Home is where the best...

Breakfast Burritos are and other things.

http://jeffsambur.blogspot.com/2014/08/there-will-never-be.html

As I crossed over the Utah/Colorado border, I heaved out an audible sigh. It felt good to be back in the Centennial State. This is Home and it's more than just a mailing address.

BTW many thanks to nephew Keith for the use of his address. He's the CFO who watches over the "Wandering, Wondering Jew's" huge financial empire while I am on the go. I couldn't do this crazy lifestyle without his help. I owe him.

If there's ever a demand for "WWJ" T-Shirts, coffee mugs or beer holders, I'll get my marketing team (me) to start the production line moving. For my faithful readers, it'll be such a deal! 

Here's last year's thoughts of being back in Colorado.

http://jeffsambur.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-idea-of-home.html

I read the blog over, nothing has changed except now there will be one more family of Sambur's paying state taxes here. Nephew Justin scored a professorship at Colorado State University. Let me be one of the first to welcome J-Man, Deli and Little Max to Paradise. I hope they buy a house with a driveway. It's always nice to plug Barley the Van in for electricity. IPAs taste so much better when they're cold. Reading lights and fresh brewed coffee in the morning are pretty swell too.

So friends and family, I'm looking forward to seeing you. This talking to myself is starting to grow old. (At least I'm not saying "What?") As usual, I'll be looking for folks to play, eat and imbibe with. You know how to find me and right now, I'm not that BUSY!

Here's some photos on why Colorado is more than just the Rockies. 

Cheers and Come on Summer!

Jeff

"Hey Colorado

It was not so long ago

I left your mountains to try life on the road

But I'm tired of that race

It was much too fast a pace

And I think I've found my place

Colorado, I want to come home

Colorado

Is it too late to change my mind

I've done some thinking

And I'm trying hard to find

A way to come back home

Cause I've been so very long alone

Won't you take care of your own

Colorado

I think I'm coming home

I want to come home

Let me come home"

Lyrics by Linda Ronstadt

Belated Flowers for my Mom...

"Don't it always seem to go

You don't know what you got

Till it's gone"

Joni Mitchell

I regret I never gave Clara Sambur flowers on Mother's Day. 

My only excuses are I was too young, clueless and poor at the time. She passed when I was 17. Her final year was spent in and out of hospitals. Mostly in. She died at the age of 52. 

It was a crappy period of my life.

In retrospect, that tiny Viennese born woman (she was 4'11") made a huge impact on me.

Do you like my latch-onto-you-and-hold-on hugs? Thank Clara for that.

Do you like it when I break out into a smile when we make eye contact? Thank Clara for that. 

Do you like the occasional reassuring pats on your back? Thank Clara for that.

Do you like seeing me actually sit still and read a book? Thank Clara for that too.

I'm certain she passed along her gentle genes to me.

http://jeffsambur.blogspot.com/2015/05/i-still-miss_10.html

So Mom, I brought you some pretty flowers. I just wish I could have handed them to you in person. I still love and miss you.

Here's a little advice: Show your Mom you care while you still can. 

Happy Mom's Day!

Say Yo to a Threatened Species...

Meet a Desert Tortoise (Gopherus agassiziiand Gopherus morafkai).  

One would have a greater chance of seeing Sasquatch or Nessie the Loch Ness Monster than one of these units. Besides being rare, they spend 95% of their time in burrows. Out of sight, out of mind. 

I felt blessed to be on the receiving end of this close encounter of the Tortoise kind. 

There numbers have been greatly reduced by the usual suspects: loss of habitat (run over by strip malls, roads and subdivisions),  ATV'ers (run over by motorized vehicles), diseases (infected by pet tortoises released into the wild), and predation (Ravens really do a number on the soft shelled juveniles). 

In other words, it's not easy being green/gray.

In all the years and miles of wandering in the Southwest deserts, this is only the third one I've ever seen.  

However for some reason, this one made the tastiest soup!

Only joking! I would never harm a hair on its thumb sized head. That is if it had hair.

I hope one day you get the opportunity to see a Desert Tortoise. Hanging out with Horace the Tortoise made my day. It should do the same for you.

They live from 50-80 years. They know how to pace themselves. Maybe slow and steady wins the race after all. 

Cheers from Frigid Flagstaff, Arizona 

Jeff

Last photo: the road does go on forever.