Wanderung 3

Rocky Mountain Ramble

May - July 2003

June 27th - Castle Rock, Colorado

Refreshed and raring to go, we had a quick breakfast of cold cereal before driving down the mountain at sunrise to Colorado Springs and then north on I-25 about 40 miles to Castle Rock.

The morning walk started in the community center and led us over to Castle Rock and then all the way around it in a very wide loop.

It was nice to get different perspectives on the rock formation—from some angles the rock was in shadow while from other angles it was in full sun, and that made quite a difference on how it looked. On the way back we also passed thru what I think is the main street of the town of Castle Rock, but it was so small that I wasn’t quite sure. Still, what was there was nice and we had a very pleasant walk in the brilliant sunshine and clear blue sky of the high plains.

After getting our record books stamped, we jumped back into the truck and drove back to Colorado Springs with all due deliberate speed. We wanted to attend a 10 o’clock seminar on selecting shoes for walking, but despite hurrying we were a half hour late. Still, we found out that several brands of socks were now made with moisture wicking properties that seem to help prevent blisters—she recommended a brand called “Ingenious”. She also discussed arch support in detail, a topic dear to my heart, and showed a brand called “Smart Feet” (? I think) that came in green and purple shades depending on whether you wanted to put it on top of your shoe’s inner sole or replace it with the insert. You might not think these topics are enthralling but if you spend 2-4 hours every day walking, preventing blisters and plain old aching feet takes on a new significance.

We also attended the following seminar on nutrition for walking, and the speaker was very funny as well as scientifically sound in his recommendations. He cited Dr. Bob Arnett’s books on nutrition as being very sound, and discussed the basic principles of eating protein and quick versus slow digesting carbohydrates depending on the planned activity two hours or more after the meal. This interesting approach to nutrition emphasized blood sugar regulation and used the scientific knowledge about digestion to get the desired results with the body. Fascinating. It would be nice if psychology would be at the same state of development so we could give recommendations to regulate psychological states that would work reliably for almost everyone. That might be difficult if there is inherently more variability in psychological processes than in physiological processes, but it shouldn’t be impossible if we can get the science right.

The afternoon was taken up with a fund-raising auction and the final business meeting of the conference. I was quite interested to see “auction fever” take place during this auction even though it was run by an amateur auctioneer. Two women bid up the price on an animated bear doll that danced and sang “Buffalo Girls Won’t You Come Out Tonight” to $250.00, which was way more than it would be worth to any sane person. I bought a similar kind of singing/dancing hamster for Martin’s graduation for under $20, so the bids were at least 10 times the market value of the thing. Other things like the hand-blown blue glass vase or a hand-made decorative quilt were really 1-of-a-kind pieces of art that are far more difficult to price, and we weren’t surprised to see those items bid up into the hundreds and even thousands of dollars.

After the excitement of the auction, I thought the business meeting would be as boring as convention business meetings typically are, but boy was I wrong. Even the invariably tedious and excruciatingly boring process of amending the bylaws was tense with suspense and emotion. The first amendment had vociferous comments for and against, and when they took the votes of the club delegates it was a 97 to 97 tie! Given a tie vote, the amendment failed, but they later found that two of the vote counters had been counting the same block of delegates! The supporters of the first amendment immediately pushed for a recount—a motion was made and seconded to go back and take another vote. The vote on whether to do a re-vote was 143 in favor and 73 against, but because this was a change of procedure it required a 2/3 majority to pass and just barely failed! So the original flawed vote was allowed to stand as the final decision. Can you imagine that? It was democracy in action, with all its warts and pimples. What drama! What skullduggery! What a load of B.S. known popularly as Robert’s Rules of Order! There was similarly impassioned discussion and voting on even the most trivial of issues, like whether the state Volksmarching associations should pay annual dues or not. I mean, this was better than Judge Judy on TV, and even better than the live auction.

But tempers cooled after the bylaw decisions were made and Nancy, the President, started distributing service awards, which put everyone in a positive frame of mind. She turned over the reins to the incoming president for the next biennium, and everyone expressed their appreciation of her term in office. Finally the military color guard re-entered and picked up the U.S. and Colorado state flags with all appropriate pomp and circumstance. We said good-bye to Charlene and Gary and drove back up the mountain to our campground for the night. After dinner I worked on the journal a bit while Monika built our evening fire, so we both had a relaxed evening after an unexpectedly exciting day.

Copyright 2004 by Robert W. Holt and Elsbeth Monika Holt
Prolog Map Epilog

May 2003
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June 2003
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July 2003
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