Springtime in the Rockies....

My Quince bush in full bloom, covered with snow

This weekend is my birthday. I had made plans. My youngest son had invited me to come for the weekend, and he and I were to go out to eat and to go to the O'Keefe exhibit at the Denver Art Museum. And my grand-daughter has a music event which I was to get to attend. I was pretty excited about it. I don't like to drive over the mountains alone anymore, so I had tickets to go on Amtrak. I love riding the train, and the ride over the mountains is a truly beautiful one!

Then my father ended up in the hospital, and had to have a minor heart procedure done. I wanted to be there to help out as he recovers, so I switched my train tickets from going to Denver to going to California. The train goes almost door-to-door from my place, there. So I packed my bags and re-made my weekend plans (I will go to my son's when the Textile exhibits are up in Denver, and we'll pretend it's my birthday then.)

Yesterday I got up and looked out the window. The view below is what I saw. By the time I got my painting stuff together to go to the Art Center to paint, we had six inches of heavy wet snow in the yard.

 

While I was at the Art Center, having a pretty unproductive morning (the model and most of the artists didn't show up), I got a call from Amtrak, saying there had been a rockslide in the mountains, and the train I was to catch later in the day would not even arrive in Grand Junction until Saturday, at the soonest.  So I gave up on painting, and went home to look for a flight to California. I discovered that, because of delays and overbooking both in Denver and here, I could not fly out either.

Gotta love Colorado.

I have two wardrobes. I have winter wear, consisting of wool sweaters and long underwear, jeans and boots. My summer wardrobe is basically lighter weight cropped pants and T-shirts. I am never in a big hurry to swap out my wardrobes (the off season one is in a cedar closet and boxes in the basement.) But I always make sure I have a few things warm to wear in the summer when it feels like winter, and in the winter, when it can feel like summer. So, when it hit 'very warm' and everything bloomed here several weeks ago, and I was seeing folks out in their shorts and tank tops, I just stuck to my few Tees, and kept my sweaters and boots at the ready.

I have lived in Colorado a long time. I know the ropes.

 

My daughter-in-law, who has lived in Colorado all her life, posted this photo on Facebook yesterday. It seemed pretty appropriate to post here, too. Yep, sir.

I am still here. Snowed and rocked in. I have on my favorite sweater this morning, and I enjoyed a fire in the fireplace yesterday afternoon. My Dad is doing well, and my brother and sister are out there to help out where needed. It is warming up, and I'm sure all the snow will have melted before the weekend. Then I will make new plans, knowing that I am certainly not the one in control here, and my plans can change just like the Colorado weather.