April 2024

Books read:

Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence
God, Justice, Love, Beauty: Four Little Dialogues by Jean-Luc Nancy
Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange
The Bee Sting by Paul Murray

Trails walked:

Trail Ridge Road snowshoe in Rocky Mountain National Park (April 4th)
Canyon Loop and Benjamin Loop in Betasso Preserve near Boulder (April 10th)
DH Lawrence Ranch near Taos, NM (April 17th)
La Vista Verde and West Rim trails near Taos (April 19th)
Horsetooth Rock Loop near Fort Collins (April 24th)

Song(s) of the month:

Jessica by the Allman Brothers
A Murder Most Foul by Bob Dylan

Scientist Spotlight – Dr. James E Hansen, Climate Scientist

April Summary:

This past month was the 54th anniversary of the first Earth Day in 1970 so I’m gonna talk a bit about climate change (I can hear the groans, the scrolling down, the opting out). Like many people around the world this month, I helped to clean up trash in my local area (with my climate group). I also tabled at the Conference on World Affairs at the University of Colorado. Had some good conversations. These were uplifting, helpful, positive events. After these events I remember reading a few reader comments in the local paper basically denying the science of climate change. Sigh. Why have so many other countries around the world been able to overcome their political divisions and get everyone on board with action on climate change, yet here in the US, we can’t seem to do that? On an intellectual level I can understand having differing opinions on some hot button issues like abortion, immigration, gender identity, the Middle East, etc. But there really should be no divisions on climate change. The science on climate change is settled. It’s happening. The only thing not settled is how bad it's going to get and how soon. Species are going extinct. The ocean is warming and coral reefs are dying. The ice sheets are melting and sea level is rising. The warming air is causing fiercer storms. The permafrost is melting, releasing potent methane gas into the atmosphere. There is some risk now of major jet streams being altered which could be catastrophic to our normal weather patterns. The cause of all of this is mainly due to the fossil fuels we’ve been burning since the onset of the industrial revolution. We have existing technology to resolve the problem. Some of that technology is becoming more and more affordable. Individual action is commendable but is not possible for many (most can’t afford an electric vehicle, and even if they could, the charging infrastructure isn’t where it needs to be). In any case, individual action will never be enough. This is a global, systemic issue that requires global/systemic solutions. Had we started 40 years ago, we’d already be well on the way to where we need to be. I am convinced that we will eventually get there, but the delay we’re encountering will only make things worse for our grandchildren.

The two main reasons we haven’t been able to bring everyone in this country on board yet are greed and ideology. Fossil fuel companies are making record profits in the billions. Their top executives are rich beyond imagination. They don’t want this ride to stop, so they spend millions of dollars lobbying politicians and creating misleading advertisements. They’ve been using the same playbook used by the tobacco companies to delay action on regulating their product (book/documentary recommendation: Merchants of Doubt). Ideology is part of the equation also. Many people believe that the changes being asked of us are too great, they are taking away our identity as Americans (big fast cars, big trucks, red meat…). So it’s not a stretch for many folks to do some cherry picking in the scientific data and to publish those on X and Instagram to “prove” climate change is a hoax. There was a great speech in a novel I read this month (The Bee Sting) that goes a long way to help describe why so many people would rather avoid or even deny the problem:

“I’m here to talk to you about climate change, which is another something that really irritates people. It irritates us because it makes us feel guilty. It makes us feel like everything we do is bad, that we are bad. And that’s a real problem. If there’s one thing I’ve discovered in my time as a campaigner, it’s that blaming people is absolutely the worst way to motivate them. Make someone ashamed to their core, tell them that their very being is inimical to life and the best thing they could do for the planet is die, then ask if they want to make a donation?...billions of plants and animals that have already been killed by pollution and habitat destruction, the rising seas, the melting ice, desertification – we know all that. And yet we continue not to do anything to stop it, because the things that are causing it, the things we’re doing that are making it worse – building buildings, taking planes, driving cars, eating meat, buying stuff, having children! – these are the very things that make us us. So we seem to be faced with an impossible dilemma: if we don’t want to be killed by climate change, we have to stop being ourselves. You can see why people aren’t exactly rushing to man the barricades.”

I honestly don’t think all of that is completely true, but it’s not far off. So, between greed and ideology, progress on addressing climate change will continue to proceed more slowly than it needs to. That’s the bad news. The good news is that change is happening. Solar and wind are starting to take over electricity generation. Young people are realizing how much their parents and grandparents’ generations have failed them and are coming together on the issue (even young conservatives). But even young people are going to have to come to the realization that this problem must be solved together, as one, without divisions. Which brings me to another part of the speech I referenced in the novel:

“Togetherness is crucial, if we’re to tackle something as total as climate change. Banging your own little drum, demanding everyone look at your mask, be it a consumer status symbol or one of sexuality or race or religious belief or whatever else, that will do no good. Division will do no good. You may gain some attention for your particular subgroup, there may even be minor accommodations made. But you are moving the deckchairs on a sinking ship, diversity deckchairs. Global apocalypse is not interested in your identity politics or who you pray to or what side of the border you live on. Cis, trans, black, white, scientist, artist, basketball player, priest – every stripe of person, every colour and creed, we are all going to be hit by this hammer.”

If you’re interested in doing something about climate change, join a local organization.

This month I read a book that was banned for over 30 years, a philosophy talk to kids, and two great new novels about family that also addressed important issues of our time. My rambling took me from Rocky Mountain National Park to the Rio Grande Gorge and to the foothills near Boulder and Fort Collins. And also to a ranch near Taos where a banned book author wrote his controversial stories. Enjoy!

Things My Grandkids Say

I have three grandkids now. Only one of them talks so far, but if things go as planned, all three of them will eventually. So I wanted to start a new section of the blog where I’ll share something they’ve shared with me. If you remember Art Linkletter’s show, Kids Say the Darndest Things, then you’re as old as me…and you’ll also know that it’s true…kids do say the darndest things.

About my mother-in-law who passed in 2022: “OG Nana died and lives in heaven now, but if she dies in heaven does that mean she’ll come back here to Earth?” I certainly hope so

"If your favorite color is blue then why do you have a white car?" My next car is definitely gonna be blue now...

Scientist Spotlight: Dr. James E Hansen, Climate Scientist

Since April was Earth Month, I decided to highlight a scientist who was one of the first to bring the global warming issue to the forefront of the news. His 1981 paper describing the impact of carbon dioxide on global warming eventually paved the way for his testimony to Congress in 1988 and 1989. That testimony, along with articles in the New York Times brought the then geeky science of climate change to the general public. And the science really is geeky. Believe me, I’ve read many of their papers. There are several scientific disciplines involved in the study of climate change: astronomy, geography, meteorology, physics, chemistry, geology, glacier science, oceanography, biology, and on and on. Many of the scientists, like Hansen, involved in the study of climate change have been studying their field most of their lives. They have been collaborating and reviewing each other’s papers (peer review) for decades now. The best of them come together every few years to publish assessment reports for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It’s one of the reasons that I ask people to trust the science. It would be impossible for the average person to understand all the aspects of climate change.

There aren’t any peer-reviewed papers that go against what the scientists have been saying, and warning, for years now. But there are lots of X, Facebook, and Instagram posts that will tell you otherwise. More people read those, than read scientific papers. Trust the scientists. They are naturally skeptical and test their peers’ theories relentlessly. Hansen is only one of many of them. A small-town son of an Iowa farmer, he got his BS in physics and math, an MS in Astronomy, and a PhD in Physics; then became one of the most important figures in the history of this existential topic. He gave a Ted Talk 14 years ago that still gets viewed today. Even though many of the numbers he cites have now changed (mostly for the worse), it’s still worth viewing. See it here.

Song(s) of the month: Jessica by Dickey Betts (with The Allman Brothers) plus A Murder Most Foul by Bob Dylan

Dickey Betts passed away this month at the age of 80. Although the Allman Brothers Band was named for its two talented brothers, Duane and Gregg, Dickey Betts was arguably the most important member. His guitar playing was every bit as good as Duane’s (who died very young in a motorcycle accident in 1971), and he wrote many of the band’s best songs, like Ramblin’ Man, Blue Sky, and the one I highlight here, Jessica. When I first heard this instrumental, I fell in love with it. It’s on many of my playlists. It’s always seemed like such a positive and uplifting song, even without any lyrics (sort of like Beethoven's Ode to Joy). Then I discovered that Betts wrote it about his newborn daughter (named Jessica) and that explained why it is so joyful. It was written in 1973 and received a Grammy Award in 1996 for a live recording the band made the previous year. It’s made of pure joy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRE3Bv1goyI

While I was reading a New York Times’ obituary about Betts, I discovered that Bob Dylan gave him a shout out in a 2020 song Dylan wrote called Murder Most Foul. I know other musicians appreciated Betts from Charlie Daniels’ song The South’s Gonna Do It Again when he wrote:

Now people down in Georgia come from near and far
To hear Richard Betts pickin' on that red guitar

But I had never heard Dylan mention him. So I had to look up that song. It’s a 17-minute, 1,281-word song! He released it during the first month of the pandemic in March of 2020. It was his first original music in eight years. It’s ostensibly a song about the assassination of John F Kennedy, but it’s so much more than that. I listened to it once and caught a few pieces of what seemed to me to be brilliance (no surprise with Dylan). So, I listened to it again; this is something you can do when you’re retired, listen to a 17-minute song two times in a row. And I caught even more of its cultural and historical references.

NPR’s great song critic, Bob Boilen said, “This is the most engaging song by Bob Dylan I've heard in decades. As someone who grew up in the era of President Kennedy's assassination, the portrait Dylan paints in "Murder Most Foul" is extraordinary, and takes me back to those days, to my memories of a nation overwhelmed by grief.” Boilen, along with Ann Powers, combed through this epic song for all the other songs it references. They came up with a 74-song playlist.

And his fellow songwriter, Nick Cave, had this to say about the song which I think describes it best: "Dylan's relentless cascade of song references points to our potential as human beings to create beautiful things, even in the face of our own capacity for malevolence. 'Murder Most Foul' reminds us that all is not lost, as the song itself becomes a lifeline thrown into our current predicament (the pandemic). The instrumentation is formless and fluid and very beautiful. Lyrically it has all the perverse daring and playfulness of many of Dylan's great songs, but beyond that there is something within his voice that feels extraordinarily comforting, especially at this moment. It is as though it has traveled a great distance, through stretches of time, full of an earned integrity and stature that soothes in the way of a lullaby, a chant, or a prayer."

He’s the great poet/songwriter of our time (with a Nobel Prize in Literature). So, who else but Dylan could pull this off. Set to sparse piano and violin music (Tori Amos on piano!), it sounds more like an epic poem set to music than an actual song.

Sample lyrics:

The day they blew out the brains of the king
Thousands were watchin', no one saw a thing
It happened so quickly, so quick, by surprise
Right there in front of everyone's eyes

I said the soul of a nation been torn away
And it's beginning to go into a slow decay

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fqxsdtOIg0

Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park – The incredible Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park normally closes for the winter from around October until late May due to the prodigious amount of snow that falls on it. I thought that I would snowshoe up the road a bit from where it closes at the Many Parks Curve Overlook. There weren’t many cars in the parking area when I arrived. Most were there to wander around the pretty overlook here. My goal was to try and get up above tree level which would have meant about 5 miles each way. But I keep forgetting that snowshoeing is twice the work of hiking. So, 10 miles of snowshoeing would be like 20 miles of hiking. I ended up making it 4.1 miles to the spectacular Rainbow Curve Overlook. So that was 8.2 miles of snowshoeing, or like 16.4 miles of hiking. No wonder I was exhausted when I finished.

See my path highlighted in yellow below:

I saw two other snowshoers and one skier on this day. It’s a completely different experience hiking on this road compared to driving it. You notice more of the views because you’re going much slower (in my case, VERY much slower). One of the highlights is passing through what used to be the old Hidden Valley Ski Area which operated from 1955 through 1991. The ski area featured a 2,000-foot vertical drop from 11,400 to 9,400 feet and had T-bar lifts to get you to the top. Today, however, you’ll have to snowshoe or skin to the top for that 2,000-foot ski experience. I saw one woman shush by me down the steep upper slope, across the snow-covered Trail Ridge Road and then down the lower slope to the Hidden Valley rest area below. I think she was having more fun going down than I did. Read more about the old ski area here.

Road ends and snowshoeing begins

Nice views all the way up

Skiers made tracks up the hill here

...and here

You can see the road I've been snowshoeing plus the old ski runs

Horseshoe Park down below

Mounts Chiquita and Ypsilon

Longs Peak

Save your what? Soul, Self, Money?

Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence – This was D.H. Lawrence’s last novel. It was first published privately in Italy in 1928. Two years later, Lawrence died from tuberculosis in France at the age of 44. The novel was banned in most places around the world for obscenity and was the topic of several court dramas in the late 50s and early 60s (In the US, UK, Japan, India…). The full version wasn’t legal in the US until 1959 and in the UK until 1960. I had always heard about the book being controversial, but never knew why. Now I do.

So, what is my opinion after reading this? I’ll get to the sex part later. It’s a wonderful book. It is a story of infidelity but also a commentary on wealth disparity, the pros and cons of industrialization, physical vs emotional love, and the hazards (in those days) of class intermingling. I had only read one other book by this author, Sons and Lovers, which I enjoyed. These two books show the range of Lawrence’s ability. Sons and Lovers was told from a coal mining family’s point of view whereas Lady Chatterley’s Lover was told from the point of view of the upper-class aristocratic owners of those coal mines. The Lady Chatterley in the novel is Constance (Connie) Reid who is married to Sir Clifford Chatterley who had suffered a debilitating injury in World War I, confining him to a wheelchair. Although Connie and Clifford seem to enjoy the cerebral aspect of their relationship (he’s not only a coal mine owner, but also a writer and she’s his muse) she begins to wonder about physical aspects of a relationship which he’s unable to satisfy due to his injuries. But also, he begins to hint that if she were to have a child somehow, then he would bring it up as his own to be an heir to the family’s waning fortune. His family has owned the mines and the buildings in this area of England for generations and as the mines have deteriorated (along with the once beautiful countryside), so have the mansions and the family name.

After a couple of sexual encounters with other men, she happened upon Oliver Mellors, the property’s gamekeeper who is employed by Clifford. Although he’s considered among the lower class of coal miners, he had some background in the military in India and seems to be well read and has a love of the land and animals. After some awkward moments, they begin to form a relationship and Mellors eventually becomes the lover in the title of the book. As expected, several complications arise. So now the sex/obscenity part.

Most older books that I’ve read which had been previously banned had a laughingly small amount of what would have been called “obscenity” back in the 1800s or early 1900s. But let me tell you, Lady Chatterley’s Lover had some really strong sex scenes and language, even for today. It is very explicit in its description of sex, going into the details of the importance of the climactic satisfaction of both the man and the woman. He describes every act in detail which is something unheard of then, and even somewhat rare now. However, as the obscenity trials ruled, none of it was gratuitous nor pornographic. It was all part of the story and the theme of physical vs. emotional satisfaction, or both. And although there was lot of use of the F word and C word, they weren’t used in the context of swearing or demeaning, but in the context of describing the physical act and body parts. I was really surprised to read all of this in a 1928 novel. And I have to admit, it was titillating. So, good job there DH. It has been said that Lady Chatterley’s Lover was based in part on the lives of Frieda von Richthofen and DH Lawrence. From what I’ve read, their lives could certainly be the subject of a great book.

Here are some lines:

We’ve got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen.

The beautiful pure freedom of a woman was infinitely more wonderful than any sexual love. The only unfortunate thing was that men lagged so far behind women in the matter. They insisted on the sex thing like dogs.

Connie had adopted the standard of the young: what there was in the moment was everything. And moments followed one another without necessarily belonging to one another.

The gentry were departing to pleasanter places, where they could spend their money without having to see how it was made.

Place any child among the ruling classes, and he will grow up, to his own extent, a ruler. Put kings’ and dukes’ children among the masses, and they’ll be little plebeians, mass products. It is the overwhelming pressure of environment.

Only to my experience the mass of women are like this: most of them want a man, but don’t want the sex, but they put up with it, as part of the bargain.

The moon wouldn’t be far enough, because even there you could look back and see the earth, dirty, beastly, unsavory among all the stars: made foul by men.

“Shall I tell you what you have that other men don’t have, and that will make the future? Shall I tell you?” “Tell me, then,” he replied. “It’s the courage of your own tenderness."

That’s our civilization and our education: bring up the masses to depend entirely on spending money, and then the money gives out. If only they were educated to live instead of earn and spend,

Money poisons you when you’ve got it, and starves you when you haven’t.

DH Lawrence Ranch near Taos, NM – OK so this wasn’t technically a hike, but it was a short, historical walk around a pretty area that was visited for several months by DH Lawrence. He spent some time at this mountain ranch, which is at the base of Lobo Mountain, around 30 minutes north of Taos, NM with his wife Frieda in the 1920s. Frieda moved back there after his death and stayed until she passed at the age of 77. There is a memorial which she built that may or may not contain the author’s cremations, depending on whose story you believe. The 160 acres of land was donated to the University of New Mexico by Frieda to be used for education in the arts. It was closed for a few years during Covid and is now only open to visitors three days a week (Tues – Thur) from 9:30am till 3:30pm.

Lawrence, who had traveled around the world had this to say about New Mexico: “I think New Mexico was the greatest experience I ever had from the outside world. It certainly changed me forever.” He wrote parts of four short novels/stories during his two full summers here in 1924 and 1925 (St.Mawr, David, The Plumed Serpent and The Woman Who Rode Away). In 1929, artist Georgia O’Keefe visited the ranch and painted the large pine tree outside the main cabin. It became one of her more well-known paintings. As you can see here, she painted it from the perspective of lying down on a bench underneath the tree at night. About the tree, Lawrence said, “The big pine tree in front of the house, standing still and unconcerned and alive…the overshadowing tree whose green top one never looks at…One goes out of the door and the tree-trunk is there, like a guardian angel.”

My daughter and 2-month-old granddaughter joined me on this pretty little walk among the pines where famous writers and painters walked before us. A very nice gentleman named Ricardo provided us with a history of the place when we arrived and from there we wandered up to the memorial and to the two cabins, one of which was used by Lawrence and his wife, the other smaller one by an artist friend of theirs named Dorothy Brett. Throughout the town of Taos, you can see paintings by Lawrence and Dorothy Brett at the La Fonda Hotel and the Benevides Bed & Breakfast. The original O’Keefe painting of the Lawrence Tree is housed at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut (but it’s currently on temporary loan to Art Bridges Exhibition Unsettled: The Landscape in American Art).

Cute little switchbacks up to the memorial

Inside the memorial

Frieda's simple grave outside his elaborate memorial

Nice views from here

Dorothy Brett's artist's cabin - cozy

The DH Lawrence Tree - Georgia O'Keefe Painting of it

Daughter laying where O'Keefe laid to do the painting

Homestead Cabin where Lawrence stayed

Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange – This terrific novel begins with the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre in southeast Colorado. The actual site of the massacre is now a National Historic Site administered by the National Park Service. In the novel, Jude Starr, a young deaf Cheyenne boy survives the massacre along with another young child. They wander the country on their own for a couple of years until they are finally taken prisoner and sent to a star-shaped prison in Florida (based on the actual Fort Marion in St. Augustine). This novel tells the story of Jude Star, along with the next 150 years of his lineage and how past genocide, colonialization, forced assimilation and discrimination continue to impact their lives into the 21st century. It’s not just a condemnation of what’s been done to the original inhabitants of this country, it’s also a compelling story of family and the beauty and tragedy that they entail. The author’s writing is beautiful and heartfelt. Although the novel was strongest in the early years of Jude Star and then his son Charlie who ends up at an Indian boarding school, I also enjoyed the present-day story of the two “grandmas” trying to care for their wayward grandsons (whose moms succumbed to drug use). It reminded me a bit of the great Hulu show Reservation Dogs (watch it if you haven’t yet). One of the grandsons, Orvil, had survived a mass shooting and had a star-shaped bullet wandering around in his body. So, lots of wandering and star references throughout the novel which were fun to pick out. Towards the end of the book, one of the grandsons ends up deciding to live off the land the way his ancestors did (so, in other words, homeless). His beautiful letter to his family was brilliant and a perfect ending to this multi-generational saga. Here are some of many great lines:

About Sand Creek: These kinds of events were called battles, then later—sometimes—massacres, in America’s longest war.

About the Indian assimilation schools: You were supposed to kill the entire Indian if they were to be saved. Later it was said that Indian children in boarding schools had the same chance of dying as soldiers in one of the world wars.

Spotted Hawk’s face kept whatever she felt behind it.

Sometimes it felt like the world had ended, and we were waiting for the next one to come.

On the train ride back to Oklahoma, I saw the bones of buffalo piled up as high as a man for miles. I’d heard that this was happening. The Buffalo Wars, they called it. I’d heard about why they were doing it. Every buffalo dead was an Indian gone.

Stories do more than comfort. They take you away and bring you back better made.

Assimilation was one of the words they used for Indians becoming white in order to survive, in order that they might not be killed for being Indians.

the dead are never far. They find us in dreams, and keep teaching us from the inside long after they go, so you might come to find each other, in some blue-white field, or overgrown underbrush, or beneath a forest home you’ll remember but have never known.

your two daughters, who will complicate everything, ruin and save everything, will be the reason you will have everything to lose.

Native people were the first ones to do a school shooting. That got him mad at first, but then he looked it up and saw that it was true. In 1764 some Lenape warriors went into a school and shot ten kids and a schoolmaster. What was not recorded anywhere was why the Lenape warriors killed them.

“We used to be able to joke around a lot more. I’m sorry, but I miss that,” Tom said. “Yeah sorry, life was way funnier before Mom died and I almost lost the use of my legs.”

I complained to Opal about school, how it didn’t feel real, and how I didn’t even see the point in school at all unless I wanted to end up dying behind some desk.

One thing you can do when it seems there’s nothing else you can do, which is to say when you feel restless, is to walk, move your body through space and let the wisdom of what comes from that be your guide.

Loother came holding the baby in his arms. Little baby Opal. Loother looked so exhausted he was happy, like whatever was too tired in him had collapsed into this pile he was holding in his arms like it was the most precious thing anyone could ever be holding.

Canyon Loop and Benjamin Loop in Betasso Preserve near Boulder – I had zero interest in snowshoeing this week after last week’s slog. So I picked a hike west of Boulder off of Sugarloaf Road. The trails here are between 9,700 feet and 10,700 feet of elevation and the snow was mostly gone by now. The area is named for the Betasso family who owned this land (yes I know, the land was stolen well before that, but that's for another blog) from the early 1900s until they sold it to Boulder County for open space management. The area was a gold mining operation in the late 1800s until a devastating wildfire and subsequent flooding wiped out the small mining community.

On Wednesdays and Saturdays, the area is off limits to mountain bikers making it much quieter and less crowded (I was here on a Wednesday). I can see why mountain bikers like this area. It’s close enough to Boulder to ride here for a long ride, but it also seems like a nice beginner ride if you drive to the trailhead and then ride. Not too much elevation gain but lots of smooth uphill and downhill riding with raised curves for cornering. As far as hiking is concerned, let’s just say it’s a nice walk in the woods. I totaled nearly 11 miles between the two loops and a couple of the link trails around them. There was just over 1,000 feet of elevation gain. There are some nice views of Green Mountain and Bear Peak, but no views of the snowcapped Rockies from here. I hiked all the way north to Four Mile Creek so I could see the northern terminus of this area. The creek was pretty.

It was a nice day in the woods and was made even better when, after the hike, I met my son, daughter-in-law, and grandsons at a local brewery since it was the annual Colorado Pint Day. It’s held on a Wednesday in the spring to help raise money to promote independent craft breweries. Each year they choose an artistic design for the pint glasses which you can purchase (filled with your favorite beer) for $10. Below was this year’s design, commemorating spring skiing in Colorado:

Definitely a mountain biking place (but not on Wednesdays and Saturdays)

Green and Bear Mountains

This car didn't make it

No need for a Peloton

Typical trail terrain up here (and that tree seems happy to see me)

Loved this tree

Bluebird on a post

God, Justice, Love, Beauty: Four Little Dialogues by Jean-Luc Nancy – I can’t even begin to tell you how disappointed I was in this book. When I read about it, I bought it right away from bookshop.org (which donates 80% of its profits to support independent bookstores around the US). It sounds amazing: A philosophy professor talks with children (ages 6-12) about four philosophical ideas (see title) and gets their reactions. I was ready to be entertained, because I already know, raising my own kids, plus now having a four-year-old grandson, kids ask incredibly deep questions about life that are nearly impossible to answer. So, here is this professor of philosophy ready to answer all these amazing questions. Wrong. Each of the four sections begins with his lecture to the kids (and their parents) followed by a few questions from the kids and his answers. Other than the first section, which had some interesting content, the remainder of the book was dull. His lectures were convoluted and there were very few questions posed afterwards (probably because nobody understood what the hell he was saying). He seemed to have no aptitude for talking WITH children, only TO children. His answers were sometimes complicated and sometimes went off on tangents. So disappointing. It could have been so much better. You’d be better off watching old Art Linkletter interviews with children from the 60s.

Even if the book didn’t meet my expectations, there were a few great questions from the kids (unfortunately with useless answers from the professor). Here are some:

You said that in the Jewish religion god is just. But if god is just, why are there children born with handicaps or things like that?

Why does God exist?

If God created the world from the beginning, who created him?

Which politicians are more just, the left or the right?

Are any wars just(ified)?

La Vista Verde and West Rim Trails near Taos – While the “kids” went backcountry skinning and skiing up high with granddaughter, I decided to stay warm and explore more of the Rio Grande Gorge trails. I started out on the La Vista Verde trail which is located about halfway between the rim and the river. I had heard there were some petroglyphs in the area, and I love searching for these. I was hopeful when, as I arrived, a large indigenous family was just returning to their cars. They were carrying various herbs and plants that they had collected. I figured this meant that the area was special to them in some way. Sort of like a church outing.

Even though the trail is very short (just over a mile each way), I managed to poke around up here for over three hours, searching for petroglyphs, looking for river views, and making my way around a large family of bighorn sheep. It was a fun trail. At first, I only found a few small petroglyphs here and there as I was scrambling around all the rock outcroppings, but eventually I found a couple of nice panels that made the search worthwhile as you’ll see in the photos below. The weather was perfect, in the 60s with a slight breeze. The view of the Rio Grande at the end of the trail is spectacular. This is where I ran into the bighorns. I gave them a wide berth as the big males eyed me while protecting their babies and baby mammas. There was a lot of new green grass growing in this area which is what brought them all here. I’m guessing that ancient people used to grow their crops up here on this flat spot that still has good enough soil to sprout green grass each year.

After exploring this nice little trail, I headed up to the rim to hike part of the southern West Rim trail that stretches for 12 miles from here, north to the Gorge Bridge. Since I had spent so much time on the La Vista Verde trail, I didn’t have much time to explore the West Rim. I walked maybe a mile and a half each way, going off trail a bit to explore some sheep trails which had lots of sheep poop and also a bit of mountain lion poop. This also seems to be a popular rock-climbing area as I found some social trails leading to rock cliffs containing some metal anchors for the climbers. Nice views from up here. I had a nice day exploring the gorge.

About halfway from the rim and the river in this area

Not sure what this symbol is...the sun?

Nice river petroglyph

Bighorn sheep family grazing

Great view of the Rio Grande at trail's end

Big Bighorn

Starting on the West Rim trail's southern end

Something died here

More expansive views from the rim

Taos Ski Valley up there

Nice views

That mesa on the right is where I was
earlier on the La Vista Verde Trail

Nice red sandstone mini canyon

The Bee Sting by Paul Murray – You know how sometimes you’ll see someone at a grocery store yelling at their kids or being snarky to the checkout person and you’ll wonder how people can be so mean? Then you tell yourself that really you have no idea what kind of life or day that person has had. So how can you judge? That’s what this book is like, but on steroids. It starts out ordinarily enough. A family in an Irish countryside; teenage daughter with typical teenage daughter drama; twelve-year-old brother with his science facts and online video game friends; mother and father with typical marital stress as the 2008 global financial crisis starts taking its toll. But then…but then…oh my god. The backstory of each of the main characters is told in wildly different forms. And you start to get a sense of, oh! that’s why they’re acting the way they are.

This epic family saga was shortlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize (it lost out to another Irish novel, The Prophet by Paul Lynch which I’m gonna have to read if it beat out this incredible novel), and it was winner of the An Post Irish Book of the Year. The Guardian wrote, “Murray is exploring the way families can always sense the emotional temperature, even if they don’t know where the fire is coming from. He is brilliant on fathers and sons, sibling rivalry, grief, self-sabotage and self-denial, as well as the terrible weakness humans have for magical thinking, not least in regard to the climate crisis. He can also create a laugh-out-loud moment . . . You won’t read a sadder, truer, funnier novel this year.”

And the New York Times wrote, “Through the Barneses’ countless personal dramas, Murray explores humanity’s endless contradictions: How brutal and beautiful life is. How broken and also full of potential. How endlessly fraught and persistently promising. Whether or not we can ever truly change our course, the hapless Barneses will keep you hoping, even after you turn the novel’s last page.”

I enjoyed every page of this 656-page testament to fiction. Think of all the Irish movies you’ve watched about the drama and comedy of small towns in that green country, and then combine them with the movie Fargo and you have The Bee Sting. Topics covered while telling an epic family story include: economic stress on families, domestic abuse, father-son relationships, climate change, doomsday preppers, teen angst, the optimism of college life, friendship, infidelity, grief, and a little bit of mysticism. It’s great. Here are some lines:

Elaine wanted to look at Uncle Frank, who she thought was hot, even though he was dead

How do you know all this? It’s on your Facebook, Elaine said. They had sometimes experienced this with adults – surprise that information that they had made available to be viewed by anybody at any time had, in fact, been viewed by somebody.

being with boys was something you did without necessarily enjoying it, the same way you drank beer though you didn’t like the taste.

He looks like a vampire from the 1980s. He’s from Poland. Oh right.

Then he sat up, and frowned at his shoes, the way he did when he was about to make a serious statement, like the correct order for watching the Star Wars films.

Instead of yelling at you when you did something wrong, like her mother did, Dad liked to bring you on a little journey first, up over the hills and mountains. It made it hard to fight back; you just had to follow the path he had laid out, his voice calm and even, your guilt crushing down on your shoulders, until turning a corner you would find yourself at the summit, your crime lying spread out in a panorama before you, and you and he would gaze down on it together.

The pair of them, she says. Doom and Doomer.

then he kissed her Very gently and she stopped thinking of anything She had disappeared turned into steam mixed in with the dry ice while her body careered pell-mell into sin

That’s your forties Your kids hating you is just the tip of the iceberg I’m not forty yet Imelda says startled and then Is it that bad? It’s worse Geraldine says Everything turns to shit Your looks go Maisie says Your body turns into cellulite You start getting aches and pains everywhere You keep thinking you have cancer

She was angry – of course she was angry. She’d spent her childhood telling the debt collectors that her daddy wasn’t home. Dickie was supposed to take her away from that.

The modern generation seems to believe, he says, goggling down at you sardonically from his podium, that incoherence is a virtue. And any sort of clarity is a kind of fascism. He pronounces it fass-ism. No wonder you are so confused about yourselves, he says sadly.

she has to write a story for her writing workshop from the point of view of a man, what should she do? Imagine it’s a woman, Kit begins, but then change it so he keeps punching people! And thinking about sex, Chan says. And worrying his truck is small, you say. And obsessing about his mother, Edelle says. And buying speakers on Amazon, you say. And worrying he’s going bald, Kit says.

Horsetooth Rock Loop near Fort Collins – This area has been on my mind for a while now, but I’ve been too cheap to go. It costs $10 to park in this popular area just west of Fort Collins. With so many other free places to explore it’s difficult to make the decision to pay money to walk outdoors. But I finally decided to bite the bullet and pay (I kept trying to justify it by telling myself it helps pay for lots of people to come enjoy the outdoors who otherwise wouldn’t). And there were lots of people out today, most of them headed to Horsetooth Falls, around a mile from the trailhead. I combined seven trails to make a nice 8 plus mile loop: Horsetooth Rock, South Ridge, West Ridge Connector, West Ridge, Wathen, Spring Creek, and Horsetooth Falls. For me, there were three highlights: The climb up Horsetooth Mountain, the meadows around Spring Creek, and the waterfall.

As I made my way up to Horsetooth Mountain, I kept wondering how the heck I was gonna get up there. It looks like a sheer rock. But I noticed a silhouette of a person up on top and figured there must be a way. It was about a 1,500-foot elevation gain in 3 miles to the mountain top. Around the back side there is a chute that has enough hand and foot holds to make it to the top without ropes. Once on top it feels like you’re on top of the world because it’s not very wide and it has steep drop-offs on both sides. Great views of Longs Peak, Fort Collins, and the eastern plains from up here. I wanted to stay up here a while but it started to sprinkle, and darker clouds were moving in so I headed down.

I continued on the loop while getting lightly rained on for about an hour. I was well prepared with rain gear so was very comfortable. Spotted deer, turkey, and a jet-black Abert’s squirrel in this more remote area of the open space. There was a huge meadow with Spring Creek gurgling through it at the end of the Wathen trail. This was a very pretty area and I hung around here for a while. Then I headed down the Spring Creek trail towards the waterfall which I explored up on top and at the bottom. It’s a narrow, 20-foot waterfall with a nice pool below. There were 8 or 9 people on this weekday so I imagine it’s pretty crowded on weekends. After enjoying the falls for a bit I headed the last mile or so back to my car for the pretty drive back to Longmont (I avoid I-25 by driving the county roads along the foothills).