flowers - my favorite living things

 

for example

 

 

when I first bought this house

the east side was full of lemon grass

 

it did nothing to keep the morning sun from beating on that east wall

it heated up the whole house

in the evening you could still feel the heat in that wall

 

 

one of the first things I did was transplant the grass to the front

buy an arbor

and plant this vine

 

 

Thunbergia grandiflora

or as it's commonly called - the Sky Plant

 

my friend in Mexico was my inspiration, she has it flowing all down her 2-story house

I have always loved the color of the flowers

 

 

this is from last year at this time

it was starting to bloom

 

this year - holy crap

 

 

it has taken over

 

 

just like I had hoped it would

 

 

it now shades the wall quite well

 

 

 

and has lovely cascading flowers

 





 

this is the kind of thing that makes me happy

 

 

 

 

 

 



great trip to the wild west

 

part 3 - the best part

 

 

the interesting thing about this part of the trip

was that it was in my head

ok, I know what you are thinking, no

it was in my head from a book or books actually

 

when I knew I was going to Wyoming I wanted to read up on the place

I did some research and found that an author I liked - lived in a small town in Wyoming

and had written 3 books of stories about the state

 

Annie Proulx has written several good books, Shipping News, Accordion Crimes, Postcards,

That Old Ace in the Hole and she is well know for Brokerback Mountain

(which is a short story in the first book or Wyoming stories)

 

these stories about Wyoming would be the perfect vacation reading

 

I ordered the first one on-line

 

 

I really enjoyed the first one before I left

 

found the second one at our local good-will (really)

and took it with me  

 

 

I love this photo that is just how it looked if you got off the main road

this was also my favorite of the 3 books

I left if for my friend in Colorado

 

and the third I found in a used bookstore in Laramie

 

 

which I finished and left in the cabin in the mountains

with the card decks and guidebooks left by others

 

I have never really been big on short story collections, but hers are different

each story somehow relates to the other, not a novel  but not separate either

together they paint a total picture

 told with a very interesting sense of wry directness and humor

 

 

the book that made my mind buzz the whole trip though was

 

 

Bird Cloud,  a Memoir of Place

 

first I love a good memoir, give me truth over fiction any day

plus I love property and building

that is exactly what she had done, bought 640 on the North Platte River

a few miles north of Saratoga

 

which was exactly where I was!

 

when I read the first book of stories it said she lived in Centennial, a town just east

of the mountains from Saratoga

I was thinking it was cool that it was so close and I thought I might drive through her town

then to find out that a few years before she had gone back and forth over the mountains

building a house in Saratoga, the places she describes

I was right there

 

 

I asked everyone about her

or I would be reading one of the books at breakfast and people would volunteer information

 

one said she was crazy building out there

another said she was not there anymore and had to leave

(at the end of her book she said she realized she could not live there all year)

 

I wanted to see the place, this stuff of her dreams

I was so close, no one could tell me exactly where it was

but then one young lady said someone was living out there

and no, you could not get close to see the house as there were locked gates

no one was sure if she still lived out there, maybe in the summer someone said

 

we went over to Centennial one day when we were up in the mountains

it was a very small town with only 2 restaurants, only one was open

 

the guy at the post office saw I was carrying Bird Cloud - he said,

you know Annie Proulx use to live here

yeah, I said, that is so cool, I love her

then he said, you won't believe this but she has a stalker

what?

a stalker he said,

He called over to Saratoga post office to leave a message that Annie had mail

and the lady said she could not take it cause there had been some stalker

and they did not trust it was him

about a week later Annie called him and came and got her mail

 

that was the week before I was there

 

 

this is the view up river from town

is that Annie's Bird Cloud bluff on the Platte I can see??

 

there was no way I was going to get even close to seeing her amazing place

 

but

when I got home I searched the internet

 

 

and there it was

 

 

Bird Cloud

a formidable house - wow

 

I got these photos from someone else's blog

 

 

I have no idea where they got them

I was very happy to see them though

 

 

 these are photos from a realty website in 2011

she was selling the place - I thought as much but just found out tonight

 

 

definitely a one of a kind property

 

 

you can see why she fell in love with it

 

 

 wow - check out the island

she talked a lot about the island in the book

 

one site said it was for sale for $3,700,000. in November 2011

then another said $3 million even

 

http://fayranches.com/blog/2011/10/20/wyoming-ranch-for-sale-bird-cloud

 

http://fayranches.com/ranches-for-sale/Wyoming

 



now it is $2,595,000.

who wants to go in on it with me?

  

the writings and the house

of this woman sparked my imagination

through-out my trip

 

 

here is a great interview she gave the Paris Review

on the art of fiction

 

 

http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5901/the-art-of-fiction-no-199-annie-proulx

 

a couple excerpts -

 

INTERVIEWER

When you started writing the Wyoming stories, did you feel any need to get acquainted with the tradition of writing about the American West? 

PROULX

Why the hell would I do that? That’s not a tradition. No, I didn’t do anything like that. Writing about the American West is just like writing about the American East or wherever. It’s good to keep shifting around. I’d written about New England, and then it was enough.

 

 

 

INTERVIEWER

And there is that story “The Hellhole,” where at least one portal to the underworld—

PROULX

Yes, definitely. Definitely Wyoming. You can get directly to hell from Wyoming.

 



 

 she should know

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



great trip to the wild west

 

part 2

 

previously - cabin in the mountains

 

my brother had to leave a day early to go back to work

I almost keep going over the mountains and on back to Colorado

 

something made me want to come back to Saratoga

and spend one more day

 

man am I glad I did

 

 

I would have missed the Saratoga hot springs

and I mean hot

this one is 108 to 110 degrees

 

 I was lucky it was a somewhat cloudy morning

when I came down from the cabin

 

still it must have been 80 degrees outside

and I could only get into the big one up to my knees

 

 

this one was a smaller pool next to it

maybe 102

that was doable

 

this is the Hobo Pool

free to the public and open 24 hours a day

amazing right?!

 

all sand bottomed - you can see the springs bubble up

 

and almost better was the pools down in the river

 

 

where the Hobo pool overflow was

 

 

I spent all morning here on the North Platte

 

 

since my brother was working so I spent the afternoon at the lake

 I was thinking I might camp there again

mosquitoes be damned

 

it was a nice calm sunny day at the lake

 

 

then out of nowhere this storm flew in

 

 

you could see the rain coming a long way off

 

the place is a desert

it never rains there and I wanted to camp and it was raining

 

my brother to the rescue

he got me a room at the resort he works for

half off - family discount - sweet

Nice western resort right on the Platte River, they had everything

bikes, kayaks, inner tubes, ATVs, jeeps

and a golf course of which my brother was the new pro.....

 

I loved my room

 

 

the lights over the sink were cool

 

 

and I especially liked the hooks on the wall

 

 

the resort has a large sand bottomed pool 100 degrees

 

 

then some tipis

 

 

with pools in them at various temperatures

 

I swam in the big pool for awhile - so nice

and then it started to rain again

hard

so I went into the tipis

the first one I tried was not hot enough, nor the second

but the third one was just right

 

 

it was getting dark and the lightening was very visible

loud claps of thunder

driving rain

and I was warm and cozy in my tipi - it was so wonderful

natural hot springs, there is nothing like them

 

sadly it was time to head south the next day

I went the scenic route

south to Riverside but upriver on the Platte

(it runs from Colorado north through Wyoming...)

around the south end of the Medicine Bow Mountains

 

 

52 - really?

 



 

 the vistas were gorgeous

I had to keep stopping to look and take photos

which was no problem as the roads were wide

you could see for miles

and there was no one on them

 

these guys were way out there

 

 

this is telephoto

 

 

I liked this place

I  wonder who lived there and what happened

 

 

it was way out there too

 

 

just a whole lot of cows

 

 

in the middle of nowhere

 

as I got closer to Fort Collins retracing my steps back

the traffic increased and the middle of nowhere seemed a remote memory

 

I needed a place with some shade and some quiet before meeting my friends

 

 

 I finally found this road

finally because though it looks like it is open and wild

it is all owned, fenced and gated

 

 

I was lucky to find a little shade to read and rest in

 

 

it was the last bit of wild I was to see that trip

 

once again I had the luxury of staying with my friends

they are beautiful

 

 

and Fort Collins is lovely

 

 

pots of flowers everywhere downtown on College Street

I could not get over how well they grew there

 

my friend is an artist

she has been in FC almost 25 years

that was her first apartment and studio upstairs

 

 

now it its all fancy stores and tourist haunts

we ate breakfast at a wonderful old house converted into a restaurant

we sat out on the big shady patio

her framed watercolors filled the building

I was so proud to be with her, I wanted to wear a sign

"I know the artist"

 

 

 

it was a happy town and I had such a good time!

 

after a good visit and a good rest

I headed back to Colorado Springs

the traffic was almost as bad as coming up

it was still just as shocking

 

it was fun to spend my last couple days at my old friends

funny thing though is that I could not stay in my tent in her yard as I had on the way in

as it rained hard for 2 days there

"it never rains here this time of year, it's a desert"

 

yes, I must have brought the rain from Florida, your welcome

 

 

that's ok, at least my hotel had wildlife in front of it

 

there was some amazing light shows over the mountains

too bad I could not get photos

 

 

the day I left, the rain had washed the air clean

and the mountains were spectacular

 

 

next - part 3

 

Tracking Annie Proulx and Bird House while in Saratoga Wyoming