Postblog from the South Platte Valley: Barr Lake State Park

Official Web Page for Barr Lake

Barr Lake was at one time an open sewage pit. In the 1950s and 60s all of Denver's untreated wastewater flowed into this reservoir just outside of Brighton, northeast of the metro area. 40 years later it is a haven for wildlife, lush with forests and wetlands, full of living things.

The first of many state parks I hope to visit over the summer, Barr Lake is familiar to me. I've bicycled and hiked even canoed the lake many times. I could have written this without going there this morning and it’s a good thing.

State Park Lesson Number 1: I have to share state parks with other people.

As I pulled up to the park entrance at 6:30 this morning, a committee greeted me and asked if I was there for the run. Now this often happens at Cherry Creek State Park where I go most Saturdays. That place is right in the middle of the urban jungle, almost a Central Park of Denver-Aurora. It gets crowded. But Barr Lake always seems so distant, so outside of the city. You never see crowds, and if you do it’s usually a gaggle of lively birdwatchers.

One of the things I enjoy the most is feeling like I’m back in the Midwest, surrounded by hay and cornfields, barns and horses. Unlike much of Colorado, this area is wet and swampy. Barr’s shores are less about sandy beaches and more about bayous. You’d almost expect to see alligators lurking amongst the cottonwoods standing in the shallow water. But as you gaze at the swamp, Longs Peak, in the distance white with snow, rises dramatically out of the plains.

I’ve never seen a gator, but over the years, I've seen many deer - some swimming in the water - hundreds of fish and thousands of birds, including the nesting bald eagles for which the park is famous. Spring is especially lively as hundreds of carp flop around in the shallows near the shore, spawning.

Barr Lake is a large lake (by Colorado standards), but it's fairly quiet. Large motor boats are not allowed. There are no jet skis, no water skiers. Even non-motorized boats (kayaks, canoes) are limited to half the lake - the other half is completely reserved for wildlife.

One thing you can do at Barr Lake is walk, nearly 10 miles, all the way around. Not only do you get a feel for the water itself, but the woods and farmland can be soaked in up close, including herds of sheep and cattle. 

The hike is flat but can be muddy. The mosquitoes can be nasty. But if you're like me, you forget all about that when a train rolls by. A big part of the lake abuts the railroad. If you're lucky, you'll be near (but not on) the tracks when a giant freight train rumbles past, shaking the ground, and causing that child-like thrill: "A train! A train! Wave at the engineer and see if he waves back!"

So I was disappointed when I arrived at 6:30 this morning, ready for my hike and my communion with nature. What I found instead was volunteers setting up, orange cones marking the trail, tables with big water dispensers on them and those cardboard waste containers with plastic bags in them – all around the lake.

I don’t have bad feelings towards the big runs. I love that I live in a state where there is usually one somewhere every weekend: the Bolder Boulder, the Turkey Trot, the Cherry Creek Sneak, the Fury Scurry, and today’s Sean May Memorial Run. Sean May was a district attorney in Brighton who was shot a few years ago. I certainly don’t begrudge today’s runners their good cause. I’m sure the organizers cleaned up after themselves and the wildlife felt no ill effect.

The good news is that people do use the state parks. I just need to get over my hang-up about sharing them.

I did get a good hike in before the run started. I didn’t get to go all the way around the lake, but I saw two huge pheasants, a million swallows, several rabbits, and some geese with goslings. I stood on the dam looking over the expanse of water and saw a long coal train making its way towards the city. I put my hands in my pockets to keep them warm and thought about all the state parks I’m going to visit this summer. I’ll try to share better.

Chatting Over the Fence or A Thousand Miles

That Wills sure is dashing, and I suppose Kate is pretty enough, as perfect brunette women go. All I could think of is what Di would have thought and how proud she’d be.  Hey, I am gay, you know. I didn’t stay up all night watching the royal wedding, but I did watch some of the documentaries before and after.

One of the commentators commented that this generation of royals is more “in touch” than previous ones because of social networking. I guess that’s true, if you consider social networking being in touch.

In the old days, so it is supposed, people spent more time with friends and family and less time on the computer. You'd discuss the news of the day over the family dinner, swap events with a neighbor over the fence, and wave to passersby as you sat on the porch.

With increased urbanization and greater mobility, families are further away and neighbors are, likely as not, strangers. Yet we are just as human as we were before, with that need to reach out and be connected. We've just replaced the porch with Tweeter and the fence with Facebook. We still wave to people. They're just possibly thousands of miles away and the wave is electronic.

It's interesting to see how differently people approach Facebook. Some, of course, resist the trend steadfastly and refuse to sign up. Presumably they’ve found life satisfying enough without being connected to all their elementary school friends.

Some people on Facebook don't seem to log in, ever. Don’t they get lonely? Some don't include a picture of themselves. Other’s should find a different picture.

Some don't understand that posting a note on someone's wall is not private - friends of friends can see what they're saying.

Some post every detail of their lives. Every date, sneeze, and meal are recorded for the world to see. Larry in Pittsburgh never shares a deep thought, but I know that he had broccoli for dinner.

Some people don't tell you the important events in their lives, but go on endlessly about their cats. Yes, I am one of those. But my cats really are terribly fascinating and everyone should be aware of the amazing and cute things they do.

Common postings on Facebook include, yes, pets; politics; comments wishing people wouldn't put political comments on Facebook; kids; travels; weather; sports; and Jesus.

And lots of posts are about really ordinary things, but ordinary things that are interesting because you know the people (or some of them) and you can relate to what they're doing. I loved learning that Linda, a woman I knew in high school, now lives with her family in the old Johnson house down the street from where I grew up. I think it's interesting when Phil describes his bike rides in the snow or what his kids did in church that week. I enjoy Chuck's casual references to places in Omaha where I used to live. If it weren't for Facebook, I would have never learned that my niece was sick last year. I wouldn't know how much snow my sister was getting up in her Wyoming mountain home.

You might argue that social networking is shallow, that it keeps a distance between people. True, 400 Facebook friends are not the same as 400 close friends. But who has 400 close friends? My close friends are friends in real life and on Facebook. I don't see any problem with that. And Facebook is a good way to discuss the latest antics of my cats. And I really do want to know what Kenny, in New York, thinks about Kate’s stunning dress.

When Nature Calls I Have an Answer

Back when the century turned, I purchased a little two man tent. Optimistic as that sounds, there were never any other men in it. Just me and a sleeping bag. And a very upset stomach.

When I was a kid I loved camping. My friend John and I would schlep out the big green canvas tent that was older than we were, set it up on the shores of Lake Minatare (home of the only lighthouse in Nebraska), eat bar-b-que potato chips, and revel in the sounds of the lapping waves which would sometimes creep closer over night as the water rose. I think part of the appeal then was sleeping away from home, independent if only for the night.

Things started to change when I went back country backpacking in Colorado with my brother. The mosquitoes were thick that year, and so tiny that they crawled through the tent’s mesh screens into our noses and ears. A planned week in the Mount Zirkel Wilderness turned into one miserable night plus a comparatively luxurious stay at the Motel 8 in Laramie on the way home. Now that was camping. Why didn’t we just go to Motel 8 in the first place?

As an adult, I tried camping again - with friends who went all out. There was a sleeping tent (for six) and a portable screened in day lounge gazebo. There were sleeping bags and auto-blow up air mattresses. A walk in (almost) cooler. A six-burner propane stove and roomy oven. Tarps on the ground. Skillets and pans of all types. Complete sets of flatware and nicer dishes than I had in my house at the time. Wash tubs. Portable food pantries (gotta get that food up there somehow). Large drinking water dispensers. Multiple director-style folding chairs with beverage holders. And every other gadget sold at REI.

It wasn't a campsite - it was a compound.

Anyone trying to get a feel for how the pioneers lived as they walked their wagons west would have to look somewhere else.  Of course, setting up and breaking camp took hours with all that stuff. I thought it would be quicker and easier to drive into town and go to a restaurant than to fire up the six-burner and unpack all that food, but I was overruled. So I pitched my little two-manner, spread out my sleeping bag on the hard ground, and pulled out my bag of chips.

I didn’t really enjoy myself, but I felt like I was supposed to. I mean what self-respecting Coloradoan doesn’t like camping?

There's just no getting around the fact that regardless of what you eat or how pretty the scenery is, nights get cold in the mountains. It's worse when there is something foreign living in your stomach and you have to repeatedly get up to go to the bathroom, as I did that summer night in Rocky Mountain National Park some 20 years ago. Mom and Dad offered to let me sleep in the motor home with them, but I had my little tent and by-golly, I was going to use it.

Trying to sleep while shivering is hard enough - but when nature calls the way it did that night, you really have to answer. I lost count of the number of times I unzipped the sleeping bag, scrambled for my shoes, unzipped the tent, ran to the facility which was not terribly close, ran back shivering, rezipped everything, and then did it all again about every 40 minutes until morning.

As a new day dawned and a bright sun rose into a crystal clear blue Rocky Mountain sky, I decided that the only camping I was ever going to do again was at the Estes Park Holiday Inn with a heated room and full indoor plumbing.

The two-man tent took a final trip to Goodwill. I have never again shivered the night away with only a thin piece of material between me and the sky.

Don't get me wrong - I love the mountains and being outside. This summer I’m going to visit as many of Colorado’s state parks as I can. I plan to hike, picnic, gaze at the stars, search for wildlife, lean over to get a closer look at flowers, and imagine what it was like in the world before cities and suburbs dominated everything.

But after a day of communing with nature, you'll find me curled up in a real bed with a bathroom nearby. I’ll use electricity to read a book, watch TV, use my laptop, and make coffee if I choose. For a special treat, I’ll haul out some bar-b-que potato chips. Now that’s what camping should taste like.

Entertechnology: A BillsWeek Rant

I've said it before and I'll say it again: we are living in the future.

For example, thanks to ever increasing technological advances, there are TOO many entertainment options.

What we can view, listen to, communicate on, and even read, are constantly expanding. Now we even carry our books around in thin little electronic conveyors of copy. No more lugging that tiresome thick paper volume around. All of this has no effect on quality. You can just as easily electronically access trash as classic literature.

 We are so spoiled. My sister has a subscription to the New York Times and doesn't even have to step out on the front porch to get it, let alone drive into town to buy it at the local bookstore like she used to. All she has to do is start the coffee and turn on her Kindle; no need to even don her slippers.

My Dad has a satellite dish with millions of channels plus Netflix, Xfinity, and I don't know what else. He has so much to watch, he barely has time to be a productive member of society. If he doesn't want to watch anything (say his eyes get tired), he can always listen to Pandora over his satellite system.

At the gym I can listen to my iPod or watch one of a dozen TV monitors tuned to the 24 hour news channels or ESPN. Some of the workout machines are affixed with their own private TV so I can watch the channel of my choice while working out.

Bars and restaurants all have multiple TVs playing around the joint.

I have almost as much entertechnology (new word I just coined for entertainment-technology) at my house. Now that I can watch favorite old TV shows on Hulu, I don't need to leave home for any reason. When I do go out, I have around 200 podcasts to listen to on my iPod (yes, I only have an iPod - it's soooo last decade). If I run out of those, I have hours and hours of music on the same little device. I am considering a long road trip just to listen to it all.

In the olden days, people sometimes left their homes to be entertained. You might actually go to a public place to be in the same room as the performers. Sometimes they played music. Sometimes they wore costumes and talked to each other, pretending to be someone else. The people watching would rapidly tap their hands together multiple times. It was called clapping. How quaint. Imagine having to leave your home to hear music or be otherwise entertained.

Now multiple individuals can be in the same room at home engaged in separate entertainments. During a quality visit with my dad recently, we both in the same room, simultaneously, headphones in ears, watched different movies on our separate computers.

Kids watch movies in the back of their minivans. Not poor kids though. They have to look out the window at the boring real world.

When I was a kid, a movie in the car was unthinkable. My sibs and I took turns choosing the radio station on long road trips. On late night family drives in the 70s, it was a treat to find an awesome AM rock radio station from Oklahoma City. That's right. KOMA out of OKC. I haven't checked but I'm sure that station is now a right wing sports talk mouthpiece.

Anyway, now each kid has their own iPod or whatever. Do they have some other way of practicing negotiation skills when they don't have to disagree over the radio station?

All this entertechnology is not perfect. I still have to get off the couch to switch my television from DVR to Roku. I can't use my wireless surround sound and my internet router at the same time because I guess they are on the same frequency and cancel each other out.

And on the subject of technology, my microwave is slower than the stovetop. My cell phone is not an i-anything and if it has applications, I sure don't know it and probably wouldn’t know what to do with it. My printer leaves inky blotches on what it prints, and does not double as a fax or a scanner. I have a digital camera, but no charger for it. And I HATE it when my phone beeps while I'm standing at the urinal.

How I long for the good old days when there were just three TV stations and an AM radio. Of course those days weren’t as simple as we remember: you had to get off the couch to change the station. How did we ever put up with that?

Eating Cheap Long Term Consequences

Conscientious parents make sure that kids eat healthy. It is paramount that sugar be kept to a minimum. Fruit instead of cookies. Milk instead of pop.

It wasn't always this way. I recently produced a cook book from recipes my mother used over the years. It brought back memories, to say the least.

When I was a kid, my mother valued saving money more than nutrition. Sometimes she went a little overboard. But in the inflation besotted years of the 1970s, particularly for a mom who grew up on a Nebraska farm in the Depression, saving money was the most important thing.

It's not that we were poor. We had a large sprawling house, three cars, a swimming pool, and room for a pony (that is a reference to Hyacinth Bucket – don’t worry if you don’t know her). But Mom never got over the fear that someday, she might end up back in her dust bowl childhood with no indoor plumbing or electricity.

Unlike me, Mom grew up poor. Walking to the outhouse in the middle of a winter night was a chilly endeavor. And there was no air conditioning in the summer. On truly hot nights, a wet sheet might have to suffice. You had to choose between opening the window for the slight chance of a stray breeze or closing it to keep mosquitoes out.

I'm not sure what she ate as a kid, but she did mention seeing live chickens in the yard some mornings, followed by fresh fried chicken for dinner.

When I came along in the 1960-70s, you no longer had to see your food alive. It was the age of convenience food, pre-packaged, pre-health craze. All that mattered to my mother was that it was cheap.

I didn't know until high school that Tang and orange juice weren't the same thing. My sister and I, however, were acutely aware that drinking Carnation powdered milk was not the same as having the real thing. I, for one, was traumatized by that clump of undesolved off-white goo in the bottom of my glass. To this day, I can barely stomach milk except on cereal - and it helps if it's whole milk or cream.

But I do have fond memories of other food items from the 1970s. There are some which today's parents wouldn't allow near their children, but that are comfort food for us.

What aging Boomer doesn't secretly prefer Wonder Bread? Come on, you know you do. Well, I don't, but I think a lot of other people do. Slap some Miracle Whip and baloney between a couple slices, and BAM, you're a child again.

There's lots of other stuff we loved back then that we don't see often in this Whole Foods world. Velveeta processed "cheese-like" product. SPAM broiled in brown sugar. Jello with carrot shavings (a salad) and Jello with Dream Whip (dessert). Some cooking trends from those days are a little hard to believe. But did those overly processed foods hurt us, after all? Well, I do struggle with weight. I would rather eat cake than pita bread. But I would also rather have orange juice than Tang. And in the end, I'm pretty good at saving money.

Two Dimensional History Distorts Presidential Reality

I just watched an episode of the 2004 Discovery Channel series, "Decisions that Shook the World," about Lyndon Johnson. It was a great illustration of how people are not all that they appear to be; are not completely good or totally bad.

While remembered for letting the situation in Viet Nam get so terribly out of control, Johnson also did more than any president since Abraham Lincoln to advance the cause of civil rights. These days, when we especially vilify our political opponents by, for example, seriously equating President Obama to Hitler and calling him the worst president in history (move over Andrew Johnson), it is important to see our leaders as complex and not as two-dimensional caricatures. I'm not claiming to be above this tendency. Just ask me what I think of Sarah Palin. I dare you.

President Johnson was a man of the Old South who used the "N" word freely but also pushed through the Civil Rights Act (which Kennedy was unable to do), the Voting Rights Act, and the Fair Housing Act. Johnson was, to me, not particularly likable. He was crude and rude, vulgar and macho. Yet he used his old-boy, back-slapping style to get things done in congress, and wasn't above threatening old supporters who opposed his legislation.

On the subject of presidents who are usually seen as either all good or all bad, there's a new movie on HBO about Ronald Reagan. The mere thought of Reagan, actually, literally, has upset my stomach for 35 years. No one except for George W. Bush has had that same effect on me. As early as 1976, I feared Reagan as a war-monger and malevolent disassembler of valuable social programs. In fact, my father lost his job as a county psychiatrist thanks to The Gipper, and millions of mentally ill people were turned out of institutions to become part of the nation’s homeless population.

Reagan getting credit for the fall of the USSR is as bogus as anything I've ever heard. It most certainly would have happened anyway, and certainly not because he told Mr. Gorbachev to "tear down this wall."

Reagan refused to acknowledge AIDS as a problem, and I always found his folksy friendliness as phony as a seven-dollar bill.

It pains me to try to see the good in him, but this HBO movie about Ronnie tries to show him as the complex human being he really was, not the sainted statue, or pariah, that we now make him out to be. Especially when today’s "Tea Partiers" claim him as their patron saint, Director Eugene Jarecki points out that the real President Reagan would not only be too liberal for them, but would probably be embarrassed that they were besmirching his good name.

Clearly, LBJ gets the short shrift in history. I'm willing to give Reagan another look. But don't ask me to reconsider “W” yet. It's too soon.

Vacation Bender – A Cautionary Tale

(The following content may not be suitable for all readers.)

Boy, did I go on a bender.

I’m not talking about alcohol. I don’t touch the stuff.

Party drugs? Hardly.

Sex? I wish ...

No, this was a gigantic, out of control, week-long, food binge.

My annual vacation to San Diego was great. I attended a workshop, hiked for miles along cliffs and beaches, observed newborn seals nursing, and drove with the windows down. There was, however, a darker side. It seems that six months of disciplined Weight Watchers goes right out the window when I’m away from home.

To start with, I went to IHOP on the way to the airport. IHOP is very interesting at 3:00 a.m. when the booths are full of the post-bar crowd, roughly counting great amounts of cash and seemingly unaware of Colorado’s smoking laws.

Anyway, it was “All You Can Eat Pancake Day.” The pancake breakfast comes with hash browns, bacon, and eggs. I very sensibly skipped the eggs (I’m allergic). But have you had IHOP pancakes lately? They’re so fluffy. I had to have a second serving. It was going to be a long day, and I didn’t know when I was going to eat again.

By the time I got to the airport I wanted a diet coke. I got to the cookie place on Consourse A just as they were pulling the giant fresh snickerdoodles out of the oven. Hot cookies go well with diet coke.

I think I blacked out after that. The next thing I remember was sitting in a booth at the Point Loma (San Diego) Dennys sinking my teeth into a patty melt where the rye bread was buttered and crisply toasted with two kinds of cheese melted over the juicy burger. That Denny’s has great fries which come out hot and crisp, and it would be almost rude not to follow all that with an Oreo milkshake.

My hotel room was on the top floor overlooking the harbor. Like all hotels these days, breakfast is included – bagels, waffles, whole milk for the Raisin Bran – need I say more? The room also had a refrigerator and microwave - perfect for making popcorn and stashing some of those juicy fresh California oranges.

And since I had those appliances in the room, I could save money by eating in part of the week. So I went shopping at Vons.

Vons is a supermarket chain in California and the Vons on Rosecrans is beautiful. Being in Southern California, part of the store is permanently outside. And that bakery! Well, it couldn’t hurt to just buy one box of those big chewy cookies and spread them out all week. Unfortunately, I got through them in two days and had to go back to Vons for more.

When traveling, it’s important to avail one’s self of local food. In-N-Out Burger is a very popular chain in Southern California, but I controlled myself by only getting the single cheeseburger and fries, not the double. And I very smartly drank diet coke while somewhere in the back of my mind, a little voice was saying, well, something. I decided not to listen.

Did you know there was a Baskin Robbins on Point Loma Boulevard? Right on the way to the beach! I was on vacation you know, and I could count it as lunch.

After a peppermint shake, I decided to go healthy for dinner so after a couple hours of beach time, it was back to Vons where I bought a little container of Tomato Bisque soup. I could almost hear songs of praise from the Weight Watchers angels congratulating me on my moderation.

Two delicious spoonfuls in, I noticed on the ingredients that the soup was made with butternut squash. Squash is one of those things that, um, causes my intestines to explode. I couldn’t pour that stuff down the drain fast enough.

I was too worried about my stomach to go out. Fortunately there were some cookies left, and some popcorn.

You know what I haven’t had since last summer? Papa John’s pizza. I figured if it was just cheese on a thin crust, it couldn’t be too bad. I could eat half one evening and save the rest. But the box didn’t fit in the little hotel refrigerator, so I ate the whole thing.

Finally, my trip was coming to an end.

In exchange for being bumped to a later flight, I received a voucher for a future Frontier trip. And for my trouble, the airline also gave me some food vouchers to use during my nine extra hours at the airport. It’s not easy to eat healthy at an airport.

The Chillis at San Diego International is a nice big one where you sit down and get waited on. The fries are ok, but not as good as Dennys. I chased that down with a fancy coffee drink and a big cookie at Starbucks.

That was lunch. I had another voucher and needed dinner before catching the late night flight.

One of the things I’ve bragged about since starting Weight Watchers is something that, well, I can no longer brag about.

But when I sank my teeth into that long-forbidden, salty, two all-beef patties, special sauce – you know the rest - Big Mac, and fries, my relapse was complete.

Back home in Denver, carrying nine extra pounds, I went to King Soopers for basics. The big soft cookies beckoned from the bakery but I kept going. Now that I’m home, whenever I get a hunger pang, which is about every 15 minutes, I reach for the grapes.