St Paddy's Weekend

Spring is definitely 'round the corner. Ken and I went for a long overdue walk yesterday morning. It was a beautiful sunny day that started out a bit cool and warmed up nicely by the time we were done. The pic is of a new house being constructed where Windermere St meets the Highline Canal. We covered about six miles in a couple of hours, ending up at "The Egg and I" in Highlands Ranch. K and Freddie met us there for an awesome breakfast, then gave us a welcome ride home. I spent the rest of the afternoon hacking away at two arctic willows in our front yard, both of which had grown way too large. I took them all the way to the ground, and in the process, gave myself a nasty blister on my thumb from squeezing those clippers just a few hundred times too many.

Saturday night, I was careful to wear some green to our neighbor's St. Patrick's Day dinner/poker party with their extended family. She made corned beef, cabbage, potatoes - all delicious! Then they taught us greenhorns how to play Texas Hold 'Em. I generally don't gamble, but this was mostly a social event, so I went along with it, anteing up the $10 each, for a stake of chips. I went through my entire stake in practically no time, or so it seemed. Interestingly enough, K went bust on the same hand - when the nephew discovered he had a flush and bet his entire stake. I was clueless and thought he was bluffing, so I went all-in with my remaining pittance, and that was that. It was a good reminder of why I don't gamble (the clueless part).

Ken and I bounced back this morning, and got out for a bike ride around our usual 15 mile loop, Lee Gulch to C-470 to the Platte River trail to downtown Littleton and home. We saw a little snow still in the shadows, but not much, and the trail was clear all the way. We stopped for breakfast at Panera Bread in Aspen Grove. You're probably getting a sense of my general approach to outings - I like "destination" walks and rides :-)