Well at least we had a little Sunday respite

but Monday were again off early off to Pueblo, more properly Blende, to drop the Taco at Caliber Collision and after some time on the phone to Enterprise get a ride over there to wait

another hour to collect a Trax [a form of SUV which Linda, driving, didn’t like much]

and set off down I-25 to Red Rocks Road, west

up 69, another victim of the Trumpian “claw back” so unexpected that all the signage and markers have remained mutely in place for as long as we’ve been here. Oh well; Biden’s Fault

for foolishly squandering government funds on infrastructure instead of something important like gold-leafing his personal gift-aircraft.  We cautiously parked Trax outside, hoping it

wouldn’t ignite the grasses*, and Tuesday the dogs and I made it up

to the edge of the Yellow Zone

for the usual Long View…

near views, too,

though the afternoon went mostly to a neighborly visitation. The next morning I stepped over

the antlions on the way to our water tank [not shown] to measure use before turning the valves

at the saddle.  Two hours later – fast as it’s ever been! –

the tank was full

so I switched them back to Leon and went home to lunch.

Without that to do the next day one was free to struggle up to the overlook and overlook…

the Upper Upper again before all the usual, ending with afternoon’s dog-terrifying thunders,

rains and clearings and then Friday it was to town in the Trax, first the Gardner P.O.

and then, momentarily getting the cruise control to function, to mile zero of 69, down I-25 two stops to the dump, back into the ‘burg for Safeway and finally MOF for Brendt’s massive

paintings, each, as he explained, representative of a larger series…

It was a major show of [mainly] unseen unsung works after which we went upstairs

to see a little show of Kenny Schneider’s and MOF’s vast collection, hung salon style throughout many rooms.  Too much to take in, particularly as Brendt and Brad, the upstairs curator,

were eager to share stories about everything.  We eventually made our escape home

to the dogs, a late late lunch and scant studio time, ending with a surprisingly-chilly-for-the-first-of-August dinner on the deck…

*Hoping not to replicate brother Bryan’s incineration of his truck in an olive grove in Chianti earlier in the summer.