Being cheap can be a good thing many times, but there are other times that it can cause you to make less than rational decisions.
I tell you this because I had purchased some dental floss way back in Oregon and it turned out to be somewhat defective. It just wouldn’t feed out properly. Each night, I would pick it up, try to get the floss out, realize it was stuck, cuss at it, open it up, get some out and then try to fix it. Then Susanne would come in and do the same. We both were mumbling at it.
“$#%$# floss!”
“grrrr……there must be a way to fix it”
“damn stupid floss, I will fix you!”
Of course, since mumbling was involved, this upset Sadie. We could have just thrown the damn thing out, but we were too cheap. So now we just leave it open and pray for the day when we are done with it. Thankfully we are almost done with it.
Now on to chapter 3 of the Grand Adventure. As you may or may not recall, when we had visited our friend Billy Mo’ in New Mexico in July, we had met a couple of his friends, Geoff and Carolyn, and hit it off right away. They have a house down in Mexico and like to go down there for the winter and were looking for someone to house sit for them. They have an old dog and a semi-friendly cat and their daughter (Amelia) lives downstairs with her dog Leo. We talked about it and decided we could commit for at least 3 months of house sitting with the option to stay until May, since that is when they plan to return from Mexico.
It’s a super nice house right in downtown Ft. Collins, so we were pretty excited to get back to Colorado for a while.
We headed out from Santa Barbara and decided to break up to the drive into a two-nighter with the first night in St. George, Utah and the second in Glenwood Springs, CO. The drive to St. George wasn’t bad and the La Quinta there was decent…despite being located next a super scary gun shop. Ugh.
The next day was shorter (6.5 hrs) so I scoped out a hike to do just outside of Grand Junction so that the entire pack could stretch their legs and get some fresh air after being cooped up in the car for two days. We found the trailhead for “Palisades Rim Trail” and headed out. It was a gorgeous sunny day in the high 50’s, but with the intense Colorado sun it felt much warmer. It was about a 4 mile hike through some beautiful canyons and some great views of the Book Cliffs.
We had a nice room at the Fairfield Inn in Glenwood that was a full-on suite. This made Sadie very happy as she was then blessed with her own couch. She does love her comfortable furniture. We had prepped our dinners before leaving Santa Barbara and we were grateful. It was nice to just hang out in the spacious room with our own food and wine and dog.
The drive to Ft. Collins was easy, despite Google trying to take us on some crazy route that would have been 5 hrs vs. 3.5 hrs. What the heck is wrong with Google maps!?
We got to the house around 12:30 and started unpacking. It is a very nice craftsman style home right close to downtown Ft. Collins. It has a great backyard and is close some good walks and great bike rides.
We have committed to house sit through at least the end of February, but the way things are going in New Zealand, it may be that we stay until May when Geoff and Carolyn come back. I will say, the vibe of Ft. Collins is great and I can think of a lot worse places to be hanging out while we wait on this crazy slow process called immigration.
Our duties are pretty simple. There is Sara, the very ancient cattle dog that we need to take care of. There is Kitty, a former barn cat, who comes and goes as she pleases, and is less than thrilled by the dogs. She hisses on at them on a regular basis to let them know just how she feels. They walk a wide swath around her. She occasionally hisses at the humans as well. We walk a wide swath around her. There is an apartment in the basement where Amelia, their daughter, lives with her dog Leo. We can coordinate with Amelia if we ever need to go somewhere for a while and when she is off at school we take care of Leo.
The dogs seem to get along, mostly. Sadie continues to be a crabby old lady who snarls at any dog that gets too close to her comfortable chair. Sara is pretty old and decrepit, but gets pretty pushy when there is attention to be had. Leo is a sweet younger dog that just wants Sadie to play with her. Sadie snarls at him and tells him that he not allowed to have fun. But in the grand scheme of things they are doing well together after just a couple of days.
Sadie had her first encounter with cat the other night on the back stairs. That cat gave her a big nasty hiss and Sadie wisely beelined it out of there. None of the dogs wants anything to do with the cat. I think they know she means business if they get too close.
Susanne takes Sara out in the morning and I take Sadie. We have to split duties because Sara is soooooooooo slow and about once around the block is all she can muster with her old bones.
One day when we came back, Sara got in Sadie’s face and Sadie got all crabby and then Sara got all crabby and then they started snarling and getting even crabbier with each other. It was two old dogs getting crabby over nothing; it was kind of funny. Reminded me of two old ladies swinging at each other with their purses. In the end, they both retired to living room and fell asleep.
Anyway, we are happy to be here and happy for Geoff and Carolyn’s amazing generosity to let us enjoy their beautiful home. It will be a nice place to hang out for the winter.
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