Expedition 5280: 11/30/08

Sunday, November 30, 2008

Christmas Tree Hunting

With the addition of William into our lives I wanted to find a Christmas tree farm which would allow us to choose and cut our own tree (which was my family's tradition for many years-actually, my parents STILL follow tradition). I found three such sites and called each one. I thought that I had been discerning in my decision to suggest a site down in Colorado Springs, but was very sadly mistaken. Below, disappointed faces. Stephen had his iphone so we found the listing for Lucky Lure. When I made the initial phone call, the man on the other end was full of cheer- I had hope Christmas could be ushered in properly!

We convinced the group that we had an amazing experience at Lucky Lure last year and that we should head up to Evergreen, CO for our trees. Basically,we drove an hour south for a tree to begin with, were sorely disappointed, drove the hour back to Denver and then an hour up to Evergreen. A lot of work for a tree, but it was fun and the Christmas cheer was well worth the effort!

This 'tree farm' did not have trees that resembled Christmas trees. Actually, it seemed that the owner may be an opportunist! He had trees on his property and was selling them under the guise of being 'Christmas trees'.

The actual business on the property deals with alpacas.

Steve and I have a photo of us here last year- in fact- we re-shot a few photos so William could join us this year.

We missed you Brian and Nel!

If you look back to our photos from this time last year, we had a fantastic time with Brian and Nelisha finding the perfect Christmas tree at Lucky Lure in Evergreen, CO.

A Recent Rare Phenomenon

Last night we were at a local coffee shop with some friends. While sitting by the widow, we noticed that it had unexpectedly begun snowing. A few minutes later we all looked up to notice bright flashes, similar to that from a camera flash reflecting in the window. Since you never see lightning (or hear thunder) during a snow storm we all looked around for the abnoxiously bright flash from someones camera. It was nowhere to be found. Next thing we hear the boom of thunder and immediately car alarms start sounding. At this point we all look outside to see what looks like hail....but its not. It is simply pea sized snowballs that are falling like rocks from the sky. Needless to say, this was the first time any of us had experienced anything like this. The snowballs were not hard but soft...just like snow. The lightning and thunder continued for a while longer, as most everyone who was in the coffee shop either was glued to the windows or went outside for closer inspection. Bethany, who was sitting with our group, said that she had heard something like this happening before and said it was called a "thundersnow storm". Well, it is a true and rare event that is even more rare in a "land locked" state like Colorado. Here is the local newspaper headline from the Rocky Mountain News: "We were enjoying the lights, sights and sounds of a thundersnow that rolled through downtown around 9:30 p.m. And, we didn't make up that word thundersnow, either. It's a real, but rare phenomenon (and very rare in landlocked Colorado), according to a quickie Google search. In the simplest of terms, cold air meets warm air. As those two air masses interact, it causes friction, or a convection (up- and-down movement of air), which if violent enough, can cause lightning and thunder".

If you are still interested, check out the Wikipedia article for it : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thundersnow