" The Band
"Cheyenne" George Strait

Happy Easter, hope spring brings joy and happiness into your daily life and world!

Further thoughts on the Ski Area's of Colorado

   It is hard to distinguish between Beaver Creek and Vail. It like someone saying the difference between Arapahoe Basin and Keystone. Vail is big, giant big, the back bowls go on forever. I used to know them all by heart, they have added Blue Sky Bowl since I stopped skiing there. I am sure also at Arapahoe Basin they have added terrain in what used to be out of bounds. Over the top and in to Montezuma Basin. I am sure they must have put a lift. I suppose I could research it and find out.
   My most favorite little Ski Area is Ski Cooper. I believe the history of Ski Cooper is that it was developed for the men of theTenth Mountain Division. There is a Ridge with a cornice named Chicago Ridge that you only ski by taking a snowcat to. It was a wind blown cornice and the cat would drive along the ridge and let you out so that you could ski down the face of the ridge. It wasn't a long run but it was fun.
   It reminded me of the Snowcat Tours of East Vail. East Vail is known for it's chutes. They are steep and very scary. They slide often and so not many people ski them. The developer of Vail Mountain, Pete Siebert's grandson was killed in an Avalanche while skiing there several years ago. It was a shame to hear. A young man in his prime taken. It is the inherent danger of the back country. It is the allure that wants to make you step beyond the edge to temp fate so to speak. Unfortunately fate some times wins. My friends and I were very fortunate that fate did not take us. The places and terrain that we skied lent itself to sliding very easy. I suppose that we were meant for greater things in life. You have to respect that and try your hardest to fulfill that destiny. Destiny makes us all brothers and sisters. Sometimes you have to reach up and grasp the brass ring. Sometimes you miss the mark. It doesn't mean that you stop trying. If your down get back up, and jump into that couloir. Who knows you just might ski it this time. Often in life just when you think you are defeated miracles happen from out of the blue. Embrace the future.

Remembering Beaver Creek

   Beaver Creek is a wonderful mountain nestled in a hilltop outside of the town of Avon, Colorado. It was my distinct pleasure to spend a lot of time there in the late 1980's. When I first arrived, there was no base building. A large white plastic dome served as it's main building. What made Beaver Creek so unique at the time is that the terrain although not as high in altitude as many other mountains has some incredibly challenging runs. Birds of Prey serves as the downhill portion of many competitions.


  Former President Gerald Ford made his home in Beaver Creek and this lent for great excitement and very good promotion for the ski area. While working for the Beaver Creek Children's Theatre it was my honor one Christmas to play Santa Claus and to ride into the Christmas Gala with Gerald and Betty Ford. For me although a bit corny, the adulation of the crowd was a fun and wonderful  time. They were very gracious hosts and wonderful human beings. Betty Ford well known for her work with the Betty Ford Clinic would chair the Local A.A. Meetings.

   It was a wonderful time then and Beaver Creek was the host of the 1989 World Alpine Skiing Championships. The festivities and joy of the period prompted me to make the area the setting for a ski novel that I had been thinking about writing. If you check out My Stories you will find two short stories that are chapters of my ski novel. A lot of the chapters are partially written and will take some time to bring them into form. It was a time of great revelry. Beaver Creek was young and growing and it just lent itself naturally to my work. It was a great time of personal growth for me. I was to eventually spend 5 years in the Vail, Beaver Creek Area before moving to Aspen, Colorado.
 
   It was during that time that I had some of the greatest outdoor experiences of my life. Those areas really were a young peoples towns. The average mean age I believe was the late 20's and early 30's. Hiking, mountain biking and climbing, along with snowboarding and skiing were some of the predominant sports of the times. I was fortunate enough to meet my climbing and mountain biking partner Christian there. There are quite a few climbing and grueling mountain biking expeditions I hope to write about in the future.

   I look forward to the work on Out Of America just for the fond memories of the area and recreating the people and places that made the times so exciting and joyful. Enjoy the stories although my characters are fiction.I do not wish to offend anyone with my work, but life does lend itself to create good fiction. So this is pure fiction!

Spring Has Sprung

     Full on Spring has begun in the Rockies, and I can't be happier. We have had an exceptionally warm and mild winter. I am sorry for the East and the rest of the Country. It is great to see the blossoms of the fruit trees and soon the greens of all the shrubs and brush will be happening. I have always been amazed at how green the green colors get and how many shades of green that spring brings out. The Colorado River swells and fills the banks and flows wide and full. Not quite as full as I have seen on the mighty Columbia on the Washington and Oregon Border. We think of Oregon a lot, however it is really not time yet. There is a time and season for everything and that will come. Hopefully not in the long distant future but sooner than later.

     All our worries of the future and what to do are falling in place. Let's hope that we can move forward with them. I have reposted two new stories in my story page, feel free to browse them.
I hope to soon revamp my poetry page and to have posted the final chapter of "Out of America" I am retyping it and will have it ready soon. The harder part will be filling in all the other chapters. I look forward to the work in the future.
     Just started a nice Blog about Robin a Paint horse we worked on with the Massage School and had fallen from a 70 foot cliff and survived. She was being used as a Brood Mare and had a tremendous amount of issues. It is certainly a miracle of a story precipitated by our students and the desire to heal. Look for it soon. Enjoy Spring in your area. I sure am.
     It will be a challenge to figure out how to purchase our Oregon Vehicle but we found it at a RV show today at the Mesa County Fairgrounds.

A Song Of Redemption
"Redemption Song" Bob Marley

Aspen Colorado City Limits ( The Cross Roads Blues)

  If you use all available outward means, as well as  your natural abilities, to overcome every obstacle in your path, you will develop the powers that God gave you- unlimited powers that flow from your innermost forces of your being. You possess the power of thought and the power of will, utilize to the uttermost these divine gifts.

Sri Sri Paramahansa Yogananda

    I was a young man with many unhealthy obsessions, extreme skiing was one of them, not to mention several others. While it has made for living an extremely hard life, (Sometimes) it is the grist for extremely good literature.

   Our home in Battlement Mesa is finally set to close on Friday the 20th. It has been a long and difficult sale. Stressful to say the least on all of us, our plans for Oregon as you have seen have been temporarily put on hold. I have way too much inventory to sell and we just could not down size so quickly. Seven years of being relieved from our ball and chain of a bad investment in real estate  in Colorado since the economical debacle a few years ago, especially living in Gas Land. Home of gas drilling in Western Colorado. We lived in the boom or bust region and it went bust. Leaving our local economy in the Pits, no pun intended, well maybe a little one. We are leaving the safest neighborhood in America. It would have been a wonderful place to raise children, the Gas Company donated a new fire house, larger than in most cities of New York. They donated a new health clinic and new middle school. All of this was done for the express purpose of drilling ten gas wells within the town limits. There is currently a controversy over directional drilling. It is drilling a multi-well head in different directions from the same head. I do not have anything against progress, but Drilling and Fracing under suburban homes seems to me to be a recipe for disaster. When it comes to the rape of the land and the safety of the surface dwellers for the sake of gas in the ground, I draw the line on reason.

   It was premature of us to think that we could liquidate a large house, sell my inventory from my plumbing and heating business and move across country with a geriatric golden retriever all in one fell swoop, without the use of a semi and incurring large expenses. The move to Grand Junction, Colorado, the gateway to the West, has always made sense to us. It is the home of the Colorado National Monument and some very beautiful walking parks.

   I have vowed to redouble my effort to bring my short story collection, White Dreams, and my unfinished novel, Out of America, and my research on my Historical Novel to fruition. The Historical work is the life and times of the people inhabiting Arapahoe Basin Ski Area through the winter of 1978-1979, their hopes, their dreams an their struggles. I have no doubt that the owner Joe, bought and built the mountain with the intention to sell to whatever company owned Keystone the larger area down the mountains and retire in Montana. What I would like to know by interviewing all the people there at the time was what where their hopes, their dreams, and where have they gone an what have they done with their lives since, and how did they feel about the mountain. Did they love it as much as I? What did they feel when it was sold? There is a greater underlying truth that still evades my perception. It is one of those obsessions that have made for hard living on my part, but as I have said it makes for great literature.

   We are settling in to our new little home. Soon I will develop a good writing routine and the stress of the move will be over. I have a lifetime to continue this quest. So over the next year, if we stay here after liquidating all our top heavy possessions, look for snipits of my short stories and chapters from Out of America. It began as a tragic short story (of course) titled a Terribly Bitter Ending. Another obsession, that has blossomed into a a Romance Novel of love, commitment, joy, and the personal fulfillment of unrealized dreams, and the triumph of one man against the odds. I will probably show the end chapter. It's Never Over Until It's Over first. The work is set in the 1989 World Alpine Skiing Championships of Beaver Creek, Colorado.

    Rome was not built in a day and writing careers don't happen overnight. They take years to establish. I am not foolish enough to think I will have overnight success. I know successful writers who have spent years at their craft and faced multitude of rejections. The most intriguing rejection I have ever received was for a story I wrote about a ski bum character. The rejection said that your central character has no obvious means of support. Really, that was the whole point of the story, that you sacrifice a lot in life to pursue a career of an extreme ski enthusiast.

   Now down to some serious writing and blogging. Spring has sprung in Western, Colorado. Yes I can go and see the Metropolitan Opera broadcast live in a theatre near us. Good to be back in Civilization!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Beau and Murph















Beau in his PJ'S