Picnic in the Park

It's finally Spring time here in Colorado, after what's been a long winter, so Jo and I decided to celebrate the beautiful weather properly by having a picnic in the park.

Old Mill park is a sweet little jewel of a place, tucked inconspicuously among some of the houses in Old Town Longmont. It's practically our backyard and it takes us minutes to walk there, so it is the perfect place for a picnic. I picked up some sandwiches from my FAVORITE sandwich shop of all time, ever, in the universe: Spicy Pickle. Yup, good ol' SP, as Jo and I refer to it. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

With every sandwich, you get one of their signature spicy pickle spears, which Jo seemed to enjoy very much.

I could eat one of these puppies every day for the rest of my life and not get tired of it.

And, to top it off, a couple of colorful Izzies. We cheered to, of course, picnics in the park.

The meal was sososo good, and just as we were finishing Jo recognized someone he knew from the library coming in to the park. For the record, Jo knows half of Longmong from the library; he is forever pointing out patrons he recognizes, or coworkers he works with. Anyway, he called over Ms. Norma Figgs, who is a sweet lady who is one of the park's caretakers.

Even though she was busy picking up twigs and telling little children not to run on the grass, she graciously found time to take us on an exclusive tour of the three cabins in the park.





Here she is with Jo in the first cabin.

And here I am with Jo.

This is the second cabin we toured.

And some randon, old-fashioned artifacts.

The third building wasn't a cabin, but the milkhouse. It was much colder than the other two.

After the tour, Norma went on her way and Jo and I returned to our blanket.

I don't know why either of us planned on playing frisbee after we scarfing down our huge sandwiches, but we ditched that plan and pretty much lounged around and talked before heading home to watch some Lost. Maybe I'll make a post about that, since it's become such an obsession for both of us... More on that later

Wet, Sloppy Snow

Our state is notorious for its indecisive weather, and in true Colorado fashion, the weather decided to dump a buttload of snow, even though Spring is just around the corner. This is what we woke up to this morning... Thick, wet, sloppy snow that coated everything. No light, dainty, delicate snowflakes for us; this snow clung aggressively to everything it could get its icy little fingers on, which I'm sure will wreck havoc on the poor trees, which were buckling under the weight of the heavy snow.

This is what our street looked like.

As you can see, this snow was clingy. As I mentioned earlier, snow that's this heavy is disasterous for the poor trees (not to mention power lines) that have to try to carry its weight. Many don't succeed, and end up snapping. Fun fact for you: did you know that the shape of pine trees is actually designed to shed snow, to prevent this from happening?

Even though it was still early, the snow was already starting to melt and fall off the trees in big clumps. While we were out there taking pics, we had to constantly be aware of the heavily-laden branches we were walking under, otherwise the snow would get the best of us.

I may or may not have requested that Jo give this tree trunk a little kick, just to see what would happen. Consider it an experiment in physics: what happens when a force is applied to a solid object that carries reverberations through to a supply of unstable matter that is full of potential energy?

It really was a winter wonderland...

even if it was a lot of hassle.

Whatever.  Jo and I love the snow, so we enjoyed ourselves immensely.

Up next are some random pictures of the snow as it covers the world.

The craziest thing about this day is the complete 180 degree change of heart it had.  It threw its heart and soul into being snowy in the morning, but then it decided it wanted to warm up.  So it did. 

Check out the nutty before and afters.