Wallace has sent us a link to his pictures taken when he was here with Jen, Matt, Jewls and Ted (who lives here.) He does an excellent job and his pictures are much more artistic and interesting than mine ever are. You can probably figure out where everything is from my report on our weekend. He took pictures of the house, when Jay and I went to Colorado Springs to pick up Jewls and Matt. You can see that I have not conquered the “clutter bug” yet. Enjoy the pictures.

Ted has a new job. He is working for a forestry company, just down the road from our house (10 miles or so). They build rustic furniture, cabins, mill wood, and also work out in the forests culling trees. So far he is helping build their new show room. The work is outdoors, he now has steel tipped boots, takes his lunch to work, and comes home dirty. Today was his third day. It will be nice if he can learn some construction or woodworking skills before he goes into the Navy. That kind of thing can always be useful.

We had our first frost last night. We will probably have more again tonight. Fall is on its way, at least here at 9800 feet elevation.

Well, the questions that I have been repeatedly asked: Are there Jews in Westcliffe?, and How far do you have to go to find a synagogue?, have been answered. Yes, there are Jews in Westcliffe, not many, but some and 55 minutes to get to the synagogue that we have chosen to join.

I started searching for synagogues seriously the week before our 35th wedding anniversary, Sept. 3rd. There are four synagogues within reasonable driving distance of Westcliffe, one in Colorado Springs, three in Pueblo. I tried to send an email to all of them. The only one that responded to my email was Congregation B’nai Or. Actually, the Rabbi was the one to respond, it was his email address on the listing. We sent several emails back and forth, as you can imagine, I had a lot of questions. Rabbi Shatzka patiently answered my questions and when asked about guest fees for High Holy Day services replied, ” If you decide to come to our High Holy Days Services you should tithe according to the value you have derived from your experience.” Well, you can imagine that this response was intriguing. Jay and I attended the next Shabbat service.

B ‘nai Or is an Egalitarian Jewish Renewal congregation, using the Reconstructionist prayerbook (siddur). The Rabbi said services were musical and he wasn’t kidding. The sanctuary has chairs arranged in a circle, there are microphones for key singers, amplifiers, electric acoustic guitar (played by the Rabbi), drums, tambourines, cymbals, etc. No back rows in this service. The melodies are varied: Chasidic, contemporary, Sephardic, Ashkenazi, even Jamaican. While the prayers are mostly familiar, the melodies rarely are, but they are easy enough to catch on to and everyone sings, many people make music with the instruments. The service is interactive, with the Rabbi stopping to make a point, or tell a story, or teach a little Torah, asking for individual input, then continuing on. There is a lot of emphasis on spirituality and making Judaism meaningful to you, and you meaningful to God and the community. There is a lot of Chasidic influence and flavor to the teaching and the service, but no pressure to change how you practice Judaism. It is a very accepting group, and we got hugs as we left after services and were invited back.

Rosh Hashanah, first day, was more of the same, although the melodies were different, as they are in all other synagogues for High Holy Days. But second day Rosh Hashanah was held outdoors, in the mountains of Westcliffe, at the home of one of the congregants. We sat in a circle around the unlit firepit, the music was just drums this day, and appreciated the beauty of the day and of the world God had created. While sitting in the circle, Jay saw a large male deer with a 5+ rack, pass by. I think he was the only one to see it, he tried to point it out to me, but I didn’t catch sight of it. After services, we shared a pot luck lunch, still around the fire pit, and then had Torah study. We wrapped everything up around 5:30 pm. The attached pictures show the circle, Rabbi Shatzka, and getting things set up. That’s me in the white hat. I was glad to have it, sitting outside in the sun.

Rabbi has taken an interest in Jay and invited Jay to go up into the Sangre de Cristo mountains with him on the Sunday morning after Rosh Hashanah. Rabbi took Jay to see the glacier lake at the top of the mountain. Afterwards, they came back to the house for a visit. Rabbi keeps loaning us books to read that he thinks Jay will find interesting. So far he has been right, they have been interesting.

Yom Kippur was similar. It was difficult for me during the Yizkor service, where we remember those who have died in the previous year. This year I had my Dad to remember and pray for, as well as a very good friend from Arlington, David Feld, who had died just the night before on the eve of Yom Kippur. I tend to be a watering pot under the best of situations, and this was no exception. However, we are now considered part of the group and no longer new. We get hugs and warm welcomes and really enjoy the music and participatory services. I think we will really like this Jewish Renewal Congregation. If you are interested in learning more about Renewal Congregations, just google it… there is a lot to learn.

On our way back home from a community meeting on upcoming tax issues, I learned the following things about Jay’s Land Rover.

1) The tires have an internal sensor which show the air pressure of the tires.

2) The headlights follow the direction of the steering wheel. As the wheel is turned the headlights move independently of the car, you can actually track the movement of the headlights even with small turns of the steering wheel.

3) The GPS system gives the longitude, latitude and elevation above sa level.

When I wrote about the weekend with the kids, I mentioned that Jay drove to Denver with Wallace and Jen, so they could all catch flights. I didn’t say where Jay was going, did anyone catch that? He went to Chicago to pick up his replacement car for the Land Rover that burned up. After much research, he decided that another Land Rover LR3 was what he wanted. We have another set of tires and rims after all, and trailer hitch, etc, and it is a great car for our type of roads and driving. He bought it on Ebay from a Honda dealer. It is another 2005, but with less mileage than his original one, and he got a good deal. The dealer also payed for his airfare. See picture below. Jay promised that if this one burned up, he wasn’t going to buy a third.
We got Ted’s car back from the body shop the same day Jay arrived with his LR3. Since the car is so old, we just wanted it legal and safe to drive on CO roads. Hence, the replacement bumper is blue, not forest green, but the lights work which is what we needed. See picture below.

Yesterday, Sept. 17th, was a rainy day. The clouds never left the tops of the Sangres de Cristo mountains, even when the sun came out briefly in the late afternoon. This morning we woke up to a brilliant day and snow capping some of the Sangres. You can see in the picture from the living room through the atrium windows, that not all of the mountains are snow capped. As I write this afternoon, the snow remains only in crevices on north facing aspects, the CO sun has done its job. Fall is almost here.

Before my dad got sick, we had arranged for the kids to all fly into CO on the same weekend. Wallace and Jen flew into Denver on Friday morning, rented a car and drove down. Fortunately, Wallace was able to rent a suburban with seating for 7, so we could all ride together. Remember the burned up Land Rover? Julia and Matt arrived at 9:15 pm in Colorado Springs. By the time we stopped at Sonic for food and drove home, it was midnight and time for bed. Everyone was tired.
Saturday, after breakfast we drove south on Hwy 69 to Mission Wolf in southern Custer County. We arrived around noon, and were greeted by four volunteers (from Germany, France, Belgium, and Slovakia?). We were told we were just in time for their big feed of the week and asked if anyone wanted to help feed the wolves fresh horse meat. We said ok and were taken behind the scenes to throw fresh meat to the resident wolves. Each wolf /pair had their own bucket with raw horse meat, usually with bones. The rest of the time they are fed cooked meat and kibble. I had the misfortune of being the first to try the throw, but I missed and the meat got caught in the fencing, a big no-no. That was my last attempt. But Wallace and Ted were the troopers and did a great job of chucking the meat pieces. After the feeding, we washed up, got the basic tour and then had our picnic lunch.

We left Mission Wolf and drove the back roads through the National Forest to Bishop’s Castle. Wallace did a great job driving over the rough, curvy dirt roads. Bishop’s Castle is one man’s project and is a free tourist attraction, on all of the road maps. Mr. Bishop is eccentric to say the least, but his castle is impressive. He was working on his moat the day we arrived. His family business is metal work and he welded all of the walkways, laid all of the stones, everything by himself. Jay and Jen got all the way to the top of the tallest spire, not everyone was that brave. It is a sight to behold. Note Matt and Wallace in bottom right corner of first photo.

After finishing our exploration of the Castle, we had some snacks and then headed north to Canyon City to visit Walmart. We picked up some prescriptions at the pharmacy and more bottles of water. Due to the altitude and the low humidity it is important to drink lots of water, to prevent altitude sickness. We then headed west out of Canyon City to see the Royal Gorge Bridge. It is the highest suspension bridge in the world or the United States?

We continued west to Highway 69 and headed south to Westcliffe. We had made a rather curvy loop and had dinner at a restaurant in Westcliffe. Wallace, Jen, Jay and Matt all had buffalo burgers, Julia and I had fish. The food was cooked on a grill on the patio. The general consensus was the food was good and worth a second visit, even though we had to send some of the meals back for more time on the grill. Lesson learned: come early when the chef can see the food on the grill, not when it is dark out. It was a long day, everyone was tired when we got home, but we had seen a lot of cool stuff.

Sunday we headed back to Canyon City to ride the Royal Gorge Train under the bridge, along the Arkansas River. The Arkansas River has class 4 & 5 rapids, as well as the smaller ones. Julia and Jen both stated they want to come back in the summer to ride the rapids. Apparently, Jen is an expert at running rapids, having survived (and enjoyed) 4+ rapids elsewhere. Wallace thought he’d like to come back to ski. Matt was interested in skiing as well, never having had the opportunity. On the ride out of the station, we stood in an open air car to get the best views. On the way back, a few of us chose to ride in the coach. Matt took a lot of pictures with Jay’s camera, and subsequently wasn’t in many pictures on the train.

After the train, we had lunch at a Chinese restaurant that Jay and I like, then headed back to Westcliffe. We stopped at the Westcliffe Market for ingredients for our dinner, Mom’s Mexican dinner, and S’mores. Julia, Ted and I gathered firewood before it got dark, so we would be ready. Wallace and Matt got the fire started after dinner and Ted donated hangers from his closet. Julia organized all the ingredients for the S’mores so there were no lost marshmallows. Everyone had a chance to set a marshmallow on fire and have as much dessert as they wanted. Note the jackets, it’s cool at night in the mountains.

Monday, was a slow morning packing and getting ready to leave. I drove into Westcliffe to check in for the first morning of the Women’s morning bowling league I joined. The league is the Gutter Hussies. I found out that I was on a team with the president of the local quilt guild and her mother. I didn’t stay to bowl, just checked in. We drove two cars to Colorado Springs and had lunch together at Quizno’s. Wallace and Jen (and Jay) drove on to Denver to catch flights and I drove Matt and Julia to the Colorado Springs airport to see if they could get on an earlier flight. We hadn’t watched enough news and didn’t know that Dallas/ Fort Worth was having torrential rains and the airport had been closed to incoming and outgoing flights. There were long lines and everyone from the one and three o’clock flights were being reticketed for Tuesday morning. However, the 5:30 flight had not been cancelled, but was delayed until 7:10. The kids got their boarding passes and we left to shop at Sam’s Club, for movies and dog biscuits. When we got back to the airport, we watched a movie on Julia’s laptop, until it was time to board the flight. I didn’t want to go home and then find out the flight had been cancelled after all. Fortunately, everyone made it home on the same day that they planned and were able to go to work on Tuesday morning. It was a quiet ride home with just Ted and I and a quiet house, after a house full.

It was a good weekend. We love you guys, come back any time. Thank you to Julia and Jay for the photos. If anyone wants to post their thoughts of the weekend, or more pictures, we’d like to see it.

We had a lot of car issues in August. First my 2005 Tahoe continued to have problems with one of the rear tires losing air and on his way to get it fixed again, Jay actually had a flat tire! a different tire. So he ended up getting four new tires, with an extra deep tread, for driving on dirt and rocky roads. Happy early Anniversary to us!

Then August 11th, the evening after my dad died, Jay had excitement with his 2005 Land Rover. He called me the next morning and told me his car had burned up the night before. I thought he was kidding with me and didn’t want to believe him until I saw the pictures. He’d come back from picking up a pizza for dinner and as soon as he came into the house, he noted a peculiar smell and started searching. He noted smoke coming from the front of his car and thought a radiator hose had a leak and it was steam. It wasn’t, the engine was on fire. When the fire extinguisher didn’t do anything, he grabbed the phone, called 911, grabbed the hose and started to protect the house and tried to put out the fire. It didn’t help. The Land Rover’s use magnesium in their engines and once it started, there was nothing to do but let it burn itself out and protect the house. Two fire trucks responded to the call and immediately started foaming the house, rather than addressing the blazing car. It was parked right in front of the wooden porch. Eventually they were able to drag it further from the house, but the white hot fire (from the magnesium) caused mini explosions of glass and metal across the yard and the porch. Jay wrote a letter to the editor, thanking the firemen for their diligence and help. Needless to say, the pictures and the story of the car burning up, was a bright spot in the day and everyone enjoyed hearing the story over and over. The arson inspector who came out to see the car found the problem within 3 minutes of searching. The part that sends the gasoline into the engine cracked and continued to spew gasoline onto the hot engine… whoosh! State Farm settled the claim as no fault of Jay’s and will go after the manufacturer of the part and Land Rover to get their money back. So we were currently down to one car… and Ted’s.

Then after we returned from my Dad’s memorial service, Ted was coming home the morning of Aug 31st and hit a deer. We weren’t there, and he said the deer ran away, but it did significant damage to the 1999 Explorer. It is drivable, but both headlights are broken. It is now down at the shop, and we are truly down to one car. The car was so old, that we are just getting the work done which will make the car safe to drive and meet the public safety standards. The dents will have to stay. We hope to get the car back next week.

August was not a good month for Printz cars in Colorado. Seeing is believing.

Ted and Grandpa 6 days before he went into the hospital on July 14th

Moving from Hospice into Joe’s home on July 28th. Dad and me, Joe and Mom, second row, bringing up the rear(in the shadows), my sister Mary Beth Notice a family resemblance?

Dad and his Harem in his room at Joe and Janes: Mom, All 6 sisters, daughter in law, Jane, granddaughters, Jenny & Becky, lots of love and lots of attention.

Visitation guest book and great photo of Dad 8-11-07. Guest book was used for visitors at Joe’s home the Saturday and Sunday after Dad’s death, and was also present at the church for the two services and reception.

Our whole family gathered for the Memorial services. The Printz family at the luncheon following the Memorial Mass on 8-25-07

My Mom and siblings after the luncheon (not in chronological order – it’s always a question, sometimes yes, sometimes no, this time no. ) back row: Mary Kay (3), Margaret (7), Mary Beth (5), Laura (8), Barbara (1), Colleen (9). seated: Joe (6), Paul Jr. (2), Mom – Mary Lou, Tom (4)

Paul Doyle will be missed, but his legacy carries on. L’dor v’dor. From Generation to Generation.