Five Weeks to Launch

May 9, 2022

It’s been a weird spring for us. We decided to sell our 5-bedroom house and move into a 2-bedroom apartment. It’s only 1.5 miles from our old house, so there isn’t much difference in the part of Denver we live in. But the space we occupy now is VERY different (smaller) than our old one. From 3 floors to one, 3,000 square feet to 1,000. No yard or much storage. It’s taking some getting used to.

So instead of riding much this spring, my weekends have been spent painting, patching, cleaning, and most of all, getting rid of stuff. We’ve moved almost 10 times since we got married. The majority of those were corporate moves for my wife’s company. This means there’s no de-cluttering or deciding what to pack and take. The movers throw everything into a box and ship it. Once they even boxed and packed our kitchen trash! The result is that we just deferred all the getting-rid of stuff from the last 25 years to this spring. So there was a LOT! Nextdoor, Craigslist, eBay were all used, and there was a steady stream of people coming to take things every weekend.

So I didn’t do much riding this spring. I finally had time this weekend, and headed out for a 50-mile spin up the Platte River.

It was a beautiful day – 75 and sunny with a breeze (we’ve had a very windy spring). It also turned out to be a good day for birdwatching:

Canadian Geese are all over Denver’s parks and trails. I hate them. They leave poop everywhere and have this annoying habit of slowly walking across trails when you just want to get through. This time of year, they are raising goslings, and can be very protective. Twice today, one tried to nip my leg as I went past their brood. I was moving too fast for that to work, but they are just a giant pain in the butt.

These Wild Turkeys are more unusual for me to see. I think I’ve only seen them twice along this area, and once was too far for pictures. These were just down the bank along the river, and didn’t seem to mind me snapping a few shots. I love all the different colors and textures in their plumage.

Red-winged Blackbirds. These are everywhere along the river right now. I hardly saw them when I first moved to Colorado, but they seem to have moved west a bit and are here in the spring, as long as there is decent moisture. Once the heat and dryness of summer comes, they move somewhere else. As a kid in Iowa and Indiana, they were a constant presence along roadsides and ditches, so they take me back to my childhood a bit.

Great Blue Heron – I’ve seen this one for multiple years at this same small waterfall, waiting for the right fish to come along. He’s always wary and if I get too close he flies to a different part of the river, but today he didn’t seem to mind me taking a few pictures.

Cliff Swallows are here through most warmer weather. I first noticed them when I moved to Colorado Springs in 2002. We were having a major Miller Moth year, and driving to work in early summer they swarmed intersections waiting for moths to pop out of the cracks and corners of cars when they stopped. Here, under this bridge they were swooping out and eating large amounts of bugs over the river.

Cormorants – not a great shot, but they like to stay out on the water. I usually just see one flying overhead, but there are certain ponds (Washington Park) where they are always hanging around.

Denver’s skyline from about 10 miles north. I’m always a bit dismayed to see how far away it looks, as my journey back would go all the way to downtown and then back east a few miles. It looks farther than it is because of the haze.

White Pelican. Not a great shot as it kept moving at a pretty good speed and was pretty high up. Usually I see them in pairs, but this one was just circling above Cat Lake.

There were other birds. I heard a Kingfisher, but couldn’t see where it was perched above the river. Also, I was just a couple seconds too late with my camera to capture an immature Bald Eagle that was cruising just a few feet above the grass. Just before my camera was on, it caught an updraft and slid behind a bank, and I never saw where it went. That would have been a good shot!

Overall it was a decent ride. I felt fat and slow compared to last spring, but will just have to keep building up the miles. At least I got some protein into my diet, just from the large amounts of tiny bugs I breathed in. I leave for my Lake Michigan tour right in the middle of June, so I’m about 5 weeks away.

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