Love, As Always, Pete

The Weekly Letters, by A. Pedersen Wood

December 3, 2003

Dear Everyone:

I’m writing this tonight because tomorrow is the Company Holiday Luncheon, following which I probably won’t be in the mood for writing, and I have Friday as a vacation day.

Thanksgiving in Colorado went very well indeed.  Hardly any blood left on the floor at all.

Seriously, we had a great time.

“Jeannie” spent Monday night at my place so we could leave in plenty of time to get to the airport.  No problems finding a parking space.  Got through security in just a little longer than it takes to remove your shoes and tie them back on.  Picked up sourdough bread on the way to the gate.

We had better than an hour to spend reading before the plane loaded.  When who should walk up to us but a former co-worker from my days in “Livermore”.  Small world department.

Smooth flight to Denver with just a little bit of bumpiness before landing.  Then I remembered about taking the train from the terminal to baggage claim.  (I made a business trip to Denver about nine or ten years ago.)  My cell phone started singing to me just as we got there.  It was a voicemail message from “Richard” on his cell phone.  We found “Richard” before I could return his call.  And “Richard” found our luggage almost before we found him.

Then security decided to check bags against claim tickets so we had to go stand in a very long line to escape from baggage claim.  But that gave “Richard” time to find “Marshall”, so we were all together, under the gargoyle sculpture, in record time.  And off to “Richard” and “Marge’s” place in Longmont.

It’s a very modern house, quite similar to some that “Jeannie” and I have viewed as model homes.  The kind with a really big kitchen and only one place for the TV to go in the family room.

“Marge” had to work on Wednesday, so “Richard” loaded us out-of-towners into his Explorer and took us on a drive around Boulder.  Not through Boulder, around the outside of it, as far as I could figure.  I think that’s when we saw the prairie dogs, sticking their cute little heads out of the ground in the meridian between highways.  Also the Flatirons, which is a rock formation that, from the right angle, really does look like a row of old-fashioned flat irons stacked side by side.

“Richard” took us to Estes Park, which is a town, not a park.  Then we went to a part of the Rocky Mountain National Park, which is really part of the Rocky Mountains.  There we saw deer and a whole bunch of elk.  And “Jeannie” discovered that the Rocky Mountains really are made out of rock.  Apparently, she had always assumed the “Rocky” part meant something else.  Rock candy, perhaps?

Thanksgiving.  “Marge” made a pumpkin pie, starting with making the crust.  Starting with sifting the flour.  I can’t remember the last time I used a sifter, much less the last time I actually had one.  Ditto the pastry cutter.  And I never had a flour board.  And what luxury to have room to store all these essential pieces of equipment!  By the way, it was the best pumpkin pie I’ve ever had.  I ate all of my tiny sliver.  (Usually I swallow a token bite and leave it at that.  I’ve never liked pumpkin pie.)

Thanksgiving dinner was the usual embarrassment of riches; turkey with all the fixing’s including two jars of watermelon pickles that “Jeannie” found at a gourmet food store in Walnut Creek.  And somewhere during the day, “Marge” started a jigsaw puzzle of the Portland (Oregon) waterfront.

On Friday, we all piled into “Richard’s” Explorer and drove up into the Rockies to Dillon, where we had lunch at the Dillon Dam Brewery.  Then we drove around the reservoir to Breckenridge, where it was very, very cold.  We also saw bighorn sheep along the highway.  And back to the house for an evening of DVD’s and to finish the puzzle.

On Saturday, “Richard” took us all back to the airport, followed by a quiet flight to Oakland.  I understand the whole country lucked out with good weather last weekend.  And we all appreciate it very much.

Two more weeks left to the year for me.

Love, as always,

 

Pete

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