[but first this one, from December, which was posted on IG @illmostr2 but has been languishing

on my phone ever since, and this of what went down in Pueblo last  Wednesday at Jorge’s – the usual pork and avocado burritos with hot  green]

…more visits, meetings, parties, interruptions and farewells…less walking, studios, even attentiveness to such as this but before we leave this page a quick look at the Tree in the Rock

the view over the roof

and a visit from Dave, my brother-in-law from up north [British Columbia, coincidentally]

whose little Model 3, unlike the S car he drove previously*, utterly charmed me.  Meanwhile

the Farmer’s market, Gardner Post Office and

two Libre meetings on two successive days before a farewell dinner for the newly

re-arriveds-yet-about-to-be-departeds featuring Izel’s iphone-tos and Luz’

“be-ah cahn chicken” followed Monday afternoon by a Libre party complete with homemade

music  [two guitars with three voices  singing “weed, whites and wine” being particularly poignant] and proof positive, as the AAA always insisted, that “Life’s Music is Beth’s'”. **

Long goodbyes

took up most of Tuesday’s morning at Dean’s [new, always surprising paintings, above] and,

to catch the Small One one last time, at Bill and Muriel’s…then they were gone.  We, however,

were here. Here for dinner

small walks

and Wednesday’s trip

to Walsenburg,

La Veta for a long-postponed haircut

and home over Yellowstone [no longer called that, apparently].

Home where it was hot, the same heat wave following Luz as he dragged a trailer cross-country

after dropping I&C @ DIA…nineties here in the mountains

with some respite, briefly, up Dry Creek.

*Every time I ride in an S -car I feel I have to immediately jump into an old VW or my ’45 Chevy just to scrape the luxe off…not so with the understated minimalismo of the Model 3.  But more to it than that…best driving machine ever, in my limited experience.

**”Life Music is Beth’s” was blobbed onto the sides of the AAA bus, seen here in August, 1969, negotiating a toll booth on the Pennsylvania Turnpike on its way to the Huerfano and, briefly, beyond.  By April of 1970 the band was back in Gardner to stay, the rest being his- or herstory.