Quotes
“Celebrate endings—for they precede new beginnings.” —Jonathan Lockwood Huie

“Tomorrow is the first blank page of a 365-page book. Write a good one.” --Brad Paisley

“It is never too late to be what you might have been.” —George Eliot

“An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.” — William E. Vaughant

The Nature Conservancy 2023
The Nature Conservancy, at their Phantom Canyon Preserve, offered free fly-fishing lessons to members.

TNC produced a new episode each month for Mountain and  Prairie Podcast.

The Advisory Board hosted an Earth Day event at the Patagonia Denver store featuring a screening of a short film about work to produce a more equitable tree canopy in Denver.

The University of Colorado held its annual World Affairs Conference, including a panel discussion about the Colorado River problems. TNC participated in the panel.

A trail cam took a picture of a mountain lion at Phantom Canyon Preserve.

from The Nature Conservancy Colorado 2023 Year in Review

Big News!
After a conference with the publisher, we set June 25, 2024 as the publication date of
Murder on Money Mountain, my third historical mystery novel about Andrew Coyle, attorney and investigator.

Leatherbacks
Leatherbacks are the largerest sea turtles in the world. They weight in up to as much as 1,500 pounds, They are listed as a vunable species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Volunteers watch for the leatherbacks to come out of the sea and cross the sandy beach.The turtle digs a hole and lays eggs in the hole and covers the hole and eggs with sand. The people observing with red turtle safe lights dig the eggs out and carry them in bags to a holding enclosure where predators can't get to the eggs before they hatch. Between February and June hundreds of female leatherbacks come to beaches in the western Atlantic and each one lays an average of 130 eggs.

The government of Columbia and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) are trying to arrange for setting beaches aside for leatherback breeding areas.

.

Drive Carefully after New Year's celebrations or call a service that will take you home for free.

,For those of you who have dreaming of a white Christmas, you are getting your wish in Denver.

Snow predicterd for on and off all day Christmas eve day and occasionally on Christmas day. So far on Christmas eve day it has been on and on.

Who automatically gets added to the naughty list?
A rebel without a clause.

Who’s Santa’s favorite singer?
Elfish Presley.

What did Mrs. Claus say to Santa as she looked up at the sky?
“Looks like rain, dear.”

What is Santa’s dog’s name?
Santa Paws.

Why is the alphabet in the North Pole different than the normal alphabet?
The North Pole’s alphabet has noel.





Colorado Springs,
North Pole Workshop
 

People from Denver and all over Colorado love to go see the Christmas Lights on the City and County Building in downtown Denver - when it's not too cold!
Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah!

 Casa Bonita
Two University of Colorado Alumni, Trey Parker and Matt Stone met in a CU film making class in 1992. Their class project Jesus versus Santa found its way to Hollywood as a Christmas card which was a hit which became South Park. As they say in Hollywood, "That was only the beginning of history." South Park became  a huge television hit.

Parker and Stone, (as reported by Stone to Denver's 5280 magazine) felt they owed it to the State of Colorado to save the bankrupt Casa Bonita restaurant and renovate it. They bought it for $3.1 million and spent $40 million making it the restaurant they remember how it used to be. Known as "Disneyland of Mexico" to many Denver area old timers.

The cliff divers still dive off of a 30 foot high cliff and Bart's Cave, and sometimes magicians and a person in a gorilla suit appear.

Only the food has changed. An award winning Chef was hired to improve the menu. Dana Rodriguez
moved to Denver from Mexico City in 1998 and applied for a job at the old Casa Bonita and did not hear back from the previous management. Now she supervises the staff of the renovated restaurant.

The restaurant holds 700 guests and all of the tables are reserved well in advance and have been since the re-opening in the summer of 2023.















Another new restaurant 
What did Luke Skywalker say to the diners at his new restaurant?
"May the forks be with you."

Protecting Endangered Species
In 1973 President Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act which mandated steps to protect and restore plants and animals identified as threatened or endangered. In doing so it provided a framework for protecting species and their ecosystems from further decline.

In the 50 years since the act was adopted, more than 1,000 fish, mammals, insects, birds, flowers and other species have been listed under the act. One of them is the bald eagle which was delisted in 2007 after the birds numbers recovered. Now the eagle can be spotted in nearly every state.
from The Nature Conservancy magazine

Quotes
“Darwinism by itself did not produce the Holocaust, but without Darwinism... neither Hitler nor his Nazi followers would have had the necessary scientific underpinnings to convince themselves and their collaborators that one of the worlds greatest atrocities was really morally praiseworthy.”
― Richard Weikart

“Then there was the war, and I married it because there was nothing else when I reached the age of falling in love." ― Guy Sajer

“This is no war of chieftains or of princes, of dynasties or national ambition; it is a war of peoples and of causes. There are vast numbers, not only in this Island but in every land, who will render faithful service in this war, but whose names will never be known, whose deeds will never be recorded. This is a War of the Unknown Warriors”
― WINSTON S CHURCHILL

“Alas, all that sound and fury disguised the fact that on Omaha Beach at least, the bombs fell too long, the rockets fell too short, and the naval gunfire was too brief.”
― Craig L. Symonds,

World War II
The National World War II Museum in the the nation's capital is a memorial to those who served. The mission of the museum is not to tell the story of the war. It is an educational experience where people come to learn about the defining event of the 20th century.

The war is called the defining event of the century because many ways we lived were changed by the war. Some were bad but as usual some good things come out of bad events.

For example take the Tuskagee Army Field in Alabama. At the beginning of the war the Armed Forces were strictly segregated. Black men were prohibited from flying because it was assumed they  lacked the necessary skills. The Army Air Corps started a training program testing if the assumption was correct. The Tuskegee Airmen was the result. A separate unit to be sure but 14,600 black men were accepted into a variety of military air occupations.

After the war the U.S. Air Force was created  and all air units were desegregated and lumped together.
.
The war created a shortage of pilots. Woman were not permitted to be pilots because they lacked the skills required. Thanks to some strong women they created the Women Airforce  Service Pilots  (WASP.)

The WASPs ferried planes from factories to where they could be put to force on the front. WASPs also towed  targets for target practice and trained new pilots.

Tuskagee Airmen and Women Airforce Service Pilots are examples of how the war changed the roles of race and gender roles in society. While the changes are not perfect at this point, they are changing to levels that were not imagined before World War II.

The Battle of Iwo Jima
Iwo Jima had  three airfields within flying distance to the Japan mainland. It was valuable to the Japanese as a defense position and at the same time to the allies as a base to launch attacks against Japan. Both sides valued the island. Iwo JIma  appeared to be an easy target but it proved to be a five-week showdown that  was one of the bloodiest and most brutal battles of the war.

Wilderness Thoughts
“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.” ― John Muir

“What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another.”― Chris Maser

“To those devoid of imagination a blank place on the map is a useless waste; to others, the most valuable part.” ― Aldo Leopold

“We had no choice. Sadness was as dangerous as panthers and bears. The wilderness needs your whole attention.”  ― Laura Ingalls Wilder

“Like music and art, love of nature is a common language that can transcend political or social boundaries.”
― Jimmy Carter

Legislation
H.R.1 passed the following legislation which does the following:
Rescinds common-sense reforms requiring the oil and gas companies to pay market rates to lease public lands and clean up after themselves;

Sharply curtails reforms of public input to fossil fuel leasing and permitting decisions;

Requires quarterly lease sales of public land for oil and gas extraction;

Changes federal law to prioritize mining on public lands and repeals existing protections that keep from harming our health, safety, communities and treasured landscapes and,

Undermines the fundamental purpose of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) a bedrock law that has served our country and  our environment for more than 50 years. It limits the scope of reviews by the federal agencies.

Nature isn't just a place to visit,,,it's home. From the The Wilderness Society

Closing Thoughts
A Boy Scout was happy he caught up with the rest of the troop. He saw there was a river separating him from the troop. He called out, "How do I get to the other side?"
An older and wiser Scout called back, "You are on the other side."

Although we did not see much of her in the last few years, we will miss knowing that Rosalynn Carter was  in Plains, Georgia. Just hearing her name spurred us to do the right thing.