Hilda can't go visiting without she has to arrive with plenty of gifts. Despite the back of the Explorer being crammed with our two bikes, baggage for two for two weeks, and already plenty of gifts for the Denver folks, we must stop at farm stands before even hitting Highway 50 for mandarins, apples, and strawberries at stands like this one. Last in was half a flat of strawberries. Apparently too precariously perched on top of all the other stuff, the first good curve on highway 49 and they tipped to rumble pachinco-like through all the other stuff. We were pulling them out from under the seats on stops all the way across Nevada and Utah. Sure smelled good, though!

Just into Utah, looking back into Nevada

Hilda and I loaded up the dented old Explorer last week and headed out across the Great Basin, landing here in Denver four days later. We are visiting daughter Annie and her family for Thanksgiving. Besides good family time with Dana and Hannah, it turns out that their new home backs up onto a 70-mile bike path that follows the Highline Canal through parks, ranches, and nature preserves. I'm in heaven.

A few days ago while Tanner and I were out for an early morning pee we watched several deer, just gray shapes in the pre-dawn light, moving silently through the gray shapes of the oaks. Seeing them like that I was struck with their wildness and independence. Inside, Tanner on my lap and cup of coffee going, I pondered critters a bit - wild and not so wild. Today I came across this quotation, which puts into fine words the thoughts I was trying to knit together.

It struck her about two weeks ago. We had found a roadside vegetable garden and shed just down the road toward Pilot Hill. You know, the kind with baskets piled with heirloom tomatoes, a box with a scrawled note saying "Please pay here", and outside rows of tomato plants, corn, peppers, squash, and further up the side of the hill apple and pear trees. Then down the road just a bit further we discovered an Asian family tending an acre or so of strawberries.

These days Dana is getting more and more into exploring local produce and agriculture. There are a lot of upsides to the concept, from supporting the community, to eating organic, to reducing the fuel and other infrastructure we require to support ourselves. It seems we're not alone on this, we continue to hear and read about others doing the same, a sort of groundswell of interest in urban agriculture, self-sufficiency, even guerrilla gardening.

So the Weepies have a new album. And it's good. I've been getting to know it over the last couple of days since its release, and I'm enjoying it thoroughly. There's some really nice stuff here from this pair of lovebirds.

Here's a nice way to get it (God bless Amazon.com. High quality music downloads, free of any DRM rights-usurping bullshit)

These words have been spoken quite a few times in the last day or so, now that we have discovered that our often mourned KABL radio is broadcasting an MP3 stream.

Loved this photo: