October 2018 - Page 2 of 3

Low-water Run of the Yampa River, Part 5: The Art of Floating

October 16th, 2018susanafield0 Comments

Dear Reader, Once we got on the water (John and I each in an inflatable kayak and Cliff and Chayse running the raft) everything changed; the morning’s chaos washed away. The joy of floating The Joy of Floating We were floating. Self-contained. At one with the river and the currents and the breeze. Rocks and boulders slid beneath the shimmering water. Grasses swayed along the bank. We heard the smack of a beaver tail. Saw the flight of a heron. We moved slowly, and yet kept our eyes flashing left to right, up river and down, scanning for the shallows, …

Cesar’s Sidewalk Ants: Nica Nugget #31

October 16th, 2018susanafield0 Comments

A few days ago, on our way to getting a great latte, we spotted a parade of yellow-petal-carrying ants along the sidewalk in front ofCesar Alberto Morales Rivera’s Indio del Sur coffehouse. My gaze stopped and followed the line of moving petals back from where they came. They were descending a nearby tree full of blooms of matching yellow petals. Then, like a sniffing hound dog, I followed where they were going: west along the sidewalk, with a quick sharp left turn before climbing up the wooden siding of a house. From there, the column of ants turned left again …

Low-water Run of the Yampa River, Part 4: Running Low Water

October 15th, 2018susanafield0 Comments

Dear Reader, The river gauge on the Yampa would have read between 1000 and 2000 cfs (cubic feet per second moving past the gauge) on a normal late-June day. On this particular day, though, it read half that much, at 600 cfs. And it was dropping. The Only Ones on the River We were the only group at the put-in. Everyone else, who we normally would’ve had to share the river with, had canceled or been scared away. Even the shuttle company we’d hired to drive our vehicles from the put-in, in Colorado, to the take-out in Utah, had told …

Things We Do: Nica Nugget #30

October 15th, 2018susanafield0 Comments

We wash and sweep the sidewalks. We trim grass with clippers. We build boats on dirt roads. We see. We chat. We photograph. We post.

Low-water Run of the Yampa River, Part 3: A Breakdown and a Put-In

October 14th, 2018susanafield0 Comments

Dear Reader, Our truck turned 200,000 miles, and in seeming celebration or revolt, it had its first ever major breakdown just an hour, of our 8-hr drive north from Cliff’s house, shy of the river put-in, in northern Colorado where our water tribe was waiting. The Breakdown The truck’s drive shaft completely fell off, in the middle of nowhere and as night quickly descended. Waiting for the tow trucks But most fortunately, as if the Gods, yes, wanted to mess with us but, no, not too badly, we broke down a few minutes before loosing cell service forever, and just …

Low-water Run of the Yampa River, Part 2: Raising Cliff on Rivers

October 13th, 2018susanafield1 Comment

Dear Reader, Our son, Cliff, grew up running rivers, starting when he was a toddler. In Colorado, he’s run: The Yampa, at least six times but never this low. The Delores where, at the age of six, he had his first kiss in the bow of our raft when a cute, little girl asked him if he’d ever made out). The San Juan. The Colorado: Pump House to State Bridge a gazillion times as a young boy; Ruby-Horsethief; and Westwater. The Green: Ladore Canyon, and Flaming Gorge, where at the age of eight, he kayaked his first Class 3 rapids. …

A Haircut and a Shave: Nica Nugget #29

October 13th, 2018susanafield0 Comments

We have a good friend, Jon Adler, visiting us from our past hometown of Steamboat Springs, Colorado, USA. On his to-do list was to get a local haircut and a straight-edge shave, so today we took him to a barbershop on the SE corner across from the church, which always seems to be packed. The barber’s chair, and all four plastic chairs for people waiting were taken, half an hour before they closed for lunch, so a little after 1:00, I returned with Jon (my husband, John, went home) and we waited his turn. Cesar, the barber, greeted us with …

Low-water Run of the Yampa River, Part 1: The River and the Water Tribe

October 12th, 2018susanafield0 Comments

Dear Reader, Before we could leave Colorado, and actually even before we could finish storing everything at our son’s home in Durango and head home to Nicaragua, we had one last thing on our to-do list: To run the Yampa River with our beloved water tribe. The Yampa River The Yampa River is a high mountain and desert river which begins in the Rocky Mountains above our old home of Steamboat Springs. It runs westward and free through northern Colorado until it flows into the Green River at Echo Park, near the border of Colorado and Utah. The Yampa, as …

Rain: Nica Nugget #28

October 5th, 2018susanafield0 Comments

We have been watching this rain approach via computer models. We shopped for groceries. Made sure we had enough purified water. Froze two gallon-sized water jugs to later be placed in the fridge if we lost power. And cancelled a Game Night we were planning to host on our open air terrace. And today it arrived. Although tomorrow it’s supposed to be worse. We lost power last night around 2 am. It’s still off. And was off most of yesterday morning. I sit outside on my covered front porch writing this at 5:38 pm by what little natural light is …

Things Seen on the Beach: Nica Nugget #27

October 3rd, 2018susanafield0 Comments

A perfect heart. A boat and brilliant flowers. Arteries etched in sand. And an abandoned, washed up dream.