Gerald Mayo - Mr Estes Park

We all have those wonderful new years resolutions - some are the same ones that we never get done, but they stay on the list anyway. Most deal with losing weight and working out, being healthier next year. One of our friends is on the weight watcher's point system so my wife ask her if she could give her some foods that did not have any points that she could eat while on vacation in January. She excluded vegetables and fruits as my wife doesn't particularly like them. Well, that pretty much leaves air, bottled water, tap water, garden hose water...... Oh well.

This year why don't we make some customer resolutions. You know, the one's that we know we should really be doing but aren't. Those really good ideas we have had for our business for several years and just not accomplished getting it done ever. One of mine was a weekly electronic newsletter that I would personally write every week. Throw in a few great pictures and away we go. It took me four years to finally say I'm doing it no matter what. I have over 4,000 names in my data base. That should be a terrific start. I wrote that first newsletter, clicked on send and I only actually had 40 e-mail addresses. How can you let a terrific idea like that die on the vine with only 40 people. I clicked send anyway. There are 577 recipients today. It gets forwarded a lot so I have no idea how many people are actually receiving and reading it.

There are those phone calls, cards, letters, all of the nice things that we are supposed to be doing for our business. Who knows maybe even if you stopped by to say hi they might not throw things at you. Maybe this is the year that you can make a change in your business and your customers. Let the world know that Realtors are professional and we do make the difference.

Happy New Year-

Colorado has a small moose population that is growing. Typically the few moose that we have can be found on the Western Slope or the West side of the Continental Divide if you know where to look. Occasionally over the past few years we have had some bulls that wander over to the Eastern side of the Continental Divide looking for love. Once they figure out they are lost they typically head back up the Poudre Canyon for the West side.

Recently we have had some sightings of some moose around Estes Park. This cow along with her calf have been wandering around town. The first sighting I heard of was by the big slide at 7:00 AM on Sunday morning. The next day by the Catholic Church and moving North. I captured this shot while the cow and her calf were resting at the MacGregor Ranch North of Estes Park.

You can barely see the ears of the calf to the left of the mother. These moose are much lighter in color than the typical moose. Mother Nature does a great job of blending her animals with the backgrounds they live in.

Have a terrific day!

We are headed for the "Street Fair" today at the College of the Desert. PaPa seemed pretty excited about that last night. Supposed to be around 68 degrees for the event so he will like that a lot. Suzie has him all pumped up to get some caramel corn - I think that is more because she wants it than PaPa does.

When we got here we weren't sure they were going to let us into the complex because our car was so dirty. They have a camera that reads your license plate but we didn't pass the test. The Guard had to let us in.

We took PaPa to Sherman's for the early bird special the first night. He had a patty melt (not my first choice) and couldn't eat it all. He saved half of it, and we ate it last night for supper. Suzie stuck her Matzo Ball Soup in front of him to try, but he didn't think it was as great as she did. I think he was happy with his patty melt and no soup. It was warm enough to have eaten outside but Suzie thought PaPa would enjoy eating inside and watching the people more.

PaPa and I took the car to the car wash yesterday and had it detailed. They wash it, hand wax it shampoo the carpets and clean the leather and the rest of the inside. It took four hours and Suzie was going through withdrawal.

They had three lanes with two vacuum cleaners each, and most of the time we were there they had cars four to five deep in all three of those lines. There were ten people working the line so they were shoveling cars through quickly. You can see that the Denali is starting to look white again.

There was plenty of time for lunch. We walked through the shopping center where the car wash was and there was a Chinese, Mexican, Subway, Chicken Pot Pie place, Quisno's and a Wendy's. PaPa thought Wendy's sounded the best. You can see I was eating healthy, a salad with a frosty!

PaPa decided that being outside was better than inside because that was where the "action" was. He enjoyed watching them clean, polish and vacuum the cars. He was busy making new friends while sitting on the bench. This gentleman had a 2004 Impala that had really been a good car for them. Only had 35,000 miles on it. I think PaPa was getting ready to make a deal when his car was done and he had to move on to the next friend - John. He had a Mercedes and raised Dobermine show dogs. He actually lived in Palm Valley where we do. He was taking his daughter, wife, trainer and his wife out to the Palm Valley Country Club last night for all the pasta you can eat for $15.00 a head. John was very helpful because he informed me that you can now wear blue jeans in the club house. We might have to try that some time.

We are off to the Street Fair now!!!

I went to Dillon yesterday and stopped to take this shot. It shows the snow line that is already forming in Colorado. The ski resorts were already making snow on top of the fresh snow that has fallen.

It looks like it is going to be a terrific year to ski Colorado. We've had an extremely nice fall but it sounds like Monday the snow season will be on full force with fresh white powder awaiting those who love to ski.

Have a great day.

Fresh snow on the Continental Divide highlighted by the fall foliage of the trees in this picture is really a great way to start the day. When you live in Estes Park Colorado you get to do this every day.

At the end of the day there is a peacefulness that comes with the blanket of clouds and the rose color of the setting sun.

Have a great day.