Taylor Park October Trip

Although I hadn't intended this to be a real vacation - it ended up being a much needed time away from work and all of the activities going on at home. Months ago I had made plans to travel to Colorado to assist my cousin, Brooks Harting in closing up his cabin in Taylor Park, Colorado for the winter. Many of you know that our daughter, Tara, son-in-law, Jess, and grandson, Jackson are moving from St. Louis back to Washington, IN and are building a new house. Only their excitement exceeds ours about them moving back home. We have been busy working on the house - painting, yard work, laying tile in the bathroom and putting down hardwood floors. The two weeks prior to the Colorado trip involved many late nights - so this Colorado trip came at a much needed time.

On Saturday, October 10 I caught a ride to St. Louis with Tara, Jess and Jack and flew to Denver, rented a car and drove to Colorado Springs. Brooks' friend, Pat Miller graciously put us up for the night and provided great food and accommodations. As can be typical of the Colorado weather - I got caught in a freezing rain just before entering Colorado Springs that caused the Interstate to be closed and delayed my arrival for about an hour.

Brooks and I left Colorado Springs mid morning on Oct. 11 and made the 3 hour trip to Taylor Park. The mountains were snow covered. They had several snows so far this fall but the temps have been getting high enough to melt any snow at the lower elevations. My main purpose for making the trip was to assist Brooks in closing up the cabin for the winter. We had decided to document the many steps for closure, take pictures and record them in a document for future reference - thus the use of the camera and laptop.

J.D., Rosie Hermann and family were at the cabin for several days hunting elk with other friends in Taylor Park. Unfortunately, they weren't able to shoot any this year. You might recall that Graham and I visited J.D. and Rosie as we passed through Montrose, CO in July on our motorcycle trip. They are dear friends of Brooks' and a real pleasure to visit with.

Our time was spent doing all the little things needed to prepare the property for the winter closing - organizing, loading of supplies and tools to return to Colorado Springs, covering vehicles, boarding up windows, draining water lines, cutting fire wood, etc., etc. Brooks recently purchased a small cabin in Tincup so we spent considerable time there organizing and preparing it for winter. This is a picture of the Tincup cabin - affectionately known as "The Outback" - because to use the bathroom you have to go out back.



The weather was outstanding for two days. We were able to accomplish all of our outdoor work during this time. The other two days we had mixed snow and rain off and on. I took several pictures of the snow covered mountains, early morning sunrise and our work efforts - enjoy.











We returned to Colorado Springs on Thurs., Oct.15. Although we didn't have any major difficulty, there was 8 in. of snow on top of Cottonwood Pass. I enjoyed another stay at Pat Miller's bed, breakfast,lunch and dinner and caught up on all of the baseball playoff games.

I returned back to St. Louis on Sat., Oct 17 and spent the night at Jess and Tara's. Suz had fall break on Friday so she drove over on Thurs. night to babysit and help finish packing. Tara and Jack will now be permanently in Washington and will be staying with us until the house is finished. Jess will graduate in December and will commute back and forth until mid December.

All in all it was a good trip. I always enjoy Taylor Park and spending time with Brooks. We got a lot accomplished, spent time with good friends and still had time to relax and enjoy the time away from work and house building.

The next post of Singleton Travels will be from Parkston, S.D. in mid November for my annual pheasant hunt.