Why?

This one requires a background story. The following is my memory of the first time that I set eyes on our house.

It was about 6:00 p.m., and we were on our way to look at a house to potentially purchase. The route to our destination took us down the street that is home to our current house.

My eyes first landed on the for sale sign in the front yard..pan..... to The House- a perfect little light green bungalow. The perfect component of it being the porch, which houses the porch swing. This is something that I have coveted since I can remember, a remnant left over of a childhood spent on my best friends porch swing.

The house sits caddy-corner from a high school track field, which, I was told was no longer in use as a school, but was being converted into an arts center. The field serves as the neighborhoods off leash dog park. Disclaimer: This is where my memory might be a little skewed out of proportion, a chronic symptom of the romanticism in my DNA. As we drove by the house, everything converted to slow motion. I watched as the neighbors -leashed dogs in hand, gleefully exited their homes and trolloped down the walk to the dog park, all the while -get this- calling out Hello's to the passer-by's. Maybe I had seen a few too many musicals at the time. As I recall, it had been a particularly long and dark winter.

I was sold. I wanted, I needed that house. But the problem was that it was way out of our price range. So, as the story goes, we made an offer on the other house, the one that we were on our way to see, we were out bid and sad for about three weeks until.....the perfect little green house- with it's swing and it's dog park- dropped in price, making itself affordable to us!

That was a very long back story- sorry, I can't help myself- having your undivided attention and all- I get excited. Here's the meat of my story.

So, we buy the little green bungalow and we move in. The start of 'The Beginning Of The Rest Of Our Days', staged in front of the setting sun, gin and tonic in one hand, a book in the other, sitting on the porch swing...together, happily ever after until....

Enter................................

THE MARCHING BAND.

Oh My God! This Is Surely Hell.

First, let me ask you this: Did you know that college marching bands compete, much like college sports teams, to be number one in the nation? And that to be number one, it takes a whole lot of practice, like 4 hours a day of practice, in the morning and in the night. Second, did you know that there really is such a thing as 'Band Camp'? I thought it was a farce the only happens in the movies, usually revolving around the flute player, but believe me, Band Camp is real. So is their never ending schedule.

And all that practicing takes place in the field caddy-corner to my house- to my porch swing, in the very field that people are suppose to act gleeful- and my interpretation of Glee does not include trombones, drums and the devil himself with a head mounted microphone.
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Later....
This is to prove just how serious I am:

This is 1/4 of the kids. Yes, those of them that are not in the photo also have instruments, probably a trombone, tuba or drum.

Getting his fix

I haven't posted for three days because Chris and I have been spending all of our spare minutes driving aimlessly throughout the back country dirt roads of the Colorado flats. Why? Good question. This is a good one:

We're searching for the perfect east to west, or west to east, dirt road that is relatively flat and straight and at least 2 miles long. Wait, there's more. The road must not only meet the requirements that I've just listed, but it must also not have power lines, houses, tall fences, mean dogs, scary people with guns, or bulls..and it needs to be smooth enough to drive 30 mph on.

You'd think- or at least I thought that this would be a relatively easy task to accomplish.

I was so wrong. I've lost days of my life...days of blogging! All for the love that a wife has for her husband.

I forgot to tell you why we're doing this. This road, given that it meets all the necessary requirements, will serve as a tow road for our new tow winch. Or from my selfish skewed reality, it will allow me to fling Chris a mile into the sky so that I can get some peace and quite and work on taking some photos.

We found a road, it's not perfect, due to some very tall and sharp barbed wire- which resulted in me getting a tetanus shot- but I successfully towed Chris for the first time completely alone, meaning all by myself. He claims that it was an awesome tow. I'm very proud- it's o.k. to brag a little when you're really feeling it- like I am right now.

Here's a picture of him- get out your reading glasses. I'm going to guess that he's at about 10,000 feet. Can you see him? Clean your computer screen- that was my problem. He's almost in the very center of the photo. You can also click on the photo to enlarge it.

Here's a couple other photo's from the day. Colorado really is a beautiful place.

And of course, a happy man after his fix.