Pushing Snow

Snow plowing.  Up at 3:00 am after a fitful night.  Drive through the Star Wars, warp speed simulator
(snowstorm at night).  Plow three parking lots, then start on the driveways.  I have to be extra careful with the driveways as I damaged more than one garage door last winter due to heavy snow and sleep deprivation.  My insurance agent warned me not to make another claim.  I thought insurance companies existed to sell insurance??? Must have been in the fine print: "Last but not least, don't file any claims or we'll cancel your policy.  Ha Ha."

Get a phone call mid-morning, "Do you plow snow in Shawnee?"  After a minute or two of discussion I agree to swing by his house, since he assured me it's an "easy driveway".  Should have learned my lesson by now; the "easy ones" are always the worst.  We live in the mountains, and every home builder up here must be from Florida or something.  They love to build driveways one of three ways:  straight up the side of the hill at a 60º angle, or with 3-5 hairpin turns that will only accomodate a mini cooper, or 1/2 mile long.  This driveway was the second variety.  The gentleman I spoke to was obviously quite elderly, so I decide not to charge them the full price.  That's the next lesson I should have learned by now: charge by the minute, not by the job.  As soon as I arrive I can tell that one end of the circular driveway has at least 2 feet of snow on it, and the other end has three tight turns that my truck can barely make while I try to keep from crushing the ornate solar driveway lights that every snow plower just loves.  I end up spending way too long on his driveway, but I still want to cut them a break on the price.  Just before I leave I find out that this is their second home.  They normally live in Highlands Ranch, a Bourgois suburb of Denver.  C'est la vie.

Gotta Love The Beauty of Fresh Snow

We Are Bailey

Not quite sure how all this happened.  I joined the local Platte Canyon Chamber of Commerce last year and was elected to the board, then asked to serve as Vice President.  Really?  But I just joined!  Welllll, I guess so.  My "main" responsibility as Vice-President was to plan and organize Bailey Day - the main fund-raiser for the Chamber of Commerce and biggest party day of the year for Bailey's 8,000 + residents.  While I was planning and organizing, I was also trying to finish all the renovations on the Bailey Country Store (our store).  We were scheduled to open in April.  Then in May. And we finally opened our doors - our official grand opening - on June 15th... Bailey Day.  So we were pretty darn busy last year!  Bailey day was a huge success, as was our Olde West theme (complete with wild west shoot-outs, old tyme photo booth etc).  We made more money for the chamber than almost any event in the recent past.  This year when election time rolled around again for the Chamber of Commerce board, our awesome President Marcel Flukiger stepped down after serving three years.  Marcel is an idea guy, and he's Swiss, and he owns the greatest little winery this side of Nappa Valley.  Marcel moved the Chamber forward by light years during his three year term, and Bailey is a better place because of his investment.  Anyway, last month I was elected to replace Marcel as President.  Here we go!  It's the salary and perks that make it all worthwhile :)

The first initiative that I wanted to bring to the chamber is a campaign to build a "branding" or a community identity for the town of Bailey.  Bailey is a true community, whereas Conifer and Evergreen (in my opinion) are more bedroom communities for Denver.  Bailey has taken more than its fair share of hits in recent years (economic hardship, Platte Canyon High School hostage incident) and yet the people here just keep bouncing back.  I've been genuinely impressed in this town to see how the Bailey residents consistently look out for each other, support each other and do whatever they can to help those who are down on their luck.  I'm a student of culture, which comes from having grown up overseas and living in multiple countries.  And Bailey has its own culture and identity.  All I did was try to put these characteristics into words and bring out the great things about this town and its people.  And here is what I came up with (with help from the chamber board members).  More on this later.

Gearing up for summer

We're in the "dead" time of year right now as far as business goes.  Every other business owner in Bailey is telling us the same thing:  Just get through winter and hope for a great summer.  In the meantime we're constantly re-arranging the layout, trying to find the best way to arrange the store to make it both efficient and attractive.  I went to the Denver Gift Mart last month and bought a ton of merchandise to get ready for a busy summer of hikers, campers and other tourists coming through Bailey - like walking sticks, coonskin caps (Daphne's request), teddy bears, knives, rustic iron signs etc etc.  To display all of this stuff (not to mention our own t-shirts, mugs, bumper stickers) I am building new shelves in the "Sasquatch Outpost" room out of rustic log planks and log bannisters that I'll use as legs.  I also bought two peeled 10 inch logs that will go from floor to ceiling and I'll build shelves in between them and insert dowels all around to hang stuff from.  When it's all done it should look pretty cool.

I've been out Squatching a couple of times lately, and we found some signs that are hard to explain.  In one spot we found a set of elk tracks that we could follow in the snow for over 100 yards.  The strange thing was that the elk was apparently crapping as it ran and it left droppings along the entire length of the tracks.  Then the tracks suddenly stopped and we found an elk-sized body imprint in the snow.  There were no tracks leading away from the spot, no drag marks and no blood (though there was some hair in the imprint of the body).  Then we found some strange tracks that paralleled the elk tracks that were 10-12 feet apart (more than one print in each place, but made by something very large).  These tracks went up to and past the place where the elk fell, which makes me wonder if a Sasquatch could have possibly killed the elk and carried its body away??  As I said, the elk clearly did not leave that spot on its own... so what happened to the body?  No way to prove one way or the other, but i've never seen anything like it.  Here's a picture of the imprint in the snow.  Judge for yourself.

The imprint of the body in the snow: legs to the right.  My footprints in the foreground.  No elk prints could be found leading away from this spot, nor drag marks made by a lion or bear.

You can see the droppings in the elk tracks leading up to the place where it fell.  Droppings were along the entire length of the tracks.

The larger prints we found paralleling the elk trail