By Mike Rosso
The winter solstice has officially come and gone here in Central Colorado, and the mercury dipped to minus 5 degrees last night, so we are now marching headlong into springtime!
Well, not so much. We’ve already gone though about half of our normal stash of firewood here at Colorado Central headquarters, and all the talk of an El Niño winter seems to be playing out. The mountains are getting hammered, much to the joy of the recreationalists and to the dismay of travellers.
As most of you know, we combine the January and February issues into one so that I can take a break from deadlines for a short spell. My plans are to take some advantage of all that Rocky Mountain snowfall, but I am also considering a road trip to Southern New Mexico. Gas is currently $1.85 a gallon in Salida, so it seems a shame not to take advantage of that. Besides, I’ve never been to Carlsbad Caverns or White Sands, so hopefully the compass will be pointing south in early 2016.
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We’ve done several community profiles in the past, namely Del Norte and Florence, and in this issue we decided to profile one of my favorite cities in our coverage area, Leadville. For fans of mining, history and architecture, it can’t be beat. Plus, the year-round recreational opportunities are hard to beat.
Along with the profile are several interesting articles about people who have played historical roles in Leadville’s past. We hope the articles entice you to visit that city in the near future.
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Keeping on top of the postal rules is always intriguing, but a post office regulation I recently learned about had me chuckling. It seems the U.S. Postal Service now says it’s illegal to mail materials containing advertising for marijuana products. We are not currently running any ads for marijuana products – they don’t really need to advertise their goods at this point – but we have in the past, which means that by mailing you some issues over the past few years, we were breaking the law.
Would we have accepted the ads, knowing we were breaking the law? Probably not. It wouldn’t have been worth the small amount of revenue for the potential headaches, but I’m pretty sure we raised the eyebrows of a few of our out-of-state subscribers when they opened their magazines and saw ads for legal cannabis.
It’s a new world. Happy New Year to all of our readers. We’ll see you again in March.
