AN "ADMINISTRATIVE" DAY AND A JOB COMPLETED

We knew colder weather was on the way, so spent the past couple of days on the trails. On Wednesday, we headed back up to St. Elmo, a "ghost town" of privately owned historic buildings used as summer homes that marks the eastern end of a very popular 4-wheeling trail over a high pass. Unlike most visitors, we came to hike. The Poplar Gulch trail starts above 10,000 feet and climbs just over 1,200 feet in 2.2 miles.

Though it was pretty, I've been spoiled by spectacular. A rocky, steep switchback up an aspen-covered mountainside ended at a small meadow surrounded by high peaks and trees - no breathtaking alpine lakes, no 360 degree views of 14,000 ft. peaks... just lunch and a walk back down. Not a hike to revisit.

I took this photo the next day, on an easy, gently undulating hike along the Twin Lakes to Inter-Laken, the semi-restored remains of a lakeside resort popular during the late 1800's and early 1900's. The hike was scenic and relaxing, the buildings and history interesting... I loved it.

As we expected, we awoke to low clouds and cold this morning. We spent the first couple of hours on trip-planning, researching routes and campgrounds in northern New Mexico for our travels next month. Menu planning and a trip to the grocery store was next, and we had two packages of mail to sort through, deal with, and file. All pretty standard stuff, except for one task...

See this purposely blurred photo? It is an 8 1/2 x 11 inch page, a long list of websites, login names and their passwords, even social security numbers... the EXACT kind of information you are warned NEVER to write down, let alone write down in one place. Not only did I have a printed list, it also existed in a file on our laptop - and on our external backup disk. A total and complete NO-NO, but my memory is insufficient to store this crucial information - and I am sure I am not different from many of you.

A Boomer friend (thanks, Bob) recently recommended RoboForm, software that keeps track of all that stuff for you, protected by just one password. When he described what it can do, and told me about the 30 day free trial, I went to the RoboForm website and downloaded the software.

I played with it a little at a time and found it to be just what I needed to eliminate my written notes. After the 30 day trial period, you can choose to pay for the program, or to continue to use a mini-version (I think you can save up to 10 login/password combinations). I paid, and over the past couple weeks I have transfered all the logins/passwords, our credit cards information, social security numbers, answers to "security questions"... all that sensitive stuff you need for online banking, purchasing, prescription ordering - it is all there on my computer, protected by one (strong but memorable) password.

Today I got to delete the old file from our computer and from our backup disk, and tomorrow I'll shred the old list. YAY!

If any of you are in the same boat, I recommend Roboform. Once you work through the learning curve and complete the set up, it fills in logins/passwords automatically, can fill in your mailing address, credit card information... no more consulting the list of logins, no more getting your credit card out of you wallet to type the number or look up the security code. It can generate random passwords for you, save miscellaneous bits of sensitive information in "safe notes" and more. Great software.