Port a

And here's an odd one. A white crowned sparrow and a green tailed towhee
hanging out together.

Port a

And a canyon towhee.

Port a

And armadillo visitors.

Port a

While we were at Davis Mountains we had deer visitors.

Football

The Broncos were nice enough to give us a last-game-of-the-season that
doesn't matter. Nothing about this game changes anything in the playoffs.
An easy one to watch.

Go Broncos.

Port a

So here we are, on our site at Gulf Waters RV Resort. Almost all the sites
on our pond are finished, just five more to go. The water in the pond is
back up to where it is supposed to be, so it looks really nice. There are
fish, turtles, and a pair of coots living in it, with various egrets and
ducks stopping to visit.

The weather has been the best we've ever had here, about seventy-five during
the day, sixty at night, with the same range in humidity numbers. Our skin
is rehydrating. No clouds, no wind, no problem.

Port a

Whew! Done! Made the eighty-hour CPE requirement before the end of the
year. Even had one day to spare.

Really, I meant to start earlier.

Port a

On the way here, we did a mixture of driving, birding, and CPE. I have a
certain amount of continuing professional education to get done by the end
of the year. I can do it online, and I've got a lot of it done, but now,
that's about all I have time to do for the next few days, is get my CPE
finished.

Port a

In Colorado, the humidity has been running in the twenty percent range. We
dropped to New Mexico and the humidity dropped into the teens. Dry skin.
Even as late as yesterday, in the Texas Hill Country, humidity was in the
twenties.

Today, we finish the day at Port Aransas, Texas. Seventy-five degrees, a
sea breeze, and humidity: sixty percent.

Junction

Monday. This is a popular place, Davis Mountains State Park. There haven't
been very many people for the couple days we've been here, but that is about
to change. The campground is completely full with reservations for the next
week. Something about the week between Christmas and New Year. Time for us
to move on. We're done here, anyway. East for a few hundred miles on
Interstate 10. Stopped at South Llano River State Park outside Junction,
Texas. Another great birding place.

While at Davis Mountains and Llano River, we've seen 44 birds, including
acorn woodpecker, black phoebe, chihuahuan raven, horned lark, carolina
chickadee, tufted titmouse, cactus wren, rock wren, carolina wren, bewick's
wren, sage thrasher, brown thrasher, green tailed towhee, tons of canyon
towhees, rufous crowned sparrow, black throated sparrow, white throated
sparrow. The chihuahan raven and rufous crowned sparrow are new birds for
us.

Quail are conspicuously absent from the list. The quail score: Quail 3,
Taylor 0.

End of the first round. This isn't a sprint, it's a marathon. We'll be
back.

Davis mountains

Our camp at davis mountains. Very open oak grasslands forest.

Las vegas

No, we're not back in New Mexico. I'm just sending campsite pictures.

Our camp at Las Vegas. Open pinon juniper forest.

Davis mountains

Dense grass. Scattered oak trees. Arid grassland. Grassy open woodlands
on semiarid mountain slopes. Canyons. Streambeds.

Quail 2, Steve and Judy 0.

Davis mountains

We only stayed in Pecos overnight. From there, seventy-five miles south, to
Davis Mountains State Park, home of the Montezuma quail. We could see the
mountains on the horizon the whole way. A seldom traveled two-lane. So
many birds enjoying the morning sun, we thought the front of the bus was
going to get meadowlarked about a hundred times, but it never happened.

Hawk alley. Dry grass/brushland supports a magnificent hawk population.
Several hawks per mile standing on posts watching for the morning meal to
move. Skinny cattle in the scrub. Dried out abandoned dairies. A rusted
road sign advertising milk. "Drink milk, the udder cola."

We found the state park nestled in the foothills..., I mean mountains. Five
thousand feet high, from a flat expanse twenty-five hundred feet in
elevation. Felt like foothills.

Not many people. Full hookups for the rig. Fifty amps. Plenty of birds.
We're twenty birds into the list so far, some of them unusual for us. But
we came here for quail. The Montezuma quail.

This may be the best place to be to see the quail, but it's not exactly a
slam-dunk. The last sighting was a week ago.

The score so far, Montezuma quail 1, Taylors zero.

Happy Christmas Eve.

Pecos

Up before dawn at the park in Pecos. Standing outside, waiting for the sun
to break the horizon, visiting with the neighbor. She was raised somewhere
else, and had never seen the sunrise before. Not like this, glowing softly,
slowly turning the sky red across the full horizon of the west-texas
prairie. Her first sunrise.

She was born and raised in a city. She could watch it get light and dark,
but she could not see this. She could not see this in the city of her
birth, Tokyo, in the land of the rising sun.

Davis mountains

Twelve clocks to reset. In this small space? That's ridiculous. If either
of us wore a watch, the count would be fourteen. Wait! I didn't count the
dash radio in the motorhome. That's fifteen. Really, we don't look at the
clock that much.

Oops. Forgot about the printer. Sixteen. It's also a fax machine. Faxes
always have a time stamp. I never look at the time clock in the printer,
but I could set it if I wanted...

Pecos

Saw a few birds today. Several sandhill crane flyovers. Collared dove,
white winged dove, roadrunner, say's phoebe. We've been watching for
Chihuahuan Ravens. Seen common ravens all day, but not the Chihuahuan yet.

Pecos

And the shrike. Loggerhead shrike.

-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Taylor [mailto:spt@thetaylorcompany.net]
Sent: Friday, December 23, 2005 11:41 PM
To: Bill Taylor (E-mail); David Taylor (E-mail); Tom Taylor (E-mail)
Subject: pecos

Saw a few birds today. Several sandhill crane flyovers. Collared dove,
white winged dove, roadrunner, say's phoebe. We've been watching for
Chihuahuan Ravens. Seen common ravens all day, but not the Chihuahuan yet.

Pecos

We drove from mountain time to central time today. We'll be in the central
time zone for a while, so we change all the clocks. How hard could that be?
The cell phones change themselves. I changed the clock in Aladdin, the
motorhome information center, while driving. Then we have the travel alarm,
two palm pilots, the microwave, car clock in the Jeep, Judy's computer, my
computer, coffeepot. That's eleven clocks to change. No way there could be
twelve. We must have got them all.

Oops. The Bose radio. Twelve. I haven't figured out if there is anything
to change in the television, satellite box, VCR, or DVD player yet.

Pecos

Friday. Gone from Las Vegas. Gone from New Mexico. Job done. Last job in
New Mexico. Last job for the year. Headed south. A full tank of fuel, and
south for the Montezuma quail. That's right, we're back on the trail of the
quail again. US Highway 285, a very familiar north/south highway in
Colorado. We pick it up south of Las Vegas and follow it through Roswell,
Artesia, and Carlsbad, to Pecos, Texas. A very windy day from the west. We
spent all day steering to the right. Done for the day, stopped early for
the night.

It's a very warm drive, driving south in the fishbowl. Much as we love
Imax, our one-piece windshield, it's a lot like boiling in a fishbowl in the
sun, driving south on a sunny day. We have drop down sun visors and air
conditioning, so it's not like we're suffering, just making accommodations
for the solar gain.

Tomorrow morning we'll be off early for the remaining seventy-five miles to
our target destination, Davis Mountains State Park. The Davis mountains,
named after Jefferson Davis, constitute the most extensive mountain range in
Texas. The State Park, where the target quail live, is just outside Fort
Davis, south of Interstate 10. Montezuma quail. Uncommon in arid
grasslands mixed with oak trees. We'll do quail and football-on-television
at the state park until we get done with both.

Bosque

Sandhills in the sunset.

Bosque

Bosque sunset.

Bosque

A few sandhill cranes.

Bosque

A few snow geese. You'll have to imagine the noise.

Bosque

A close coyote encounter on the bosque refuge.

Bosque

One hot hooded merganser.

Faywood

High desert scenery at the City of Rocks State Park.

Faywood

A finch tree.

Faywood

The Faywood quail.

Las vegas

The Montezuma Quail remains the target bird. We're just not moving in the
direction of the target. We've moved north to Las Vegas, New Mexico. We
got here by back roads, rolling down the two-lanes. No traffic. We found
Highway 60 across New Mexico is a lot like Highway 50 across Nevada. Maybe
the "loneliest road in New Mexico."

This week's target, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Las Vegas. Next week's
target, the Montezuma Quail.

Bosque

Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday to me. Finally, I get to be sixty.
Seems like a long time coming.

I got to do anything I wanted today, and Judy had to be nice to me all day.

We left Faywood and headed north to San Antonio, New Mexico. Birdwatcher's
RV Park, just outside Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. I got to
spend the afternoon with ten thousand sandhill cranes and thirty thousand
snow geese. A very noisy settling down for the evening. Altogether, thirty
different birds today. The hooded merganser was special. Peregrine falcon,
and more of my gambel's quail. A marsh wren. A spotted towhee.

A good day.

Faywood

A tough decision, not going to get the Montezuma quail, but a good decision.
We would have been pressed for time, going all the way down into West Texas,
then back to Northern New Mexico for our client by Wednesday. We don't want
to hurry from place to place, we want to take our time. We're here at
Faywood Hot Springs, taking our time. Taking our time, and counting birds.
This is a very birdy place, here, and nearby City of Rocks State Park.

Kestrel, gambel's quail, white winged and mourning doves, roadrunner, ladder
backed woodpecker, loggerhead shrike, raven, verdin, rock bewick's and house
wrens, ruby crowned kinglet, curve billed and crissal thrashers, green
tailed and canyon towhees, chipping black- throated song and white crowned
sparrows, dark eyed junco, house finch, and house sparrow.

It's a very busy place.

Faywood

The sunsets here are so much more sedate.

Faywood

South from Albuquerque to Las Cruces. There, at lunch, a difficult
decision. Continue southeast to Davis Mountains State Park in Texas for a
long day and the Montezuma quail, or hang a right for an early stop at
Faywood Hot Springs. We went right. Sixty-degree air. Hundred six-degree
pools. It was a good afternoon.

The campground here is a little tight for us. We might not have come in if
we had scouted it first in the Jeep. We made it in without adding any marks
to the outside of the rig though, and I feel safe now until it's time to
move it to leave.

Not many raptors today. We did get to see some nice flocks of sandhill
cranes in the air, and a few on the ground. White crowned sparrows, house
finches, white-winged doves, curve billed thrashers, and road runners.

I learned more about those fakey trees at the top of Monument Hill. Termini
tells me they're called Frankenpine. Cellphone towers camouflaged as trees.
Yeah. Right. Can hardly tell them from the real thing.

I'm pleased to report that I also got a rise out of him with my smart aleck
comment about the Buffalo Bills. Termini happens to live in Buffalo.

Albuquerque

Then, it's back to the land of the high desert sunsets.

Colorado springs

The first night out. A cold look at a full moon rising.

Albuquerque

An uneventful day. An easy drive down Interstate 25 to the middle of New
Mexico: Albuquerque. It was a good raptor day: a golden eagle, two
swainson's hawks, and many red-tailed hawks. Saw a falcon fly over tonight,
probably a prairie falcon.

Have you ever noticed that some of the trees at the top of Monument Hill
aren't really trees? They stand out over the top of the forest. They look
like trees, but if you look carefully, you can see they're full of antennae.
I can't really look too carefully as I'm driving past, it's not a place to
pull over. Military monitoring devices I suppose.

The Montezuma quail. Only lives in a few places in Arizona and Southwest
Texas. Secretive. Prefers grassy oak woodlands. Sits motionless when
alarmed. How hard could that be to find? Sounds like a slam-dunk bird to
me. Here is a picture (I didn't take) of what it looks like.

Looking forward to a football game tomorrow: the Broncos at the Bills. The
Bills have hardly won anything this year, so that should be a really easy
win for the Broncos..... unless maybe something totally unexpected happens,
like it's cold in Buffalo or the weather is bad. But, hey, what are the
chances? C'mon Broncos. Let's see that offense this week.

Today's crockpot torture: beef stew.

Thursday

What I really like about these big pusher motorhomes is that there is so
little to go wrong with the motor. They are very simple and reliable. It's
the same motor the over the road truckers use, a million mile motor. We
have 10,000 miles on ours.

That's how many miles on ours when it lost power. Cruising down the freeway
at sixty-five miles an hour and we lose power. Wait! We have 990,000 miles
to go!

It happened gradually, the power loss, just after crossing Monument Hill.
It didn't sputter or blow smoke like a fuel problem would. It just wouldn't
go when I pressed on the accelerator, like we had a governor, like a
computer needed to be reset or something. We pulled over at the next exit
to a truck stop. We let it sit for a few minutes and fired it back up.
Perfect. So off we went again. Until the north side of Colorado Springs.
Loss of power. We pulled off on the shoulder and called for help. We have
a 24-hour service line to Monaco (who owns Beaver Coach). They found a
repair shop for us on the south side of Colorado Springs. They told me if
we could get there, they could look at it tomorrow and we couldn't stay in
the coach on their property.

We limped there. Judy went inside to talk to them. They said they'd get to
us as soon as they could, and in the meantime we could park in the next lot,
put our slides out, and stay there as long as we needed to. Things always
get better after Judy goes in to talk to people.

They got to us by one o'clock.

We were done by dark, drove a few more miles south, and hooked up for the
night at the KOA. A ninety-mile day. The problem didn't have anything to
do with the engine. It's a Caterpillar C9. It's not going to break down at
10,000 miles. A duct in the air cleaner system had come loose. Sensors
detected conditions they didn't like and powered down the turbo. When we
pulled over and shut it off, the abnormal conditions went away, the sensors
relaxed, and everything would work fine again until the sensors realized
there was a problem again. We were parked stern-into-the-wind during that
last storm in Golden. Maybe the hurricane force wind blew it apart. At any
rate, an easy fix.

We're set to continue on our way tomorrow morning. Two temperature zones
south, to West Texas and Montezuma Quail.

Wednesday

Enough of the deep freeze and record-breaking mountain snow. Tomorrow
morning we're off in search of warmer weather and the elusive Montezuma
Quail. We're not through with work for the year yet. One more job, a week
from now, in Las Vegas, New Mexico. We could lurk in Golden, a day north,
until then, or we could drive down to West Texas and lurk there, a day's
drive south our client. Our motorhome has been in Golden for a month.
We're back to single digit weather here. We're headed two temperature zones
south.

And that's where the Montezuma Quail are: West Texas. Not many people get
to see Montezuma Quail. They aren't very many places, but they're in West
Texas. I looked them up on the internet. We'll pop down to West Texas,
pick off the Montezuma Quail, then back to New Mexico for the job. How hard
could it be?

Golden

Know how big trucks have those backup alarms that go beep beep beep when
they're in reverse? Some motorhomes have them too. Ours has one in fact.
I don't think it's necessary. I think everyone around knows when I'm
backing up. I think the alarm is unnecessary, but I didn't get to decide
whether they put it on our rig or not. I don't think anyone else did
either.

What brought this up, is the first night we were here. Weather permitting,
we generally sleep with the window open next to my head. That night, before
dawn, I awoke to the beep beep beep sound of a large motorhome backing up.
It's not uncommon to hear someone start and leave before dawn. It was
taking this guy a while to get going, so I just reached over, closed the
window and went back to sleep..... kind of. I could still hear it. It
seemed like it would get fainter, so I knew he was really leaving, but then
it seemed like it was louder again. This guy was taking forever to get out
of there. Finally, after a very long time, I got up to see what he was up
to. I walked out into the living room, figured out the alarm on the Bose
radio was going beep, beep, beep, turned it off and went back to sleep. I
have no idea how the alarm got triggered. We never use the Bose radio for
its travel alarm. Guess it just jiggled on while we were driving the day
before.

More mysteries of life on the road.

Football

Football is a stupid game. The Broncos won, and it's still a stupid game.
Twelve to ten. What a win.

Golden

No more cold weather. No more January weather in December. We're set for
highs in the forties, lows in the twenties. We got through that deep
freeze. Some people here had a lot of trouble with things freezing up. Our
pipes never froze up completely. We had a few faucets that didn't work in
the morning a couple times, but they each thawed out later in the day. No
damage. We did go through a lot of diesel fuel to keep warm. The furnaces
ran nonstop when the temperatures were single digit or lower. We used sixty
gallons of diesel over a period of three weeks for the furnaces and had to
drive across the street to the gas station to refuel.

Golden

It warmed up today, all the way to freezing. The low tonight is only going
to be nine degrees, but that's twenty degrees warmer than last night.

It's Judy's birthday today, she gets to do anything she wants, and I have to
be nice to her for the WHOLE DAY!

Winter

Winter

Last night's low, ten below. We were one of the few RVs in the park that
had any water at all. We had cold water in the bathroom sink and hot water
in the kitchen sink. Nothing in-between. As we warmed up to zero during
the day, all the water came back on.

Another cold one tonight, then we're supposed to warm all the way back up to
freezing.

Winter

_____________________________________________
From: Steve Taylor [mailto:spt@thetaylorcompany.net]
Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2005 10:08 PM
To: Bill Taylor (E-mail); David Taylor (E-mail); Tom Taylor (E-mail)
Subject: winter

Annie loves the cold and snow. She dashes outside, puts her face in the
snow, then runs as fast as she can, a furry snowplow, snorting. She jumps
to catch any snowball tossed, then stops cold, so to speak, when she
suddenly discovers that her feet hurt and she can't go on. Until the next
time out.

Winter living

We don't leave all the utilities hooked up all the time. The electricity
stays hooked up. This range of weather does not affect it. The dump hose
can only stay hooked up if it can be configured at a constant slope between
the rig and the hole in the ground. If there are dips and turns that could
freeze solid, can't do it. The hose would burst. We have the constant
slope configuration here, so the dump hose for gray water stays. The fresh
water hose is different. Cold like this would freeze it solid any time
water is not flowing.

Last year, we had a sub-zero hose made. It is a small diameter hose,
wrapped in heat tape, surrounded by layers of insulation. The park spigot
outside is wrapped in heat tape and plugged in. The sub-zero hose to the
rig is plugged in to the motorhome. The flow isn't high, but water flows
all winter. We had one made last year. It worked, but it was stiff and
hard to work with. It was bulky to store, and allowed us to stay in
conditions we don't really want to be in anyway. This year we gave it away
to a young couple just setting up to spend the winter here. We mean to stay
farther south during weather like this.

This year, we put fresh water in the tank, then disconnect and drain the
hose. Plenty of water to run off the tank and top it off once a day. That
works fine, and the daily task will be our reminder to move to warmer
weather.

Most motorhomes run off propane forced air furnaces. Ours, running off a
diesel burner, is different. It heats the house and the hot water all at
once. The advantage is that we don't have to move the motorhome to go get
the propane tank refilled once or twice a week during cold weather. The
offset is that this system can heat either the hot water, or the furnace,
but not both at the same time. So when it's cold and the furnaces are
running, and you take a shower, the system shifts all its energy to
providing hot water to the shower and the furnaces stop blowing until you
finish. In really cold weather like this, we find a portable electric
heater in the bathroom takes care of that.

I was roaming through the house to make sure all the heat was working
properly and discovered the heater vent in the bedroom wasn't putting out
any heat. I lifted up the bedspread to discover there was a cat lying in
front of it, sucking up every bit of heat that blew out.

Weather

So far so good. Ice-cold outside. Forty-five degrees in the basement.
Toasty seventy-two degrees inside.

Revised forecast: seven below tonight. I guess we want to know if we stay
warm and the pipes all work in cold weather..., but seven below? I think
it's time to head south soon.

Golden

Dressed up for the holidays.

Golden

The wind storm is over. Now it's six degrees and snowing lightly. Much
nicer than the wind storm.

As far as we know, we did not sustain any wind damage. The data dish is
back up and functioning. It doesn't appear that any pieces blew off the
outside of the motorhome or any slide awnings ripped. They flapped and
buzzed and roared, but they didn't rip.

Some friends here had their door yanked out of their hands and twisted by
the wind. Other people froze up and couldn't get in or out and had to break
things. Some people's water systems froze and broke overnight. Giant brown
icicles under their rigs. Yuk.

The windstorm was rough on some of the fifth wheel trailers. It made them
creep until the jacks bent or broke. Fifth wheel trailers are not as heavy
as motorhomes.

Life on the road.

Golden

Some are beat up.

Golden

Some are us.

Golden

Dressed up for the Bronco game.

Golden

Seven pm. The wind stopped. What a relief! Now we just have single digit
cold on the way.

Golden

Some are accountant's gray.

Golden

Some are painted fancy.

Golden

Some are not.

Golden

Some are elegant.

Golden

Some have portholes.

Golden

The wind hit with a fury at 3:30 this morning. The first burst knocked some
accumulated ice loose, like someone pouring out a large bag of ice cubes
onto the roof; they rattled and scattered all the way to the front of the
motorhome and off. The internet dish wouldn't stow, it was still locked in
ice. After being buffeted by the windstorm, it broke loose enough to put
itself out of harm's way. I was happy to hear that final clunk, indicating
it was flat on the roof. There was so much noise, I couldn't tell if the
dish had already been ripped off and blown away. It's down now, but no
telling how much it got torqued in the meantime. I'll find out under calmer
conditions.

Eighty-mile an hour winds in Golden. Close to a hundred nearby. It was a
very rough night. The rig bounced and rolled like a boat. I liked the
motion for a while, kind of like being on a boat at anchor except for the
noise.

Usually when the wind blows from the west it gets warm. This time it warmed
up from the teens to the twenties. Temperature in the twenties and eighty
mile an hour winds. Wonder what the wind chill is on that.

No letup all day. It is so hard to go out the door, I have to go out first
and hold it so Judy can go in and out. Enough wind to cause damage.

The high wind warning is supposed to expire at six o'clock. It's ten
minutes till six. We're ready.

Today my throat feels like I've been yelling at the television or something.

Motorhomes

There are lots of different rigs.

Some are shiny.

Golden

You know we were there. You know it's coming. The many faces of Sopris.

This trip's view of Mt. Sopris.

Football

Sunday football. Denver Kansas City. A home game for Kansas City. Nobody
beats Kansas City in Kansas City.

Football is a stupid game. I hate football.

Golden

Know how, when you're camping, and it gets quiet at night, and then some
dogs start barking off in the distance, and it goes on and on, and you can't
fall asleep because it's so irritating, and then you discover that it's not
dogs barking, it is a whole flock of Canada geese, and suddenly it's nature
not an annoyance, and everything is okay? Does that ever happen to you?

I struggled with a smell/fragrance/odor/annoyance in the motel in
Carbondale. I just couldn't place it. Something faint, but sharp. Just
the occasional waft. I couldn't locate the source. Something slightly
burnt, but subtle. I tried for days. It only hit me when I was sitting
quietly, working at my computer. It never happened in the other room.

It made me crazy. It wasn't the fridge. It wasn't the sink. It wasn't the
microwave. I just couldn't figure it out. Then, Friday morning, the
epiphany. It appeared in a different room. At the same time as the
fragrance appeared in a different room, the ziplock bag of coffee beans
appeared as well. Coffee beans! Not our normal coffee beans, but some
particularly strong espresso coffee beans. I love that coffee. Problem
gone.

Golden

Another can't lose football day, Saturday. Texas and Colorado. That didn't
go well. We could pretend we were rooting for Texas all along, but really,
we were rooting for Colorado. Took a while to figure out what went wrong.
Went outside at halftime and discovered we had hung the CU flag backwards.
That must have made it the sign of the devil, the anti-CU, or something,
because CU just got creamed. Creamed doesn't describe it. Words don't
describe it. Sorry CU, for getting the flag backwards.

Got Rags back from the cat spa today. Now we're all back together.

Golden

Saturday. A long drive last night, but a productive one. We drove through
a little bit of a mess on Vail Pass, then a bigger mess at the Eisenhower
Tunnel, but we made it back to the front range between storms. That was the
best possible time to get through.

Very happy to be home, to our motorhome. Wherever the motorhome is, it's so
much nicer than a hotel room.

Home in time for the Company Christmas party.

Carbondale

Happy Friday. Job done today, mostly, a little follow-up next week, but we
won't have to be here for that. Then, the escape from the high country.
Even with the late start, after lunch, we bailed on the motel and headed
east. The snow has really only been flurrying here in Carbondale all week.
No problem driving here. We expect to encounter our winter challenges on
the road over Vail Pass and at the Eisenhower tunnel. The whole time it has
been flurrying here, they've been calling it winter storms for the high
mountains and ski areas. Four-wheel drive Jeep, antilock brakes, new tires.
I don't think we could be better equipped.

We could lurk and wait for a break in the weather, but we don't want to miss
the company Christmas party on Saturday. Better head back now.

Carbondale

It was a long commute to work. Up early, check out of the hotel; drive the
seventy miles, through Glenwood Springs, Glenwood Canyon, past Gypsum,
Eagle, Edwards, Beaver Creek, and Avon, to relocate to Vail for the next
job. Five minutes before nine, call the client for final approach
instructions. The response... Vail?

Plan B. He's in Aspen. Drive back to Carbondale, check back into the
hotel, have a quick lunch, make the thirty mile drive to Aspen, and I'm
there by one. Got in a good half-day's work today, plus a surprise two
hundred mile drive through the winter wonderland. We'll still be able to
wrap it up tomorrow.