A few observations about Colorado Interstates as we came back on the 26^th:

There is a sign along I-25 in south Denver that says "Emergency Pullout - ¹/₄- mile". Now this struck me as kind of strange. If you need to pull over for an emergency, what is the likelihood that it is going to occur along that narrow pullout?

And if you can manage to drive your vehicle the additional quarter-mile to the pullout, is it really an emergency? What is the likelihood that you can just barely make it to this one pullout, but not make another quarter-mile to an exit?

I mean, the laws of probability being what they are, I am sure that someone has needed that emergency pullout exactly where it is. But for every driver that has used that one little spot, there have surely been hundreds, if not thousands, that had to make emergency stops somewhere else along the road. On the usual narrow shoulders.

What was so special about that one spot?

As we went by, the wife pointed out that there was a port-a-potty just over the concrete barrier at the "Emergency Pullout."

Perhaps the emergencies have nothing to do with vehicles, she wondered?

We managed to avoid any delays or problems caused by T-Rex.

I'm not sure exactly what "T-Rex" is, but it has to do with a major 10-year highway construction project along I-25, or what Denverites used to call the Valley Highway. The Denver news channels are full of warnings about delays and detours related to "T-Rex" swallowing up pieces of I-25.

I'm sure I'm not the only one to notice this, but my siblings were quite amused when I mentioned "T-Rex" ought to be spelled with a w, r, e, c, k and s.

The wife had to dodge the skeleton of a Christmas tree in one of the lanes in south Denver.

What is with some people?

This was the early afternoon of the day after Christmas, remember?

Who the hell takes down their tree the day after Christmas, and hauls it away? I've heard of such Scrooges, but always assumed they were a myth.

I know we are exceptional. It is a tradition in our family to keep our tree and lights up until the wife's birthday, which is about a week after the twelve days of Christmas have passed. But still, the day after?

Geez.

On a different note, I happened to look up at the scar on the flattop hill south of Castle Rock. That huge gully was created in the summer of 1965, when torrential rains and tornados hit Castle Rock and a couple communities to the south. It has been thirty-six growing seasons, and the scar is still barren of any shrubs or deciduous vegetation.

The conifers have claimed it well, though. Most of the hillside scraped down to bedrock has ponderosas growing on or near it.

Been watching those trees invade that new territory since the beginning.

What struck me this time, and something I have missed all the many times we have driven past before, is how there are several other gullies and draws thick with pines along that slope.

I had always assumed they grew there because of the additional moisture and snow drifting in those draws. But now I realize the trees were there first, before the grasses and shrubs, and it had little to do with snowdrifts or trickling water.

They are there because each of those draws was once scraped bare by flood waters, in previous events.

The 1965 floods were supposedly a once-in-a-century event, but now I wonder.

And one final observation: the land south of Castle Rock is rapidly being consumed by large houses on large acreage lots. What used to be cattle pastureland is now being chopped up into yards and horse pastures. I have bemoaned this change, particularly with my 94-year old aunt, who lived there most of her life.

But on this trip I was surprised to see a minor benefit.

Much of the damage of the 1965 flood occurred when rainfall poured into the main creek and barreled into town.

But that creek, like most in cattle country, was badly overgrazed. Supporting only mature cottonwood trees and thin stands of mushroom-shaped willows (an easy sign of over-grazing). Now, with the break-up of the ranches for subdivision, the creek is thick with healthy willows, with many stands of dense, young cottonwoods.

There will be wildlife that will love that new arrangement, but more importantly, the creek is now headed towards PFC, or Proper Functioning Condition.

A similar downpour is much less likely to barrel unimpeded into town now. The woody vegetation will delay the flows, and spread the flood waters out into the normal flood plain (which will be bad if you happen to live there, but hey, build your house in a flood plain or along a pyroclastic flow channel, and you get no sympathy from me).

Unintended benefits from everything, I guess.