1991 - A final reconnoiter; Alia born at home; Caravan to the High Country; Torn-open house in winter

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The second year of Linda’s husband’s program in DC involved finding where they would go, where they might or could spend most of the rest of that career, and how Linda could make it work for her.

Program imperatives limited their choice, but Linda narrowed it down to a few: San Francisco or Denver. Along the way, they got back to Cape Kennedy.

They had a month in the Presidio while the place remained a military preserve, in that sense protected and isolated. In Officers’ Quarters on the crest of the cliffs above China Beach, close to the giant cedar forest on the seaward side, they spent several months while Linda tested the San Fran environment and Paul checked out a possible Director posting downtown.

For Christmas, they wanted to buy Noah a new Macintosh, the first model, right off the assembly line. At a place in San Jose in a bankruptcy “going out of business” sale, Noah scored. The cube. Early video space games became a staple, even with Linda.

On their now third rotation at Cape Kennedy, Linda expressed ever more avidity for space, launches and astronomy, revealing a previously undisclosed predilection from her childhood and her father’s 3” refractor telescope.  They watched the Shuttle land, dropping from the upper atmosphere at Mach 5 and within less than a minute soaring over the palm trees to coast to a silent landing.

Getting closer to the launches than even the President (admittedly, they were far more expendable!), the joy she felt endured, and she shared it with all who would listen.

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Alia less than a month old, having chosen Denver as the next hopefully final location, they sallied forth across the Great Plains. One friend drove the bussie, another friend drove Linda’s vehicle, and Paul and Noah jammed into a rental truck. Not quite like the Beverly hillbillies or those fleeing the Great Depression, but a bit ragtag caravan into their new life in Colorado.

Immediately they set about looking for the perfect place.

Over the years and the far-flung geographic locations, they’d gotten quite good at house hunting, knowing even in the urban environment of Gaithersburg that they wanted a house in trees, not a packed-in neighborhood but perhaps a cul-de-sac. They scanned the MLS, called and got pictures, rigorously and systematically ruling out one after another, and then starting what they called “drive-bys”, recognizing and mostly rejecting in an instant when they saw a place vs what initially might have looked good on paper.

There along the Front Range they employed the same technique, as though everything else in prior years had been but practice and drill for this search. Looking north as far as Boulder, looking 30 to 60 miles south, they found it, perched on a mountain top at 10,000 feet. In a small development that still had two to ten-acre plots, some second home vacation cabins built in the 70s, more folks were building mountain retreats and idealized homes. Theirs was a humble 1200 square-foot 1970s frame cabin, but with a 220° vista from Pikes Peak 90 miles in the south, to five of Colorado’s Fourteeners (Mount Evans, Bierstadt, and the Collegiate Range beyond the Platte River Valley). When they first saw it, they knew in an instant. This was it, and they set about making it so.

The cabin was way too small, not large enough for their family. But the dream to build their own home which had been abandoned in Virginia came alive again. Linda knew what she wanted, and they drew up a house plan that met her needs and fulfilled so many dreams of a passive solar home, even with a long-fantasized hot tub and sauna. Katurah, a contractor friend from Charlottesville, came out with Linda’s dear friend Elizabeth and her kids to help get it done.

However, after they’d already ripped off the side of the old house to start the new, on Columbus Day the Corps ordered Paul to deploy into hurricane disaster zones in the Caribbean.  October in the high-country means winds and even snowstorms. Their family did it; Linda did it; and over the next year they completed as close to their ideal home as they ever would get. Though they moved away once more in 1996, they kept the Conifer home and eventually moved back, and this place turned out to be their final family home.