Fall

It's a late fall. And it's probably not going to be a particularly pretty one due to the dry summer. The usual suspects -- the maples most notably, are still fairly showy, and may be standing out all the more because of the dull greens and browns the other tired trees are taking on. But we have an abundance oaks in Missouri, and the climate here rarely lends gives us prime oak colors. This year, I suspect dull reddish brown at best.

Still, if you know when and were to look, you can see some of the magic of the season. If you can position the trees between you and the sun in the early morning or late afternoon, the sun will take what colors are there and kick it up a couple of notches. In a good year, this river birch would be a beautiful yellow. There is still some yellow, but mostly dry browns. Still, look what the sun angle gets you.

Friday evening Vicki and I went to Greg & Georgeanne's where they had some friends over for BBQ, beer, and a fire in the outdoor fireplace. There was a lot of good homebrew from Greg and a couple of his friends who also brew. I met a Public Administration professor from a University in China who has been here on a year's sabatical and spent quite a bit of time talking to him. Vicki and the ladies pretty much stayed inside most of the evening, athough a couple of them (Vicki included) came out to the fire after Georgeanne ran out of gas and went to bed. As one might expect, we all had a good time doing what people do best. Eat, drink, and be merry.

I had a bunch to do this weekend. The deck needed cleaning, plants probably needed to come in off of it to winter over inside. I needed to clean out the bird bath and dam up the overflow spout for wintertime. Clean up my clutter in the bedroom -- mostly junk mail and old bills. And I got a decent start on it -- cleaned the clutter, when Daryl called. He wanted to go fishing.

I suck at fishing.

Daryl doesn't. I've always figured I could learn a thing or two hanging around him. Plus Daryl doesn't "reach out" that much... he always figures he's imposing. So I don't want to foster that impression. It was a nice day. I went.

We went to his nephew's house out toward Englewood. His nephew is alomost his age, which is about Vicki's age. He was busy putting up interior walls and insulation in his gigantic work .... "shed". If you can call a building four times the size of your house a shed.

We trolled around the pond on a breezy afternoon, temperatures in the 50's. Breezy. Good thing I grabbed that fleece jacket on my way out the door. Apparently the temperatures dropped all afternoon. I had the Mizzou game quietly in one ear. Which is funny... reading this blog the last few weeks you'd think I was Mr. Sports fan again. Not really. We do follow the Tigers, though and they are doing well this year.

Daryl caught several small croppie and bluegill. I pulled in a croppie and a couple of small bluegill and a decent size bass. But we let him go in the end. The rest of the fish were strict catch & release.

Helped his nephew move a very large plant that had been out on his deck into the house. Then went down to Devil's Backbone ... because Daryl wanted to. He grew up around there. I think he has some good memories there, and his life in the last year or so has been less than happy. That's where I saw the river birches ... right over Cedar Creek. Devil's Backbone is a tall rock outcropping in a narrow horseshoe bend in Cedar Creek. On the way back Daryl wanted to try one more pond on his brothers place at sunet. He pulled in about a 3 lb catfish, but released it as well. Apparently small stock pond catfish taste like.... well, a small stock pond.

Last night I had to grab all the plants from the deck right before bed and bring them in. Which is a bigger project than it sounds like. Three of them are huge. But there was a frost forecast for last night.

We missed a morning low of 32 by a degree (so the plants would've been ok but it was time for them to come in anyway). We went to Breakfast at the Elks this morning with Ryan & Kristie and Brian and Kristin. That's "RyKri" and "BriKri" (after "Bennifer" et. al.) Went and got some stuff at Lowe's, then came home and put a roast in the Big Green Egg, and got the deck taken care of. KevAng came over this afternoon for a little while, but had to get back to St. Louis where Kevin is starting a new job tomorrow. I put up the towel bars we bought today... and that's about all I got done.

And that about wraps up the weekend.

The Good News

Well, we got a second opinion on the Taurus transmission. Our mechanic took it to a friend and fellow mechanic who specializes in transmissions, and he said it seems fine and what we likely experienced was a computer hiccup where the computer thought the car was in a different gear than it actually was for a second. It happend a couple of times, only while starting out from a stop and right after putting it in gear. And it hasn't happened since a few weeks ago.

So that, my friends, is cool.

Bonfire

October is a great of year time for a bonfire.

At our 25th high school reunion a few months ago some of us mentioned that 4 hours just wasn't enough. I talk to Le'Ann over email off and on so I'm up on what's going on with Curt and her, and I'll get the occasional email from Kailey. Ran in to David Lee at the reunion who is friends with Curt & Le'Ann as well. Le'Ann decided they'd host a bonfire out on their land in St. Clair.

Dale & Wendy, Dave and Jennifer, Curt & Le'Ann and their son Ryan (who made a very good pot of chilli), Greg & Kailey, and of course Vicki were there. Curt had a nice pile of wood to burn, which we got started in a hurry thanks to a healthy helping of gasoline (heh heh!).

One thing I absolutely need to mention is Curt's "Hedder Que" -- a home made BBQ grill made from a 55 gallon drum and exhaust headers. Too cool! He says it works great

You know, sometimes you can tell you everyone's having a good time when nothing in particular is going on, everybody's talking to everyone ele about anything and nothing at all, and before you know it it's 2:00 am

We crashed at the Weilandichs' place and Le'Ann made fantastic omlets for breakfast. We were tired and headed off for home about 10:30. It's a two hour drive

Got home and Brian and Kristin called and wanted to go see Into the Wild. Wasn't quite what I thought it would be. It was a long movie, and more of a character study of personal struggle and redemption than a story of survival, like you'd think from the title.

One thing that really stuck out at me, though, was the soundtrack, which turned out to be almost exclusively made up of songs Eddie Vedder wrote and performed. I was never a Perl Jam fan. They sounded ok, but I never got in to the whole Seattle scene attitude. This stuff, though, really appealed to me from both a musical and lyrical standpoint. The songs had a lot to do with the outdoors, nature, and wide-open spaces. I think I'll have to get it.

Transmission

The transmission on the Taurus gave a couple of tell-tale "thunks" over the weekend. Today our mechanic confirmed.... the transmission is going out.

So we expect about a $1,700 repair bill.

This is the third Ford Taurus that I know of... two of them have belonged to us -- where the atomatic transmission started acting up at about 70,000 miles.

I otherwise love the Ford Tarus. But Ford.... get a clue. That's a 1996, a 2000, and a 2003. You'd think they would address the problem.

---

Update: Make that $2100-$3000 depending on which transmission/warranty we go with.

This Morning on Bluegrass

KC Trip

We made a trip to Kansas city Saturday to babysit for the Groves while they went to the Weston Irish Fest with Cami's Irish Fest group.

It rained heavily the whole way and for about an hour after we got there. As a matter of fact her group called off the trip to the soggy Irish Fest ... since they had the bus already they decided to go on a pub crawl.

Vicki and I made Sweedish Pot Roast with Groves ingredients. And at dinnertime Aunt Vicki/Miss Manners "no elbows on the table" rules went into effect.

But Aunt Vicki had a little surprise up her sleeve that Uncle Phil didn't even know about. Nobody but Aunt Vicki had any idea what was about to hit them. As they were fussing with which side of the plate the fork goes on, she said with a twinkle, "just dive in. Eat with your face".

Nathanial's face lit up with a cautuiosly excited "really?" on his face. "Go on!" Was the reply.

And being the "all boy" seven year old he is, he dove in face first and with gusto. Cassie tried to be a bit cleaner about it plus she had scraped her nose earlier that afternoon on a three-point roller blade landing and the salt in the food stung her nose. But she worked valiantly around this hinderance. Later I believe I even remember them lapping their milk from bowls like a cat or a dog.

But there were no elbows on the table.

After dinner we were treated to a display of fart noises made through straws. Cassie decided to make a louder one by sputtering against her arm. "Oh yeah?!!!, said Miss Manners -- and she let a font of faux flatulence loose between the palms of her hands. It went quickly downhill from there.

I was in the kitchen cleaning up while the battle of the butts went on in the next room. A veritible orchestra of lips flapping at varrying pitches eminated from the dining area, overlapping in a way that would have made Phil Spector proud (that's before the whole "did he murder his wife" thing). When I finished I grabbed the camera, naturally.

These kids are gonna be sorry when they bring their first girlfriends & boyfriends home.

Jump in a Lake

A couple of weekends ago we went to see Tom in a play in St. Louis. Tom's a member of the G.K. Chesterton Society, and they and a local professional acting crew put together a play Chesterton had written in the early 1900's called "The Surprise". I figured it would be "ok", but it turned out to be quite entertaining and had a nice underlying moral and philosophical message as well. Tom, who has never acted before, was amazing especially when you consider that he'd never acted before and you know how fast they put the play together. He held his own pretty well with the professionals on the stage. He played the part of the King.

There have been a couple of home improvement projects on the list ... one was our bathroom. We had taken down the big mirror and "hollywood" lights and put up two large medicine cabinets and a light fixture for each. But wiring the light fixture correctly would have invloved snaking through the attic and fishing -- plus we wanted another outlet in that wall. I figured it would be easier to just remove the drywall and re-wire, then put up new. So for a couple of months lamp cord was dangling from the old light fixture wiring spot to the new fixtures.

The other one, which I did first, was the patio door. Vicki has long campaigned for getting rid of the sliding patio door and replacing it with what we found out they call and "atrium" door.

Now part of the problem with both of these projects is getting the large materials from the store to our house. We don't have a truck. Brian's is toast right now. But I decided to rent Lowe's truck (1:15 for $20). But Daryl across the street offered to take me in his and help me load and unload. So a couple of weekends ago we did just that. And while we were there we got a sheet of drywall for the bathroom.

I had the old door out by noon the next day, and Ryan came over to help me install the new one. Sam and Deb dropped by ... Ryan and I didn't figure it'd take more than an hour to do the whole thing... but it did, so Vicki ended up visiting with them while we contributed to the conversation from the "job site" -- they were right there in the living room anyway.

Well the new door is an inch shorter than the old door and it comes into the house about an inch further than the old door, so I had to do new furring strips. I did that and caulk and trim and paint weeknights the rest of the week, and then I took Friday off to start the bathroom project.

I had the old wall out and the re-wiring done by noon, so I dropped by our staff picnic out at Bethel Park just to show my face. Had a burger and talked to people for about an hour and a half, then went back home to work more on the bathroom.

My wiring job on the ground-fault outlets wasn't quite right, so I had to re-do that. Then I cut the drywall and started to put it up. I cut it a little tight so I had trouble getting it in. I left it and went to meet Vicki & Sam at the Elks.

Greg & Georgeanne & little John showed up, so Greg and I talked about beer, of course. He brews a lot. More than I ever did when I was doing it. We ended up eating there and came home. Brian & Kristin dropped by after Brian got off work around 9:00. And saturday morning I set about finishing the bathroom job.

Got the wall board screwed in and a coat of mud on it, but it wasn't drying very fast. I suck at drywall mud -- it usually takes me 4 passes. If you're good you can do it in 2. If you're really good you can do it in 1. But I'm not, and I know it. So I knew I needed it to dry faster or it wouldn't get done today. I put a fan in the bathroom and that sped it up quite a bit. By evening I was able to paint, and I got the lights up before the Mizzou/Nebraska game started at 8:15.

Well we didn't get to start actually watching it until 9, because ESPN was running the Clemson game until it was over. By that time Mizzou had scored twice! Which really wasn't too surprising but it kind of looked like our defense finally started to come together.

They did. We won 41-6. We're used to being on the other side of that equation when it comes to Nebraska. We haven't beaten them three home games in a row since something like 1957. So that was kind of fun.

Sunday we went out to the Williams'. The girls went antiquing, and Ryan and I talked about camp equipment and beer and all sorts of stuff. We went out on the lake in the kyaks. I left my wallet, keys, cell phone and watch on the shore just in case. After a while we headed back to the house. The girls got back and we sat and talked on the back deck. Ryan wanted to go get the kyaks with the tractor, and I wanted to take another spin on the lake. So I went out. I've never come close to tipping out there, so I decided not to remove all my cell phone, wallett, etc this time.

Well you know what's coming.

I was relaxing with my feet up on the front of the kyak, rowing occasionally to keep myself from blowing down to the south end of the lake. And my feet being up probably made the kyak a little top heavy, and I dug in too deep with the paddle once ... and...

Well my feet hit bottom and my head was still above the water. So I turned the kyak upside down and drained it and started to work my way ashore when I remembered my cell phone and wallett.

I got them out. The phone was full of water, and of course the wallett was soaked.

I'll dry the phone out for the next week or so. Kristie has washed several phones and they've turned out ok if you let them dry, so I'll keep my fingers crossed. I have an old one of Vicki's that I'm using temporarily. I just put my sim in it.

Vicki's key fob dried out and it works. My wet wallett is still drying, but all the contents are dry and in a spare.

So that's what I've been doing instead of posting. That should about catch you up.

Blues, BBQ, and Baseball

So just to catch up, two weekends ago Ryan, Daryl, and I went on a friday night campout down at Cedar Creek. We went to an "island" in Cedar Creek we call "Gilligan's Island". Nothing too exciting. Hike in, pitch tents, make a fire, cook some poor boy packets. Have a few drinks and laughs around a camp fire. Get up. Make an oatmeal breakfast, break everything down and go home. Just some good outdoor fun.

Saturday Vicki and I went to Columbia's (well, Boone County National Bank's) Roots, Blues, n BBQ festival. I think it was the bank's 150th anniversary, and they brought in Taj Mahal and Jerry Douglas among others.

I was all about seeing Jerry Douglas, but mostly I just wanted to check out what they had going downtown. They'd started closing streets downtown at noon on Friday to set up -- which made it difficult for me to get back from lunch. A trip that should've taken me 3 minutes took me 40 instead since I wasn't sure what was going on.

Anyway, we went about 3:00 or so and had some expensive but ok tasting BBQ and chips. Sandwiches werer $5. Chips were $5 (but they were fresh made right there and you got a lot), and water... 16 oz of water was $3. So lunch was $18 for the two of us! And only one of us got water.

That's kind of to be expected at an event like this, but the kicker was you had to buy them with these "Blues Bucks" that you had to buy at a separate place. We placed our order, went to pay, and they said "we only take Blues Bucks. You can get them over there." Good thing I got 20 of them. But then I was stuck with two, which I think is by design.

There were people trying to sell their Blues Bucks all over the place so they weren't stuck with them. We found a place later in the day that took both Blues Bucks and cash and were able to liquidate our extras, thankfully.

It was pretty big. Not bad for a first try. They needed more food vendors, and they should drop the Blues Bucks. Oh, and work out some way to get food inspectors to ok sales by the people in the BBQ contests. All this BBQ and you couldn't buy any from any of them.

We ended up hitting Flat Branch for a beer because 12 oz of draft Bud/Bud Light was $4 and you could get a pint of good beer for $3.75 (about the same with tax, but more and much better beer) at Flat Branch and sit and drink it at a table. At the booths you had to stay within certain boundaries so as not to violate the open container laws. No taking it back to your concert venue, or walking around sipping one enjoying the atmosphere. Yeah that was another problem.

We caught a bit of local band Chump Change on Broadway. We missed the BelAirs because either the printed schedule was wrong or they switched time slots. We caught the Carolina Chocolate Drops. They were good. Jug band music. Ran in to Sam and Deb, and a couple of our neighbors. And then stayed and watched Jerry Douglas from about 8-9 pm.

I first heard Jerry listening to an acoustic music station on internet radio. This instrumental called "The Big Bug Shuffle" really caught my attention and I ended up buying the CD. Turns out Jerry's in to instrumentals and has won something like 12 Grammys. He plays with Alison Krauss & Union Station. Dobro. He's amazing, as are the rest of the guys in the Jerry Douglas Band.

Then this past weekend my sister-in-law Dawn had gotten tickets through her Cardinals' credit card to the Cards Cubs game (weeks ago). She called Vicki, a Cubs fan, to go with her so that they could dress in the respective garb for their two teams and maybe get on TV or something. Vicki later ended up scoring two standing room only tickets through Mark of Mark and Gretchen fame in Indiana, so Joel and I were able to go, too.

Interestingly, I've been to somewhere on the order of 10 Cardinals baseball games over the years, all in Bush Stadium (this was my first time in the new one.)

Here's the interesting thing: I have never seen them lose. Not at a game I attended. I should get free season tickets or something.

And apparently the Cardinals had been on the brink of coming from way down in the standings all summer and at a game maybe 10 or 14 days ago were in the lead in a game that would have put them first place in the division. They lost that game. Big, from what I understand. And they preceded to lose their next 8 games. Our game would have been loss number 10 in a row. And early on, by the third inning, the Cubs were up 3-0.

Vicki called my cell phone. "How do you like the game so far?"

"Well, it kinda sucks so far", says I.

Vicki and Dawn were surrounded by Cubs fans. And the place Joel and I finally lit, we were also surrounded by Cubs fans. In case you're wondering, Joel, Dawn, and I are in the Cardinals' camp.

I had also seen several couples walking around before and during the game where one was a Cubs fan and one was a Cardinals fan. One young female Cardinals fan walking with her boyfriend/husband who was a Cubs fan grabbed my arm and said "So it can work, then?"

Hope so. Kevin and Angela were at the first game of the double header. Kevin is a Cubs fan. Angela is a Cardinals fan. She had gotten them tickets to a Cards/Cubs game scheduled for earlier in the season but it was postponed when a Cardinal player died. It was rescheduled for the same day Joel & Dawn & Vicki and I had tickets. Hence the double header. It was a coincidence that we ended up at the stadium on the same day.

Well, in bottom of the fourth inning, the Cardinals scored 4 runs. And they held on to win. The Cubs had won the first game, making 9 in a row the Cardinals lost.

I snapped their 9 game losing streak. My record still stands. No need to thank me. And before you say "hey, you're rubbing it in"... just remember who called whom and when. I was very nice about it :-)

They went right back to it the next day, making it 10 out of 11. Not much hope there for them this year. The Cubs are still in first.

Gettin' My Irish Up

Sat, Sept 2

We went Saturday evening to Olathe, spent the night. Grilled up some beef & peppers we brought. Had a few drinks, watched "300".

When we got to the fest we tipped our figurative hats to Cami who is on the comittee, the art director, and head of the various contests. She was busy. Headed up to the main stage. We watched some Irish Dancing on the big stage, walked the vendor circut, and sat in the shade and watched kids play in the big blow-up obstacle courses and slides.

After a while I heard this great female voice coming from the main stage area, and we went to check it out. It was a group I'd never heard before called Searson. I'd say the oldest was about 50, a man, then a charming redhead (with "the voice" who I'd say was in her early 40's, a captivating fiddler in her early 30's, and the youngest girl was maybe 26. Brothers and sisters, save the drummer. Last name: Searson. Hence the name. They played together like family. Tight as a wet leather knot. They have a new fan. I ordered their live CD.

Then the Saw Doctors, who have a bit of an edgier sound than they did when I found out about them 10 years ago or so, but still quite enjoyable, and finally Gaelic Storm.

It turns out Ellery Kline left because she had a baby and the touring schedule was just too much. So everyone's excused.

I didn't get any pictures of Gaelic Storm (this year) as they were on the Boulevard stage which there isn't a good spot to get pictures from if you're not in the front row, and it was packed.

But here they are last year, with Ellery Klein, my lost love ;-) on fiddle (below).

The Kansas City Irish Fest is a big deal now, and they've done a good job making it very family friendly with lots of good music, places for little kids to play, even diaper changing stations. They dye the water in all the Crown Center fountains green, and the kids play in the only one that isn't ... the water that comes right up out of the bricks.

The vacation posts are done

The photo gallery is here.

The YouTube Longs Video is here.

The Trip Home

Saturday, Aug 25

It was all business Saturday morning. It was to be a beautiful day, another great one for anyone who wanted to try Longs, or do anything else in the park for that matter.

But we had to get home.

My least favorite part of the trip is breaking down camp to go home. But we did it in fairly short order, took everything out of the car and re-packed it, checked out of the campground and headed for Estes Park for a quick breakfast and a good cup of coffee for the road.

We found both at Coffee on the Rocks -- a good egg muffin, and sweet muffins to go, with great coffee.

We drove through Lyons and Boulder and sped away on the interstate. I was almost thankful for the haze as I couldn't feel the mountains tugging me through the rear view mirrors like I can when you can see them

We stopped at Limon at a gas station/gift shop where I got a neat, large Kokopeli mug and a Colorado Rockies T-Shirt for me and another Colorado T-Shirt for Vicki.

The trip back to Olathe was pretty uneventful. It's always amazing how much Kansas territory you can see going East.

One thing I found fascinating was the number of people I ran into from Minnesota up there. It seemed like Minnesota and Wisconson were over-represented ;-). Maybe it's the flatness.

My last conversation with Vicki let me know that she wouldn't be home Sunday, so I'd be spending the night in Olathe. If she were home I knew I probably couldn't resist driving the extra 2.5 hours.

I can't complain about anything. The trip was fantastic.

The few things I learned:

• Add more ibuprofen and an ace bandage to your first aid kit
• Always bring your monopod
• Reserve campsites ahead of time on the web
• Try not to have to change campsites during the stay
• Granola and protien bars for breakfast. Less preparation and cleanup time means more time enjoying the park.
• If you even think a piece of valuable gear might slip away, say, into a creek or something to possible ruin -- move it. Secure it. Now.
• If you think your tent might need seam sealing, do it. Now.

A Serendipitous Elkortunity

Subtitle: Always Bring Your Monopod!

More Friday, Aug 24

The one thing I'd missed on this trip was a nice Elk photographing opportunity. Mark had a decent opportunity near the campground ranger station the evening I was coming down Longs and was able to get a few nice shots, probably of the same herd we were about to stumble upon. The opportunities I'd had so far were in cloudy, far less than ideal conditions. On my previous two trips to the park, they had been everywhere, especially in the lower valleys. And on my 2005 trip, you could count on herds of them in Moraine Park and Beaver Meadows near sunset... prime photography time.

We had just crossed the Big Thompson River in the very early evening on our way back from Bierdstat Lake on our last day in the park on a glorious afternoon when we spotted a smallish but respectable herd in the lower Moraine Park Valley area. I whipped the car into a small gravel parking area, and we treked down an old road that petered out and disappeared into the meadow where the Elk were.

It doesn't get any better than this.

We gave them a respectful berth and watched for signs that any of them cared that we were there at all. They didn't. The does were grazing and/or lying down chewing cud. There were a couple of young bucks lying down, and a magnificent buck patroling the herd.

He was occasionally thrashing the meadow grass with his horns, tossing it from side to side. He was pretty riled up, but not at us. Still, that aggression could easily be re-focused on us.

I spotted a rock from which to try photographing. The light was beautiful, but relatively low, and I needed to be "up sun" from them. Plus I needed something to help hold my camera still for the long focal lengths I'd be using.

Dang, I wish I had looked harder for the monopod before I left.

But no. Use what you have available. I tried a few tricks my Marine sharp-shooting step-son had taught me about holding a rifle steady for long shots, and also used the rock for several.

I got some decent ones.

The buck was checking out the over-active tails of many does, and it soon became quite apparent what he was so riled up about. They were in season, and he wasn't about to let his opportunity pass. We saw him breed with at least one doe while we were there.

But as the light further waned and I'd gotten all the shots I thought I might get, it was time to pack up and go back for our last night camping.

It's a relatively short trip back to camp from the meadow. Our new campsite was much closer to other campsites than our original. There were kids playing on the rocks by our site, but that's ok. I like seeing kids having a good time out here, and they weren't invasive. They were doing the same thing I did at that age when we camped in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Kind of fun.

While on the Bierdstat hike I realized that I'd never gone back to look for the flask I'd dropped back at the campground. It was one Vicki had gotten for me and it was monogramed. If it had been any other flask, I would have just written it off, but you can't replace a gift... not the "gift" part of it, anyway. It had sentimental value. I tried not to think about it and just hoped it would be there when we got back. I didn't figure it would be.

It wasn't.

I went down to the car to get the food bag, and I noticed a ranger in a golf cart on his radio. It was the same guy who had been a bit rough on Steve our first day there. He drove up to me as I got down to the car.

"Are you in 156?'
"Yes."
"Are your initials ..."
"PGL? You found my flask!"

He had. He'd found it that morning and taken it back and matched the initials with people registered for the surrounding camp sites. I thanked him profusely and mentally took back any negative thoughts I'd had about him before (hey, we all have bad days). I told him it had been a gift from my wife and that I wouldn't have cared about any other flask. The last possible dark spot on our last day had just been removed.

I cooked up the only instant rice/texturized soy protien meal we cooked that week. It was fine. We had three bundles of wood so we could have a white man fire as a sendoff for our last night. Sat and played music around the fire. Roasted a few marshmallows. I took a 30 second time exposure of Longs at Night just because I've never been able to do that with any digital camera I've had up until now. It turned out pretty well.

I had put the regular air matress up when we broke down camp and just used my little Thermarest pad, and actually slept in a sleeping bag tonight instead of using them for blankets on my matress, and took the neck pillow from the car for a pillow.

After a throroughly enjoyable evening talking & playing around the well-fed "white-man" fire* and going over the events of the trip, we finally turned in.

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* this is a reference to an observation by certain American Indians that "white man" generally built fires bigger than they needed, making them easy to spot, as well as "wasting" fuel. Well, "waste" can be in the eye of the beholder.

Moving Day & Bierdstat Lake

Friday, Aug 24

Scuddy clouds raked the mountains around Moraine park, including Longs Peak in the distance. If there was any doubt that Tuesday was the right day to make the summit attempt, this morning cinched it. There was snow above 12,000 feet. Not a lot, but the snowline was quite visible. I found out later that at least for the morning the Keyhole route had therefore been "upgraded" to "technical". No way I would have climbed today. The rain had moved in Thursday and I would've been hiking down in the rain if I were lucky enough to make it to the top before it started. And Wednesday had some early clouds and storms rake across the peak. I was glad I did it when I did it.

The last full day in the park is always a bit sad, but a bit exciting. You really want to make the most of it. But we had a problem today. We had to move our tent to 156 by noon. And we had no control over when 156 would be vacated.

Another family was in the same boat and they had to move, too. We took a "tourist moment" picture for them as well as they carried their tent, assembled, from site to site. We didn't have that luxury since we weren't sure when 156 would be breaking down and leaving.

There was a couple from Lathrop, MO where Mark & Cami bought some land about a year or so ago, staying in 157 by the road where we parked. We'd wanted to talk to them more. They seemed like really nice folks and besides they were likely going to be Mark & Cami's neighbors in a few years. We shot the breeze with them and around 9:00am, the people in 156 started breaking down their camp. They were out by 10:30, and we moved ours. At one point my flask dropped out of what I was carrying near the campsite and I made a mental note to go back and retrieve it when I put my load down. We finished moving and talked to the Lathrops for a short bit longer, and headed out to check out of 158 and into 156 and go see what we could see in the afternoon. I was afraid it would cloud up and our shortened day would be a bust.

We told the very nice ranger lady in the camground booth that it was our last day and we wanted a relatively short hike on improved trail (for my knee) and to maybe catch a water fall or a lake or two. She made a note that I had done Longs and said "well people who do Longs generally like to stay away from crowds. Why don't you try Bierdstat Lake?"

So off we headed toward the Bear Lake area. The trailhead would be on the way.

But due to our late start, the parking lots were all full. There were signs to that effect. We'd have to take the Park & Ride shuttle, which I'd never taken before. We parked in the ample parking lot, gathered our stuff, got on a bus and were off in no time to the Bierdstat Lake trailhead.

The trail goes up about 650 vertical feet up the Bierdstat Moraine in just a little over a mile. My knee pretended it was going to bother me, but stopped completely before we were halfway up.

Looking at the trail it looked like it was going to be a woodsy climb with limited, if any, views. But when we broke above the pines into the aspens where there were clearings, the switchbacks offered ample views of the valley where Glacier Creek, Boulder Brook, and Wind River flow. The higher up we got, the better the veiws into Glacier Gorge, of Longs, Chief's Head, Hallett's, Mount Craig, and others.

The top of the moraine put us back into pine forest, and led down to a "trail around the lake". But no lake was visible. We continued to walk around it, occasionally getting out the topo map and matching it up with the GPS to decide where we should cut in to see the lake. We sat on a log while we looked over the map, and had some water. A little way down the trail we came upon a little ... side trail, or water channel? heading off to the right. We didn't know but either way it should should lead us to the lake. It did.

We broke out of the trees in a shady grove near a grassy end of the lake. A gnarled rootwad stood out in the sun -- in bold contrast to the lush green grass around it. A couple of birds started pestering us, and we took some pictures. The lake was pretty, but there wasn't a view beyond the trees rimming the lake.

I couldn't find my GPS. I hoped I hadn't dropped it, but it wasn't anywhere in my pack or on me. It was way too expensive to just give up on, so I backtracked up the trail scouring the ground for signs of it. I got to the main trail around the lake and went back to the last spot I remember using it. I didn't see it. But on my way back I noticed it face down on a log... the one we had sat on while we tried to figure out how best to get from here to the lake. I was just in the beginning mental stages of giving up the search and trying to convince myself not to let it spoil my day. It is grey, and the log was about the same shade. It's a wonder I saw it. Kudos to St. Anthony! (note... this actually happened after the next episode)

Back at the lake, grassy, reedy area extended about 20 or so feet out into the water, and at one point what we imagined a kind of large, serpentine movement moving generally toward us through the grass in the water startled us. Mark beat his hiking pole on the ground, and it moved away, only to start toward us again within about 30 seconds.

Having convinced ourselves somehow that it was a large snake (even though I've never seen a snake above 8,000 feet... not saying there aren't any... but...) I caught a bit of what looked like brown scales. If this were a snake it was a good 2.5" around. It must be big. I was backing up a bit and geting ready to take a picture of this large serpent as it emerged at the water's edge when it suddenly became quite apparent that we were dealing with a zealously friendly duck.

I think people feed the ducks up here. And come to think of it, those other birds were probably used to scavenging from sloppy, or generous, tourists as well.

We had a good laugh at ourselves. Took a few "tourist moment" shots. Ate lunch. And moved on to find the trail. We'd seen people at the other end of the lake and figured that would be nearer where the main trail dumped us to begin with.

We hadn't gone 100 yards before we realized we'd been resting and eating at the wrong end of the lake!

The high peaks to the south and west stood up above the trees when we looked back offering breathaking views against the mostly clear blue sky.

Thankfully, last night's cold front was followed by a stablizing northwesterly flow and high pressure, leaving us with a picture-perfect afternoon for our last day.

Well Mr. Shutterbug here went nuts, trying to figure out the right exposure and the trick to using my graduated neutral density filter to try to get a good exposure of the landscape without washing out the sky and especially the detail in the clouds. I got mixed results. I need to consult with my friend Megan.

But we did need to head back, and so after a few more tourist moment shots (some with cheesy but fun poses), we hiked out. On the way we found where we should've turned off the main loop trail -- there was a large hitching rail that said "no horses beyond this point".

Of course, the hike down offered spectacular views from the opposite direction as the hike up. That's a cool thing about hiking up here (or anywhere for that matter). You think the hike back is going to look the same as the hike in, but that's not true. They look different. You are seeing different stuff behind the same stuff, and that same stuff is being looked at from a 180 degree angle from the direction you saw it before.

So here's a bit of Phil's Hiking Wisdom:

The hike up is not the same as the hike down.

Simple as that.

My knee was doing fine. We had a nice chat with the bus driver on the way back to Park & Ride. I was a bit leery of Park and Ride... but no more. It's a great way to go... especially if you'd like to start at one trailhead in this valley and hike to another. They don't care where they drop you off or pick you up, just so long as you're at a bus stop.

So next time you see the parking lots full, don't fret. Do Park and Ride. Just make sure you have all your stuff before you get on the bus.