This Memorial Day weekend we are blessed with a visit from Krispin, so we are taking a bit of a break from the drudgery of building. Yeah! We took off into the mountains for a ghost town called Turret and enjoyed a picnic lunch in a high meadow with the most magnificent view of the Collegiate Peaks imaginable. Totally breathtaking!
The numerous local hot springs have been calling me ever since we got here, but we just never seemed to get to any of them. Evan goes regularly ... even Lars went when he was here. We live in a volcanically active area apparently and hot springs dot the landscape all over the place. So we packed as if going to the beach; towels, robes, bathing suits, sun screen. After the fact we realized that flip flops or other rubber shoes would have been good for tender footsies. The place we went to was "clothing optional" and we weren't quite sure how to handle that. We hiked uphill, past all shapes and sizes of folks lounging au naturel in one pool after another, a good long hike it was to get to the "top pool" and once there we figured nobody was around and so we just skipped the suits too. Ahh! We indulged for maybe an hour as the sun went down over the horizon with water bubbling up and tickling all around our bodies as it found its way to the surface. Our pool was small, maybe 2 1/2 feet deep at most, and we were gazing out over the entire San Louis Valley with the San Juan mountains in the far distance. Now I am a believer! I want to try out all the other hot springs as well. Sorry, no pictures of nude Leydons, just a quick one after the soak as we dressed in the chill evening air.
Spring has finally arrived! Little flowers are opening their expectant faces in the desert landscape, including this extra bold specimen right on our driveway (we are carefully driving around it).
Our infamous garage is nearing its structural completion ... wow, what a haul! Below is a composite of four images to give a sense of the finished ceiling with those trusses we all agonized so over. I think it is beautiful.
We have decided that most of the garage will be stuccoed, except for the upper clerestory area which will have wooden siding ... therefore that area needed a Tyvek wrap, which is what you see in the picture below. You can also see how nicely the garage building melds into the rest of the house now that we have the blue fascia up.
The windows were put up lickety-split ... both Evan and Chris are old hands at installing windows by now and celebrated when the last one was in place. Here you see inside and outside views of both upper and lower installations.
On another subject ... the big chimney has been a source of much figuring, pondering and worry for Chris. Three flues needed to be squeezed into it: one for a traditional wood burning fireplace in the den, and one each for propane gas fireplaces in the guest room and the master bedroom. We finally asked the assistance of the two brothers, Jeff and Brad, who built our Tulikivi stove a few months back. They executed the difficult maneuvering necessary to accomplish the job and we all breathed a sigh of relief. The exterior of the chimney will be faced with engineered stone.
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