Reveling at the Faire

This past weekend was the Mark/Mike/Phil weekend, which was an all-guy weekend that centered on the KC Rennasiance Festival. Mark is working there as the undertaker.... I went as my usual minstrel with the lute, and Mike (who could out-play me any day on a guitar) went as a magician.

We were there from open to close -- ran into Mark (ahem, "Moribond") several times and watched him do his scthick with people -- approaching groups of people and having them select a dead person from among themselves which he then comes up with a ceremony for... with much mirth intertwined.

Mike and I strolled as I plucked at my lute. We watched a magician's show and saw several of the musicians' performances. Lady Nancy, Matty Striker & Pope Loy, and Doug Harvey. We could hear the pirate show across from the Public House on the Wharf, too.

We also ran into the O'Malley sisters, three lovely ladies who work a pirate sort of life. We ran into them in the morning, then saw them in the noon parade. We moved back toward the food and ran into the parade again, this time seeing Mark. The O'Malley sisters basically "endowed" us as "stalkers" for the rest of the day. (That's Skye O'Malley to in the hat there).

I bought Matty's new CD. We sat down and listned to Doug Harvey, (a fellow Rowan member along with Matty -- actually Marianne Carter) and I really enjoyed his warm voice and cittern playing. Just him, solo... so I bought his CD as well. He remembered my lute from last year and gave it a little play. We made a little small chit-chat... they're out of Lawrence, KS -- I Doug and Matty are apparently with KU.

Mike and I figured out that we really have no characters to go into so we really couldn't engage anyone. Too bad, it would have been fun to come up with off the cuff scthick. Mike eventually did a magic trick for a boy in a wheel chair, and I eventually worked up the nerve to sing a song for some silly teenage girls who asked me to. While I played and sang "Hares On the Mountain" they waved their cell phones in the air. I'm so unhip that it wasn't until that evening when Mark and Mike explained it to me that I knew what that was about.

More than anything else, we love the atmosphere of the fair -- everyone playing, letting parts of themselves out that they seldom get to in "real life". So mostly, we just soaked up the atmosphere. I had a couple of Stouts and we smoked a couple of pipes -- and that was pretty much the day.

The rest of the weekend consisted of us playing music together, grilling food, and talking philosophically into the night...

I called Vicki Sunday morning -- turned out her weekend was as full as mine. She hit the Elks Club with Sam on Friday, went to a movie Saturday, then hung with the neighbors for a while and then back out with Sam and his cousin to see his cousin's son's band "Brothers' Image" (who are very good).

We talked about going back to the Faire on Sunday -- tell you the truth I wouldn't have minded. Especially on a pretty day, it's a nice place to be.

More General Living

Took Mom back to Fort Wayne and set her new computer up. It's muuuuuuuuuch better. Bought another K&N filter for Vicki's car. The difference isn't as apparent - possibly because I don't keep track of gas mileage on her car. There was a leg of the trip we got 32 or 33 mpg, though.

We stopped at "Hog Heaven" BBQ in Plainfield on the way back. I've seen the signs forever. Their logo is a biker pig. But we've never been through Plainfield at a good time to stop and eat until this time.

The BBQ was good. Service was very good. 'Course, they weren't that busy at the time. The sides were ... nothing special, but ok. I left suggestions on how to give them a little more "attitude" (well, they asked!)

Monday I worked on one of the old chairs in the garage that I want to use for a computer chair. I know those chairs are probably over 100 years old. One of them -- the odd ball one I'm doing, had been written off as a chair long ago. It even has some saw marks on it where someone used it as a saw horse, and one of the dowell supports across the front at the bottom has been broken and missing for God knows how long. I will replace that. I've got most of the thing stripped, but there's still more to do.

Also working on my renfest bag to carry stuff in at the faire next weekend. I'm making a rough leather bag out of some of the half cowhide I have. Lots of holes to punch.

I finally re-wired the extension to the phone in the basement. Now we don't have to run upstairs every time the phone rings. And I had to replace the dimmer switch for the overhead lights in the kitchen. So that's done. And I ran our carpet cleaner over the high traffic areas in the house that were getting pretty grungy.

We BBQ'ed with the neighbors last night, burgers and brats and onions and listened to Mizzou vs New Mexico -- a game being played 0.5 miles north of us. Brad Smith put in an excellent effort. However, our defense mostly stayed home, and after a close see-saw game we lost 45-35.

Vicki and Kristin and Kristie and I went to Twilight festival Thursday, though we probably spent as much time at Tropical Liquors and Ottos as we did at the "fest". Now that was pretty cool. Me and three pretty chicks. ;-) Vickster and Kristin and her mom are going to a wedding show today at Holiday Inn. I'll probably work on the chair and the bag.

Brian's over in Iraq now. Hi Brian, if you're reading. Keep your head down and your armor on. And help us kick bad-guy ass when it's necessary.

Relatives and Computers and Car Parts, Oh My!

Brought Mom down here late last week to be here for Brian's last pre-Iraq visit. We had him and Kristin (his fiance) and Mark & Gretchen for dinner Sunday -- Kevin and Adriene came over later and hung out.

Got Mom a new computer to replace the P-II laptop I steered her wrong with a year or two ago. It did... OK with XP and MSN and almost OK with the firewall and antivirus on top of that, but the more the software updated itself, the slower the thing got. It got absolutely ridiculously "let's go make the bed and get a cup of coffee" slow.

So I got her a Compaq P-III 733 sans OS and monitor for $80. Not bad. Picked up 15" a flat panel monitor for her (with speakers built in) and moved the install of XP from the laptop to the new box. Part of the old box's problem was the limit of 160 MB of memory. This one has 384. It screams, relatively.

Getting Brian's IPOD all fixed up with playlists before he goes. Put a new battery in it. Got him hooked up with all the power adaptors he'll need. He got a digital camera a couple of weeks ago -- so I got him an NIMH rechargable battery kit, too. And I gave him my Ambico mini tripod -- I've had one for years --- it's been up and down mountains with me. It's smaller (important for soldiers on the go) and much sturdier than those cheesey "Digital" brand ones you can pick up at Walmart for $5. They're getting harder to find, though, I think. Our Target store doesn't have them in stock anymore, but you can get them via Target Online or Amazon (which amounts to about the same thing I think). I ordered a replacement.

Put an older OS on the P-II laptop ... I can use it for a digital picture dumping/viewing machine on the road and an MP3 Library player at home. Cool. Now all I need is a 160GB USB hard drive to hook up to it. I have a big music collection :-) like... 700 CD's.

Got a K&N air filter for the Escort... bumped the gas mileage up by about 1.5 mpg both city and highway. So I'm getting one for the Taurus, too. Sure, it'll take a while to make up the cost, but it'll FEEL better. Plus I get extra power out of it when I need it.

Then I took my car in for an oil change -- $16.95, right? Nope. Broken rear coil spring. Replace those... might as well replace the struts, too, at 65,000 miles, right? $430 (with the oil change, labor, and tax -- hell, the tax was almost as much as the labor).

We'll be going out to dinner the next couple of nights for Brian's send-off -- he wanted to go to the 63 Diner again, and to the Outback.

Have to take Mom back to Fort Wayne after Brian leaves, then we have Renfest coming up, Tom wants to take us sailing, and before you know it October will be here and it'll be time for the Haunted Float, and then on top of that -- there's mom and dad's 50th coming up. So ... we'll be busy.

Well, that's about it for now.

The Drought is Broken

Well, I'd say we've broken the drought. Over 6" of rain in about the last week. Hopefully things will be back to normal. Won't help the farmers much, but anythings good and we do have more than crops to worry about, like trees and water tables.

Went to the Elks lodge Friday evening with Sam for Linda's birthday... we ended up at Cody's where I could show my total lack of eptness for dancing. Sam can dance, so I'm glad Vicki gets to dance with someone who knows what he's doing. I "danced" with the Lindas... one of them ended up on the floor :-( Well, see how good I am?

Saturday we lazed -- watched several movies -- Benny and Joon, some other one, then the last of the Return of the King -- then Vicki whipped out the first two Lord of the Rings movies. In my defense I did get out and work on the rest of the fallen branch, but the effects of the previous night's alchohol and the hot, extremely humid weather made me queasy. So I only did that for an hour or so.

Today I got out in the garage and worked on trying to apply some order to it. I got pretty far, really -- still a couple more days like today out there is what it's going to take. Lot of trash.

We did a cookout with the neighbors this evening. I whipped up a new Boat Drink. I'll call it a "Cabin Cruiser". They were pretty good.

1 blender =
5 c frozen Peach/Strawberry/pineapple fruit mix from Sam's
2/3 c sweet/sour mix
1/2 c frozen orange juice concentrate
1/2 c coconut rum
1/2 c dark rum

Blend.

--------------

We finished up the tree debris in the yard. (I say "we" because Ryan and Kristie had come over, drinks in hand to invite us to cook out, and they started pitching in without invitation - what are you gonna do? ;-) )

There's a leak where the neighbor's roofline and ours meet... I've patched it once but apparently it's back --- need to get back up there and check it out.

Oh, and I caught the second raccoon. :-) I also released him down at Gans Creek.

One more to go -- that I know of.

And that about brings us up to date.

Rain!!!!!!!!!!!

Hey, until friday afternoon, I think we'd had about 0.8" of rain since early June.

Picked up an inch and a half Friday & Friday night, then another inch Saturday, and we've had a good, steady light rain all night and all day since (frankly, I don't know what the current tally is, but it's good -- at least another inch).

This morning while drinking our coffee, the large crack of a tree structure failing followed by the cracks and whaps and rustles of falling branches -- I knew immediately it must be the old rotted thorny locust tree behind our house. It has a much younger (still probably 15 or 20 year old) shoot growing right up through one side of it -- but apparently it was relying on the rotting structure of the old tree too much for support. The wetness probably weakened the rotten wood and put extra pressure on a large branch structure that leaned out over our yard toward the house, and it's covering that portion of the yard now. I'll wait until it dries out to go hack it up with the chainsaw.

The Return of the Brewmeister

Well, we got home last night and Vicki wanted to go to CJ's. We called the Williams' (neighbors) to see if they wanted to go -- and we hopped in the car and went. The wings, as always, were good -- they're not as hot as they used to be, but they're still the best wings in town.

We came home and hung out on their deck until dark drinking wine & beer. Kristie wanted to go to the 63 Diner for breakfast. They have great food and a neat little novelty "doo-wop" nostalgia niche.

We went at 8, so we could be back by 10 when the brew session was to start. I started packing stuff across to Ryan's place.

As I started to get the ingredients out, it was immediately clear I didn't have enough two-row malt for two recipies. Then... it was also clear that I didn't have enough Munich for one recipe.

There are no real brew shops in town for grain brewers. It was either St. Louis, or Kansas City. Vicki and Kristie were in Jefferson City, and I found a web page for a brew shop there -- so we called them up to do a fly-by since the phone number yielded an answering machine for a different business (often homebrew supply shops are side rackets). But then we noticed the web page was last updated in 2001. So we called the girls back and said "ah, forget it".

We went with the Munich Helles recipe, scaled down to 1 recipe, and used the Munich malt in place of the Vienna, and added a bit of black malt for color and a little "roastiness".

So it's Phrysco beer, after Phil, Ryan, and Scott (a co-worker of Ryan's) -- the three brewers.

I still have a yeast culture for some Oktoberfest.... tempting.

So all in all it went pretty well after that, and I had everything cleaned up by about 6:00. I'm beat. The carboy of fermenting beer is in Ryan's beer fridge, where it will stay for about 4 weeks. We'll rack it into a soda keg after that and carbonate. The debut date will be October 1, before the Mizzou football game -- and we'll still call it Oktoberfest.

Lucky Little Rascal

Well, I heard some thumping out on the deck this morning, and a quick inspection found that I had trapped raccoon #1.

Little guy. Fortunately for him, I didn't have time to ... ahem ... "process" him properly, so he was spared the furrier's knife and relocated to Gans Creek Wildlife Area. Survival out there is up to him... at least he has a chance. I must admit there was a small bit of pity and compassion involved -- very small. I just want them gone.

Two to go.

Global Warming?

Again, I don't get political on this blog, typically. But -- this is not political at its core, really. It's something near and dear to my heart -- climate. Weather.

A lot of you probably know I have a degree in Meteorology and I even did all of the coursework and some of the research for a masters degree in it. I have been exposed to the science behind this. And I have always been cautiously skeptical of human-caused (anthropogenic) global warming. I even wrote one of my college papers on it.

I found a really good website that explains the vast array of problems with the antropogenic global warming theory, and with the Kyoto protocol. Far better than I could explain it, and backed with research that a guy like me doesn't have the time to look for.

If you're interested in reading the side you're not hearing in the press and the reasoning behind opposition to it....

Friends of Science

These are mostly Canadian scientists. It's probably the most balanced summary of the subject you'll ever read. There's even video out there for the attention-span challenged. I reccomend it highly, especially the Science Matters section. Next time someone starts spouting off self-righteously about the U.S. not signing the Kyoto protocols, you might just have a better understanding of the issues.

What can all this mean?

A sink with bleach-water, beakers, scissors, air-locks, and a yeast smack-pack.

A pan of boiling wort.

Beakers of yeast culture.

Yup, after a 4 or 5 year hiatus, I'm gearing up to brew again. Kinda wish I'd done it earlier so Brian could be around for it -- but we'll consider this a practice run for when he gets back.

After going on the Beer 101 tour with Ryan and friends at Flat Branch pub and Brewing, Ryan wanted to brew an Oktoberfest. An Oktoberfest is best lager-fermented and kept cold for several weeks before serving. Mid August is a good time to brew one.

I'm way out of practice. And we're doing it from scratch, meaning all-grain. No extract.

Stepped up the yeast last night. It's goin' down on Saturday.

It's an all-day thing. We'll have to clean and sanitize and arrange equipment -- and get the beer fridge ready for fermenting.

We're going to do 10 gallons. A double-batch.

The most important thing (besides getting the starch to convert into sugar) is sanitation after the boil. That's really the hard part, and you have to be pretty much a stickler about it. Truthfully, you spend half your time cleaning & sanitizing when you're brewing.

But it's worth the end result.

Look Through My Window, yeah

Well, didn't make it out to Mom and Dad's saturday -- Joel called about 5:50 am and said that -- basically, the hay wasn't ready to be picked up. For some reason I thought we were moving it from one barn to another but somebody was wrong or changed their minds.

So, I turned my attention to our own house, where I had two windows on the north side with rotten moulding and sills. I tore off the brick moulding and assessed the damage. Parts of the window frame structure were rotting as well. One sill was unsavable.

I cut away the rotten pieces and replaced them with new wood, which meant about half the sash on one window. Used Liquid Nails and screws to attach it. Painted. Cut out other rotten window parts using the jig saw and a hammer and chisel when necessary. Only the ends of the other window sill were rotten, so I cut good pieces from the first sill, cut off the rotten ends and used Liquid Nails again to attach those pieces to the ends. Once I paint it you won't be able to tell. Then I put new moulding up and caulked the edges. I need to get some new weather stripping for the bottoms of the bedroom windows. And of course paint after the caulk cures. I worked on them most of the two days, running to Lowe's now and then as I figured out how I was going to tackle things.

In the mean time, Vicki got the new color she wanted for between the cabinets and counter and busied herself masking off things and painting. As planned, she carried the color scheme over from the "kitchen" side of the kitchen to the built-ins in the dining room side of the kitchen... the new creamy brown/tan between the cabinets and the counter, and the "plaster pink" on the soffits to the wall above the cabinets. It really warms the room up and brings the dual-purpose area together with a unifying theme.

Then we had an impromptu bbq with the neighbors. I was beat. We came in and watched another Thin Man movie -- the fourth. Vicki got the whole series on DVD at Sam's. We love those movies. Myrna Loy has never been hard to watch, either.

And that was pretty much the weekend.

Sent to me by my goulish buddy Mark

Really, quite entertaining:

When talented people have too much time on their hands:

click here for link

Cwazy Coons!

Well, the raccons finally came back last night, wreaking their usual havoc.

I had a trap set for them (knowing I'd probably only get one at a time).

This morning, the food was gone, and the trap was tripped, but no raccoon.

I've observed these buggers. Its tempting, especially for furry creature lovers, to think that I was outsmarted -- but that's likely not the case. I'm dealing with three raiders who come together. At least two of them probably tried to enter the trap. The first one probably tripped the trap a split second before he grabbed the fish.

The second was probably inside the trap, and the door came down on his back, startling both animals.

As long as the door hasn't completely closed, the door moves freely. Raccoon #2 probably turned around quickly and shot out of the trap, the other hot on his heels. In this case the door never actually finished closing before both were out of the trap.

Better luck next time.

Meantime, today I'm smoking some pork ribs all day out on the deck in the Big Green Egg. They should be pretty well done (11 hours) by the time I get home. Mmmmmmmmmmm. Ribs.

We went to see "Must Love Dogs" last night with Rob & Kathy. Then out to the 'Roni Grill for dinner. Movie was your typical romance. Predictable. Entertaining. Food was good.

The countertop is finally in

We finally had a free weekend to, you know, do something around the house. So the new countertop that's been in the garage for at least the last month finally got assembled Saturday afternoon, and it was in by 10:00pm sans plumbing, which I did in the morning.

For some odd reason, the people who built the house decided that instead of scribing the back of the countertop to the wall, they'd cut a slot in the wall (at least on one side). Then they scribed the back on the short side. So I had to do that. Plus we've had to put moulding above the countertop to cover the rough edge left by the slot in the drywall by the builders.

No sooner was it in than Vicki decided the wall color needed changing -- actually in her defense she had decided that before but once it was in she couldn't resist doing it NOW.

Which is understandable. You kinda want to see it all come together.

So we went and got some lighter terra-cotta paint (once again, with too much pink in it for Vicki's taste) -- fortunately, it's a small area and easy to paint.

So now she wants to go get a still lighter color with less pink in it and go back, Jack, do it again.

I'm sure it will look nice.

The countertop looks good.

Brian swung through on 48 hours leave this weekend to see Kristin (and us). Had Ken and Glenda over for breakfast with Brian and Kristin. Strawberry crepes and eggs & bacon. Good schtuff. His plane trip went much better -- thanks to Southwest Airlines. They even got him on an earlier flight than he was booked on for his connection from Chicago to Kansas City.

Set a racoon trap. Three males tend to visit my deck and wreak havoc at night. Which means I'll have to ... eliminate them ... one at a time. They've ceased to be cute.

Misc update

Ok, what's been going on...

Went to a gathering at the Elk's Lodge for Sam's birthday last Friday - kind of a thing for all Elk Member's July Birthdays. Had a good time.

Then there was the guy/kid weekend from the last post.

Vicki & I tried out a new Mexican Restaurant here in Columbia called Tequilas. Food was good, not expensive. Margaritas were just a mix, though. If I were starting a Mexican restaurant I'd make sure my Margaritas kicked butt. I'd cut down on my profit margin there and be known for great margaritas and good food.

Also misqueued with Vicki on a movie the other day. We were interviewing people and if I could leave at 4:00 I was to meet Vicki at home -- if not, I was to meet her at the movie at 4:30. Somehow I got it in my head that if I couldn't leave at 4:00 it would mean I wasn't going.

Oh well.

Also went to the Beer 101 Brewery Tour of Flat Branch with Ryan and Kristie. Now Ryan really wants to brew. I'd better get some Oktoberfest ingredients.

Bri's coming in for a whirlwind weekend of leave -- going to a wedding with Kristin, then back to Marines camp. He'll be home again near the end of August, too, then it's off to support Iraq.

Hope he has better luck getting here this time.

Guy/Kid Weekend

Vicki went to the Groves' house over the weekend for a girls' weekend for Cami's birthday. Mark brought the kids here.

We smoked ribs in the Big Green Egg, took the kids to the pool a couple of times, played some on the guitars (and mandolin) -- went to the Gelato Cafe for a late night dessert.

Went out to Cool Stuff and walked downtown a little on Sunday. Stopped at Osama's Coffee Zone for a drink and a cool-down.

It's been about 103 here for the last several days. Today we're topped out in the low 90's as a cold front apprroached.

All in all, a pretty laid back weekend.

Adams Family Reunion

You can stop singing the song now.

Went up to Detroit over the weekend to have a reunion with Vicki's Mom's side of the family, the Adams. Of John Quincy descent. Not Morticia. :-)

Drove up to Fort Wayne, IN on Wednesday. Vicki and I did some work around Mom's house Thursday morning -- I powerwashed out the gutters (dang, that's a high roof!) and washed the porches off while I was at it. Vicki cleaned out behind the fridge and the cold air return and picked up sticks in the yard. And she made sure any falls I might make off the ladder -- that was much appreciated.

We got kinda wet, as the rain I didn't think would get here picked up.

Drove up to Detroit Friday afternoon. We didn't know it, but Jim & Carol were coming in from Chicago and hit Marshall about the time we did. If we'd gone to the same restaurant we would've seen each other. But we showed up in the hotel parking lot in Detroit within 2 minutes of each other.



We had a good time with them -- we get along with those two pretty well. We'll have to go see them in 'Vegas, Baby sometime. Well they actually live outside of Vegas... in the ... MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmountains.

Saturday morning didn't look promising. But the forecast was still for hot with a chance of afternoon showers -- scattered. But by the time we left for the reunion, the rain had set in, and it rained HARD, as in pull-off-the-side-of-the-road hard. And the rain continued till around noon.

However we had a pavillion, and some of the kids got to splash in the big puddles and got soaked to the bone (especially Jackie and Mike's kids). But everyone got there and Will and Joanne brought tapes of Fern/Joanne/Ev singing songs in 1956 -- people got cards out, Vicki and Karen went and picked up the rest of the food, and by early afternoon the rain stopped and before we knew it it was a full blown summer picnic with badminton and playground playing and face-wiping of kids and the occasional time-out. ;-) The husbands of the Pyles girls did a great job handling the kids letting the girls visit with their cousins and aunts and uncles. Paul & Mike came in from Atlanta. And Niki was great with all of the kids -- apparently she does a lot of babysitting/daycare for the other girls. I did a lot of visiting but relegated myself to taking lots of pictures for a lot of the day (imagine that!) I'm in the group shot, just to prove I was there. I think a few other people's cameras (Kevin's, as operated by Adriene, probably) may have a shot or two of me.

I think everyone had a pretty good time.

A bunch of us went out to Bennegans across from the hotel (the ones of us stayin in the hotel + Pam) -- and I went down to Mike's room afterward to visit with Mike and Pam. Looked up where the restaurant for the Sunday Morning brunch would be. Entered it into my GPS. We had intentions of hanging out and yammering for some time but by 12:40 we were wiped.

Had a great brunch at Kallaways, went and visited at Fern's house, then headed home. We stopped in Marshalls and ate at Schuler's -- which has a bit of history with the Adams clan. Nice ending to the Reunion weekend.

Putzed around in Fort Wayne today -- developed some pictures, went to Steinmart. I got a cool new watch and a belt there. I think Vicki got an inexpensive pair of shoes.

I never complain about women and their shoes. I appreciate their efforts :-)

I think tomorrow it's a visit with Linda Krick, and then we'll be off to the Home Office in Missouri.

An Engaging Fourth

Brian had 2 days leave after a month of training. Add a holiday weekend, and that gives you time to spend a few days with your family.

He flew out of Jacksonville to Charlotte on US Airways, but they were late taking off and missed the connecting flight. They put him and several (10-15) people on another flight to Chicago the next morning to catch a connecting flight to St. Louis. They slept in the airport

They landed in Chicago -- and time was short to catch the connecting flight. The airline said they'd call ahead and have them hold the plane since there were so many people who had missed the first connection.

They got there in time, and they all hustled through the Airport O.J. Simpson style and reached the gate with just 2 minutes to spare. They told the people there who they were, but the airline folks said "sorry, no more boarding", and closed the gate and they watched that flight take off without them.

The next flight to St. Louis was scheduled for 11:30 am or so, and they got on that one and taxied to the runway. And the generator light came on. So back in for an hour of maintainence and they finally took off and landed in St. Louis at about 1:30-ish.

We were all headed down to Kristin's Parents' place in Warsaw to watch the fireworks on Truman lake. We left at 3:00, and Brian and Kristin were coming from St. Louis. They stopped in Columbia to clean up and to pick up a little something Brian needed for later that evening.

Got down to Warsaw and had a good time with Kristin's Parents -- they'd smoked up a brisket and some turkey. Everyone was supposed to be there about 5:00 but Brian and Kristin didn't get there until about 6:30-7:00.

We hustled it out to the lake and put John's boat in and went out and tied up with a bunch of their friends near the dam. Got in the water with some noodles, and waited for the fireworks.

In the middle of the fireworks, Brian took the opportunity to propose to Kristin. Everyone on Brian's side knew it was coming. Kristin's dad knew, too -- but he was supposed to know much earlier in the afternoon than he did. Still, everyone was happy about it. Kristin's a great girl, and they like Brian a lot.

So ... that was pretty exciting.

Brian, Kristin, Vicki, & I went out to Sam's on Sunday and did some fishing. The bluegill were biting right and left, and Kristin caught quite a few of them. We got a few largemouth's, and Sam pulled in a decent catfish. Even Vicki, who had fished but never actually caught one... caught one.

Monday we had a neighborhood BBQ - Brian, Kristin, Matt and his new girlfriend Brooke and Ken were all over. We walked down to see the fireworks. They were about like Warsaw's without the lake and without the engagement ;-)

Congratulations to Brian -- and don't fly US Airways if you can help it. They offered him ... nothing.

Old Friends

The Everetts came to Missouri from Florida to visit in late June, and they came up to see Mizzou, their Alma Mater and visit with us. I hadn't seen them since... Oh, 1990 ... when University of Miami came up and handed Mizzou's football butt to them on a platter.

I think we held them to 55 points ;-)

Guy and Carol Lynn grew up as neighbors, dated all through high school and college, and I was at their wedding in the mid to late 1980's. Guy and I had a lot in common philosophically, although at the time they were both WAY more socially developed than I was. They kind of took me under their collective wings. Carol Lynn was a pretty, sweet thing. I used to tell Guy if he didn't marry her that I would. (Like she would've had me back then ;-) ) Anyway, Guy stayed wise and married her himself and they are still every bit as in love as they've ever been -- which is cool to see these days. It's a cliche thing to say. Many people say that and it isn't really true, but with these two they don't even have to say it. You can just see it.

We met them on campus Saturday Evening and showed them all the changes (many, many changes) There were even places on campus I hadn't been since they've changed them -- and I work here. We ate at the Hiedelberg, then continued the campus tour. We had a great time and didn't get home until like 10:00pm.

Sunday I put a brisket on to smoke at 6:00am. They came over in the early afternoon.

Now I expected to have a decent time with them, but the visit blew away all our expectations all around. We had a great time talking about everything under the sun, had some drinks, showed Ashley a few chords on the guitar... the brisket turned out very good. We cheated and picked up beans and cole slaw at Buckinghams.

It was pushing 10:00 pm before we knew it. They could've stayed until after midnight and we wouldn't have cared -- but we had to go to work in the morning and they had a LONG drive ahead of them in the morning.

So I guess we need to go see them in Orlando now.

Float Trip

Sunday we left with the Williams' for the annual summer float. This year it would be 6 people... ok, 6.5. Harold & Lynn's baby Kate is a year old. They didn't actually float with us, but they camped.

After my mountain trip, I went pretty minimalist on food. Pretty much, I didn't want much preparation or cleanup. We did bring the new big monster tent, and the nights were cool and dry. We didn't even put the rainfly on.

This trip we had the air mattress, too -- a welcome change from the blue pad. I call it "Luxury Camping". Your car and all the supplies you could possibly need, right there in your car.

Jack's Fork was fairly dry this year -- we haven't had much rain -- so we floated from Eminence to Two Rivers (where Jack's Fork meets the Current).

We had a really good time. The water was cold, but the day was warm -- not too hot. Plus, when you float on a weekday 1) there's way fewer people on the river and in the campsites, and 2) it's cheaper.

Except I lost my wedding ring in the water. My good one. I've worn it on 3 previous float trips with no problems -- however, I DID lose 16 lbs this spring. (That South Beach diet. Gotta reccomend it. Vicki reached her goal, too.) That, cold water, and sunscreen probably did it in.

Fortunately, I don't have any precious gems in my wedding band. It's a simple gold comfort band. Not TOO expensive. And it isn't even my original band, so there wasn't THAT sentimental value. Still, it was my nice ring, and I ordered another. No more float trips for the wedding band.

Maybe next year we'll go a little less minimalist on the food -- it's part of the fun of the float trip.

Trail Ridge Road again, then Home

Tuesday night, Wednesday, June 15

I did not renew my lease on my campsite for Wednesday night/Thursday Morning. If the weather was anything like it was Tuesday, I'd stay all day and maybe climb Twin Sisters or Deer Mountain. But I was starting to think about getting home, especially because of the float trip we were leaving for on Sunday and I wanted to have a couple of days home to put things away and also get ready for that trip. On top of that, the Everetts would be up the weekend after that and the house was fairly dishevelled from all the road trip preparation and the associated lack of attention.

Besides, another night on the blue pad just wasn't appealing. I thought I might even leave in the evening and drive until I got tired and sleep in the car at a truck stop again. The car seat would be more comfortable.

But that thought gave me an idea. I pulled the booster seat pillow I use on long trips to hold my gas-pedal leg up to keep it from getting fatigued and took it into the tent with me. The worst part about the blue pad was my hips and tailbone. This is a thin pillow, and would fit easily in the sleeping bag with me in the right spot.

I slept well, and in the morning there were clouds. Hmmm... maybe I'll just go home this morning. But I had to break the camp down no matter what anyway, so I set about doing that. By the time I finished, the sun was shining.

I decided to check out the Morraine Park museum I'd driven by every day for the past week. It was... ok. Mostly geared toward kids. I'd take mine there if they were grade-school age. There is a nice view of Morraine Park from there as well. Got back in the car. I looked in my dayhike book and noted that the Twin Sisters round trip climb would take all day the way I hike, and it was pretty steep. I'd be very tired and wouldn't feel too much like driving far. Clouds came again, further sealing the deal. I would probably leave during the day.

I drove back up toward Estes Park. The sun was coming out again. But it was going to be on again/off again. I got to the turn-off to Trail Ridge Road. And the Mountain Gazzette motto popped into my head.

"When in doubt, go higher."

I turned onto Trail Ridge Road to go back to the tundra one last time.

The road really isn't that long, and it wasn't long before I reached the Rock Cut and Tundra Trails. It was fairly crowded, although I'm sure it gets much worse. I looked over the Forrest Canyon Overlook on the way, snapped some shots of some high, frozen lakes, and at the Rock Cut I took off up a tundra trail to try to reach a peak and take in the views along the way.

Up at 12,000 feet, the wind was pretty strong. When the winds "down there" were 26-30 a couple of days ago, they were over 80 up here. Today, they were significant. I reached one of the peaks on Sundance Mountain -- this one about 200 feet below the actual summit. There was a plaque on the rock outcropping at the peak commemorating Roger Walcott Toll who was involved in the National Park system as Superintendent for Mt Rainier, Rocky Mountain, and Yellow Stone National Parks during periods between 1919 and 1935. Love of the High Country. Wanting to make it accessible to us. My kind of guy.

I scrambled up the outcropping which was 15 or so feet high, and there was the mountain index marker mentioned on the plaque. The wind was really whipping now and I was having trouble standing. I set my camera on the little 4" tripod for a peak shot of myself, and I even had trouble getting it to stay standing, but I managed. The clouds to the south and west were building and getting very dark. I needed to get down to the car in case any of them produced lightning. No cover above the treeline.

I started hustling down. I could see a storm headed right for Long's Peak, and I got a couple of shots of it as it engulfed the summit. Glad I wasn't climbing that puppy today. I wasn't moving fast enough, though, so to make up time, I decided to sprint.

Sprinting at 12,000 feet is not something a flatlander does terribly often or well, but I had spent a lot of time at 8,400 feet and above for the last week, and it was fine. I often get that winded here in Missouri on a sprint like that. I was both amazed and happy that I could make up the time.

I got back down to the car before any snow or sleet hit, and drove back down, knowing that this was it. I was headed home, about Noon on Wednesday.

I went through Estes Park to Lyons, down through a traffic-ridden Boulder, into Denver, and out 70 for the first time (I've never left Denver on 70, I've always gone through Castle Rock and out 86 - but I was in a hurry).

On the way down to Lyons, I actually got a pressure headache from the relatively quick descent. For the first time, I could see what's so attractive about Boulder. The mountain views are more spectacular than they are from Denver, for sure -- in more directions.

I could see pretty snow-capped mountains in my rear-view mirror to the North Northwest, and I gave my reluctant goodbye to them. I swear they make you want to turn the car right back around and go back. I once again marvelled at the stark beauty of the High Plains of Eastern Colorado and Western Kansas. Good darned thing I like them, too, because there are a lot of them. Upslope storms brewed all afternoon, keeping the car shaded and cool and providing some pretty lightning displays.

Tonight I would sleep in my own bed. If I didn't waste any time I could be there by 1:00AM.

I didn't. And I was.

Bear Lake, Alberta Falls, Mills Lake, Glacier Gorge

Tuesday, June 14

I could see right away it was going to be the beautiful day that had been predicted.

Today I would go up to the Bear Lake area Mahtaj had told me about -- probably one of the most popular destinations in the park. I would not be alone, for sure, but what a day to do it.

After the morning breakfast and cleanup I drove up to the Bear Lake parking lot. This time I decided to use the daypack instead of the fanny pack after yesterday's experience. I had everything you're supposed to take with you on a mountain hike, including my fleece and outer layer. Compression shirt, my teflon pants and shirt I got at Bass Pro -- thin socks under thick socks. Water. Trail mix. Hat. A few emergency supplies.... and treked the 500 feet to Bear Lake. Whew. Glad I brought all this stuff!

Truth be told, the fleece and outer shell took up most of the room in my daypack. It's lightweight, but bulky.

Bear Lake was very pretty. There's a trail all the way around it, and lots of people were there from all over the world and from all walks of life. My camera was acting up. Couldn't get it to turn on for quite a bit -- and then finally, it snapped out of it. I swapped photo-shoots with a man and his wife, and went around the lake, then headed down the path towards Glacier Gorge, Lake Hiyaha, Loch Vale, and other points. Not sure where I'd end up.

The ranger at the trailhead cautioned against Hiyaha without hiking poles as the snow on the trail apparently got very deep. So I headed toward Alberta Falls.

I ran into a pretty big cascade that I thought was it, and hung out there for a while, taking pictures and soaking it in. I was getting warm so I zipped my pants legs off and rolled up my sleeves before pressing on.

And then maybe another 1/4 mile up the trail I came upon the real thing. I probably spent about an hour here, too. The area was made up of gigantic slabs of granite with a few boulders, and the falls surged and turned around a boulder, slicing a narrow channel through the solid rock maybe 4 feet wide at one point. I don't know how deep, but that water was movin'! It cascaded down a little ways and then plunged maybe 30 feet for the "falls" part of the falls. There were lots of people around, and it was about lunch time so I sat and ate some trail mix and jerky I'd brought along.

So Glacier Gorge was further down the trail -- although you could bypass it and go to Boulder Brook -- I was pretty sure Glacier Gorge and Mills Lake would be my final destination. Don't like to try to "Do" the area, I want time to enjoy it. The trail got a bit steeper and rougher as it wound up around Glacier Knob. At one switchback I turned to look at the view and I could see Estes Park in the distance. I decided to turn my cell phone on and see if I got reception. I was a little surprised, but not shocked, to get one bar! I tried calling Vicki, but the call wouldn't go through. So I hiked on.

On the next switchback, I was a little higher and I saw a boulder to stand on, so I hopped up, turned the phone on and got 3 bars! So I called Vicki and chatted with her a while while a chipmunk pretened not to be begging for food at my feet. Told her where I was and to be sure to tell Sam, and what a beautiful day it was. And continued up the trial. A couple of guys passed me with lightweight gear heading for a backcountry site in Glacier Gorge. That had been my original plan before I drove up here but this trip would be a dayhike-trip-only for me, and that was fine. Still, I couldn't help wishing I were heading up there to do what they were doing for a bit.

A couple passed me -- the guy had a Mizzou hat on. He went to Mizzou, and lives in Kansas City. Another couple really floored me. The young woman was hiking in very good hiking boots, a red plaid skirt cut a little above the knee, a cotton shell, and a pink woven bonnet. She had a backpack on, too. I got the impression that she was no stranger to any of this. Now there's an oudoors woman who's proud to be a GIRL, I thought. And you all probably know how I feel about that.... so I was impressed.

I hiked over streams on little plank bridges with one rail, and the trail varied from granite slabs where you couldn't really tell right off where the trail WAS to very well tailored steps to curb erosion to nice bridges with two rails to very rocky and sometimes loose "gravel".

Started seeing snow around 9,700 feet, and ended up with a stunning view when I got to Mills Lake.

My feet were very hot, and one of them was threatening to blister. A John Denver song (imagine that! Actually written by Eric Andersen) had been playing over and over in my head for about the last hour

Take off your thirsty boots and stay for a while
Your feet are hot and weary, from a dusty mile...

My feet were goin' in that lake!!!!!

I rounded the left side of the lake and found a large granite slab that went out into the water about 40 feet with a couple of glacial boulders sitting on it. The veiw was stunning. I didn't realize it, but Longs was just ahead to my left. From this angle, it looked like just another peak in a series of spires to the south. Cheif's Head is prominent at the end of the valley. Snow came down to the shoreline on the other side of the lake. Everywhere you looked -- breathtaking.

I took my socks off to dry and sat with my feet in the water for a good while. Then I decided to strip down to my compression shorts and shirt and get in. It's a shallow lake, probably not more than 4 feet deep through most of it as far as I could tell, so it wasn't nearly as cold as I expected -- not that it wasn't very, very cold. All I'm saying is a quick dip of my head didn't cause a brain freeze like in West Fork Chicago Creek two years ago.

I hadn't been completely wet in days, and it felt good. I knew the microfiber would dry fast, and it was black so I'd stay pretty warm in the sunshine while it did so.

The socks were pretty much microfiber, too and they dried quickly. I was probably at the lake for two hours, but as 3:00 started to roll around, I knew I'd better start back down.

I met many of the people I'd seen on the way up on the way back down, including the Mizzou couple and the couple with the woman in the plaid skirt. When I passed the point from where I'd called Vicki, some people who'd passed me while I was on the phone were there on the way down. I mentioned that and they said they thought I was on the phone with the office.

Clearly, they don't know me ;-)

Now I'd decided to spend another day since today was so nice. I got back down to Moraine Park and took some sunset shots of a cascade, a bunch of Elk, and a coyote -- then decided I didn't feel like cooking (well, I didn't feel like cleaning would be a better way to put it) and I went in to Estes Park for maybe some Pizza.

Called Vicki, and she talked me in to going to Grubsteakk or something like that where I had an elkburger served up by a pretty northern European waitress with an endearing accent. It was a good burger - a little expensive but I expected that.

And I gassed up as I headed back to camp and the dreaded blue pad.

Fall River Road

Monday, June 13

The wind was still whipping around in the morning. Clearly a strong front had passed giving way to very strong high pressure. That meant a few things. 1) it didn't get very cold last night due to mixing. 2) It would be mostly sunny today. 3) it would be windy for at least a while today.

After the first night I had moved my tent to site 102 about 50 yards away where a hill blocked my lovely view of the bathroom and RV's camping on the loop below. A KU graduate from Chicago -- looked retired -- pitched his pup tent up the hill from me. Otherwise, it looked pretty solitary. Plus the hill helped block the noise from the other campers. Don't get me wrong, I think they were all quite reasonable for the venue, but I like it as quiet as I can get it.

Part of the reason I didn't sleep well was the constant violent flapping of the tent. The other part was - that Blue Pad, though I'm sure better than putting the sleeping bag directly down on the gravel... really isn't very comfortable.

I went to the Visitors' Center to get the forecast. Windy all day. Up on the top of Trail Ridge Road, closed again the day after I went over, the winds were around 80mph.

I decided today to stay below the treeline due to the wind, but I didn't have a plan. I drove through Estes Park and replaced a pair of gloves I'd lost at a souvineer store, and drove back in to the park at the more northerly Estes Park entrance.... I decided to take a look at Fall River Road. When I got there, there were people shooting photos of some Big Horned Sheep, and I took a few. At that point I noticed that there were actually glass chips inside my doubler lens, so it is now officially retired. Oh well, less to carry. The camera is still fairly flexible zoom-wise without it.

I chose the fanny pack and the camelback for my luggage today -- a mistake. Turns out fleece, which I didn't need most of the day, is bulkier than I thought. Should have brought the daypack. But I managed.

I went past the "Road Closed" gate -- Fall River Road doesn't usually open to traffic until July 4, and then it's one way, up. But it's open to hikers (two-way) year round, and up to bikers discretion if they want to try pedaling up it. It's a gravel road, even though it is Old US 34. It's a pretty good gravel road though, about like today's Virgina Canyon Road. There's really plenty of room for 2 cars most places, but if traffic got heavy I can see where people might get a bit edgy ... pun intended.

Ahead you can see Fall River Canyon, and the farther up you go, the more you see the Trail Ridge/Sundance Mountain complex to the left, and Mt. Chapin's dramatically spiny backbone to the right. To your left, you're looking at north side slopes and they have plenty of snow on them this time of year. Behind you as you go up (and ahead of you sometimes on switchbacks), better and better views of Horshoe Park, even though it recedes into a larger context as you get further away from it.

I took my own picture on some boulder cliff with the Fall River canyon behind me. There were a few people coming down, and a few wandered maybe a half mile up the road and turned around. The last people I saw for the remainder of the hike (until the very end) was a retired British couple about 500 yards short of Chasm Falls. They had just been in Columbia, MO a few days before and ate at a new restaurant I hadn't been to yet downtown.

Chasm Falls was pretty and a good place to stop for lunch. I had trouble shooting the falls in the sun. I learned in the end to expose for the water and let other things be under-exposed to get texture in the water. Otherwise you get the surroundings with a streak of white where the waterfall is.

My camera apparently only goes up to f7.1 -- so my next camera will have to have smaller apateures. That would help.

I had no idea how far I'd be going today. The canyon just sucked me in. What's around the next bend? Eventually I climbed about 2,000 feet somewhere past the 5 mile marker (I only found markers 3 & 4), where I had a nice view of the Lava Cliffs up on the ridge to the left and ahead of me. I had looked at those same cliffs from much closer on Trail Ridge Road on the other side on Saturday. The wind was still a force to be reckoned with but it was starting to fall off. It was about 2:30, and I needed to get back down, back to camp, cook dinner, clean up and get everything back in the bear lockers by dark. And I didn't particularly feel like hurrying, so I needed to start back down.

As I went down, I once again noticed that the hike up and the hike down are NOT the same hikes as far as scenery. On top of that, as the afternoon sun angle got longer and longer, it offered some more interesting photo opportunities.

I had seen no one since I saw the British couple below Chasm Falls in the late morning and I didn't mind the solitude. Probably not something people get later in the summer (well, especially after they open the road to cars. I ventured off the trail a couple of times to shoot some falls where the road and the river parted. When I got back to Chasm Falls, finally, I decided to try a trail that went downstream from the falls that the Brits had told me about earlier. They thought it probably went down to the picnic area near the beginning of the road, but I soon found out it was a dead end and climbed back up out of the hole.

Got to the bottom around 6:00 or so and a guy on a bicycle passed me ... going DOWN! Where did HE come from? I stopped and talked to him at the bottom. He started up about 5:00 and must've gone by while I was off the road.

I took a cursory look at the alluvial fan as I went back up but wasn't sure what it was -- found out later back in the early 90's the Lawn Lake dam broke up that valley and all those boulders, trees, and silt washed down and got deposited here. That must've been something to see. Glad I wasn't in its way.

I went back to camp. My tent was still there, but it was on its back being held down by only one stake. The other three had been pulled up by the windblown tent. Good thing I was actually IN it last night or it WOULD have blown away.

I cooked, cleaned, and put stuff away. The sun was down. I settled in to bed -- by this time I was not terribly fond of the blue matt as a mattress, but it was all I had.

The Pictures from the Trip

While time and space permits, the pictures are here.

Wild Basin

Saturday Evening + Sunday, June 12

went into Estes Park after checking out the YMCA and went to a few touristy shops. One of the first things I noticed was a reastaurant called "Molly B's" -- which was of interest because Vicki's favorite doll when she was growing up was named "Molly B." So naturally I took a picture of it ;-)

Downtown was pretty touristy, but not garish -- Idaho Springs on a little bigger scale. I looked at a few things, but it appears I'm done with "stuff"... I didn't want any "stuff". I wasn't here for "stuff", I was here to be out in the great wide open. Darkness was falling about 9:00-9:30, and quiet hours in the National Park camp site started at 10:00. I was pretty much just killing time. I got back to the camp site around 9:00 and went to bed. Tonight it would get cold, but not as cold as the previous night. I was comfortable (well, heatwise, anyway). A rain shower or two passed through -- the light, quick type.

There was a lot of condensation in my tent the next morning. With me sleeping catty-corner in the tent, the wall of the tent curved down within a foot of my face, and my breath went straight up to it. I wiped it all down. Went down and washed in the campsite bathroom, made breakfast on the ion stove, and tried to get organized. It was mostly cloudy. By the time I had it all together it had started to rain. I decided to drive to the Visitors Center to decide what I wanted to do on a rainy day.

I went to the backcountry office first, still thinking MAYBE I'd do some backcountry camping, but not being able to decide where to go, significant snow in the high country, the rain, and my general lack of organization were ganging up on that idea. But I got some useful information for future trips, and went back to the Visitors' Center.

Forecast was for rain pretty much all day. The rangers suggested I go to Wild Basin. It wouldn't be crowded, and there were some pretty waterfalls on the way up to Ouzle Falls. Cool. A chance to drive down hwy 7 through Meeker Park. Pretty drive, I'd been there in 2001.

Checked out the Longs Peak campground on the way down. Frankly, it's a place to camp before heading up the Longs Peak trail -- it's pretty enough, but it's not far of the highway and doesn't, except for two or three sites, have much of a view unless you're really in it for the trees. But if you're going to do that why not go backcountry and get away from neighbors?

Also went by Camp St. Malo's church which captivated Vicki and me back in '01, a Catholic church built from stone on top of stone, with a retreat and with Mt. Meeker as a backdrop.

And then I got to the trailhead. Got all my stuff together, pulled my hat down against the rain, and struck out. Talked to an older female ranger for a while on the first leg of the trip, but lost her of course in all the picture taking. The river was well charged with snowmelt and rain, and the falls were pretty. This was going to be a good hike for a rainy day.

I finally decided my slicker wasn't going to keep the rain out and put my poncho on (and then my hat over the hood -- the very picture of style I'm sure). The poncho showed its cheapnes by ripping itself on a branch the minute I had it on. But it was just the edge, so I stayed dry.

I lost my monopod, which had been doubling as a walking stick. I think it may have been tucked under my arm while I was shooting a waterfall from a large boulder. I heard it clatter, and I had a pretty good idea what had just happened. I looked down in the water and there it was, bobbing up and down in the water going around the boulder toward the shore. I thought "great, it's going to float to shore and I can just go fetch it"... but by the time I got to where it should have been it had filled with water and sunk. I couldn't see it, and I wasn't about to go in after it. Dang thing was $30..... but risking life and limb for $30 somehow doesn't seem worth it. I let it go.

I saw I was going to be hiking past Calypso Cascades, and I thought I had reached them at a large bridge. I was taking a few pictures there, and saw this guy packing the CUTEST little red-haired baby in a little covered baby backpack.

On the other side of the bridge there was a large boulder and I decided to take a shot of myself there. While I was trying that three hikers came upon me, and the leader of the gang offered to take it for me, and I let him... took some pictures of them as well. They introduced themselves as Paul, Nate, and Bethany. Paul is an architect in Denver. Nate (I think) is his cousin. Well one of them is, and he's either married to or otherwise seriously involved with Bethany. They were all nice people. Bethany was very sweet with a killer smile. They hiked the rest of the way with me (or I with them) to Ouzle falls, and we had a good time joking about mistaking things for features they weren't and generally had plenty to talk about.

We ended up at Ouzle Falls, about a 50' fall which Mahtaj had been to in December a couple of years ago when it was completely frozen... We were near 10,000 feet, and the rain had changed to snow, sleet, and slush -- often alternating, and sometimes coming down all at once. We took the requisite pictures. It started sleeting pretty hard and we headed back down... more because it was time than the sleet. The sleet, I somehow knew, would be brief and once we got down 500 feet or so it was back to rain, then it started to clear up.

I split with them to take one last look for the monopod, but I had passed the spot where I lost it and I caught up to them at the parking lot. Paul and I exchanged email addresses so we could swap pictures and maybe stories.

A bit later I looked up at this SUV, and saw this woman pull a ballcap of and shake her hair out a little -- one of those movements that'll catch a guy's eye. I thought "man, who's that?! She's pretty". She looked up and smiled and waved at me and I was immediately embarrassed. It was Bethany.

Stopped and took some pictures of Meeker and Camp St. Malo against the clearing sky and falling sun on the way back, and I made note of some public showers near Meeker Park. When I got to Estes Park I decided to do some laundry... I had worn the heck out of the microfiber shirts and thought I'd like to wear them again without smelling bad. So I spent an hour there doing laundry. Called to talk to Vicki, but she was at the Blue Man Group show. I took a long shot of the famous Stanley Hotel from just outside the laundromat. Went back to camp, made dinner, got in the tent and called Mark and chatted with him a while.

The wind was kicking up, and my tent was bouncing and flapping. I knew they were strong winds -- I found out later that at Estes Park (about 1,000 feet lower) the winds were 26 to 30mph gusting to 48. I believe it. My tent bounced up and down all night, but stayed together. I didn't sleep much, but frankly I was kind of excited by the conditions. It was pretty cool. And no condensation in the morning! The tent had been very well ventilated.

Trail Ridge Road

Saturday, June 11

Got up about 6:00. I was cold and wanted some hot food. I made some coffee, then some oatmeal and added the dried cinnamon apples. It was quite good -- could've been a little sweeter, but hot and "not disgusting" were at the top of the the priority list, so this was gourmet.

It had cleared up some, and I could see some of the mountains in the National Park to the East. Sun was glistening off of dew-covered vegetation. And the lovely considerate folks who had given me such a good night's entertainment began to stir about 150 yards to the north.

The same Butthead laugh was there, backed with less alchohol. A generator turned on. I wanted out of there, and I did it pretty quick.

I drove farther up the road into the National Forest .... something I should've done the night before -- and it wound up the mountain a ways along the side of the Stillwater Creek valley. I stopped at a point just under 10,000 feet and found a place in the stream that offered a bit of privacy and I went down there with my washcloth and towell to tidy up a bit. C-C-C-C-OLDDD water. But clean.

I had been a while getting up here and of course looking around at all the beauty in the Rocky Mountain morning, and it was proably around 10:00 before I left and headed for Trailridge Road, hoping it would be open. I had a pretty good hunch it would be.

Stopped at the West side visitors center, talked to the rangers, and bought a little keychain thermometer. The road had opened about an hour before I got there.

I headed up. It began to rain again, which was not what I had hoped for, but it didn't last long -- by the time I got up about 1,000 feet from the road entrance, it had stopped and there was a lot of sunshine and beautiful views of the Never Summer Range and the early stages of the Colorado River.

Naturally there was a lot of picture taking during this whole period.

The road winds up past the snowline to Milner Pass. Poudra lake was still frozen. Ran into people from Illinois & Kansas .... and from all over the world as well.

After the taking the standard "Pass" shot, I pressed on up past the treeline to the Alpine Visitors Center.

Just to the northwest of the Visitors' center is a footpath, still mostly snow covered, to a nearby 12,000 peak. I can't resist a peak so close, so I went there first. I had lots of company. It was partly cloudy, temperatures probably around 45-50 with a slight breeze. You had to wait your turn at the top for a "peak" shot, but lots of friendly folks were up there to take them for you, and I took a few for others myself. Everywhere I pointed my camera there was a fantastic view ... the kind a camera can never capture, but still there were plenty of interesting subjects to shoot and of course I did.

I wandered back down to the Visitors Center eventually, but I'm just not into stuff for the sake of stuff anymore and it was like a small version of the tourist trap at the top of Pike's Peak ... without the tram.

So again I pressed on to the Tundra Curves. Tundra is neat. These little plants get a few scant weeks out of the year to eek out some sunlight gathering/food making/storing and oh yeah, maybe 1/100" of growth before they're wolloped with a deep blanket of snow again until next ... "summer". And on any day of the summer they can be covered with snow as well!

After the Lava Cliffs (remnants from an ancient lava flow) and tundra curves you look over Forest Canyon, which eventually dumps out into Morraine Park. Right by the road near the "Rock Cut", there's public restrooms at 12,090 feet. Elevation proudly displayed over the window.

Right about here I got my first look at the flat top of Long's Peak for this trip... I was surprised to be able to see it. You forget that the park is relatively small compared to the scale of the features in it. Some of you may remember that I had planned to try to climb it this trip, but one look at it told me that it would NOT be this year. You need to do it in July, Aug, or maybe early September. Too much snow, and the Trough was full of snow probably deeper than I've ever seen if I'd dared to go up there ...and made it.

By this time I'm thinking I need to move along a little faster because I need to find a place to camp and I wanted to try to meet Brad Fitch at the YMCA of the Rockies. I knew I'd be stopping to take more pictures, but I tried to make them less frequent on the way down the other side.

I went through horseshoe park and out to the Beaver Meadows Visitors Center and asked about camping. They said they still had places open at Moraine Park, so I went and paid for a night and set up my tent in site 99. The campgrounds were nearly full -- not surprising for a Saturday evening. I cooked dinner and checked my voicemail -- there was a message from Brad. He was playing 5-7. By the time I got my dinner dishes cleaned up, though, it was about 6:30 and I decided against it -- though I did drive out there around 8:00 just to look at the place. It's very pretty.

In Which My Faith in Mankind Gets Dented... again

Friday Night, June 10

I got my little ion stove and cook kit out and set about making dinner. Boil water, add instant beans and rice, a little cajun seasoning, and some dried texturized vegetable protien I brought along as a convenient dried protien source. Tastes like CHICK-ken. Riiight. Tastes about like whatever you add it to, but it feels like chicken.

Got my tent and everything set up and backpack hung up just as it got dark. I went to bed.

There were some people who had pulled in the campsite across the road from where I was. It was a camper/pickup. They were playing country music at a reasonable volume before I hiked over, and I could not hear it from my campsite.

That all changed when darkness fell. A few other vehicles showed up, the music went up, and the drinking commenced accompanied by loots of hooting and hollering and this obNOXious Butthead-esque laugh track from one guy that went .... on .... for ... the ... next ... five ... hours.

I didnt' sleep. They were echoing all over the valley. But unlike in a National Park campsite, there's nobody to enforce any rules. About 2:00, I'd had enough. I was kind of cold anyway. The rain and low-lying bog had left the place damp, and I'm sure it got down into the mid 30's. I threw my clothes back on, hiked back across the bog, and slept (sort of) in my car with David and Steve Gordon music going until about 6:00 am. They all went to bed around 2:00, but I'd made my decision and I wasn't going back.

I got quite cold and actually whipped out the emergency blanket... which helped. My feet got cold. But I did get some sleep.

Into the Mountains

Friday, June 10

It wasn't a terribly restful night, but I did get some decent sleep. Around 5:00 am, I woke up, put my shoes back on, and went inside.

No showers at this truckstop. Small restaurant and convenience store. I took a washcloth and some soap into the batrhoom and did a little "bath". I hate being dirty, especially smelly. For some reason, I didn't think I wanted breakfast there in the restaurant -- so I bought some coffee, grabbed a power bar and some dried fruit I'd brought, and I was on the road by 6:00 am.
Not far past Russell I lost T-Mobile reception and started getting WestLink. I gave Vicki a call. Partially because I was curious as to what roaming fees would show up on the bill, and partially because, well, she IS my wife and I do like talking to her :-)

I had my GPS with altimiter with me on the trip, and of course I was keeping an eye on it. We live at 710 feet above sea level. Salina, KS is around 1,200 feet, and from there to the Colorado border you go up to about 3,800 feet on what they call the "High Plains" [queue Clint Eastwood music].

As I approached Colorado, the general cloudiness gave way to puffy white clouds I could see over Eastern Colorado. The gravitational pull of the mountains is starting tug on the car. I can feel it.

I stopped at the first rest stop in Colorado and washed my hair with some camp soap and dried it in the hand dryer. I felt much better. Hopped in the car and cruised through Limon and got on 86 to head straight for the mountains through Castle Rock. Plus, it's a prettier drive in general than taking 70 to Denver. (Somewhere before Castle Rock, Phone Service switched to US04. ) Since I'm going to Idaho Springs first, this is probably the best route anyway.

Well, I thought it was. But there's STILL lots of construction going on around Castle Rock, and things slowed down quite a bit. Somewhere in Eastern Colorado, the GSM phone service changed from WestLink to US 590. Thunderstorms covered the front range -- still pretty, though. I drove through a doozie as I hit 470, and about then I decided to drive to the west side of the divide for the first night as I figured these were upslope storms and maybe they wouldn't be so bad on the west side.

12:04, got to Idaho Springs. 43 degrees. Raining. Hmmmmm. T-Mobile again. Oh well, one reason I'm here is lunch at the Two Brothers Deli. It's dry and warm in there. I met a vacationing retired couple there who didn't quite know what to do with the weather. It was spoiling their plans. I directed them to the Forest Service office across 70, which was where I was headed after lunch anyway. Had one of their great sandwiches and headed to the Forest Service office.

I met the couple from the Deli there. Mt. Evans road was closed past Echo Lake. Trail Ridge Road in RMNP was closed. They were directed to waterfalls in the Guenella Pass area. Me? I'm here to go over Oh My God Road (Virginia Canyon Road) because Vicki and Mark had refused to go in previous years.

This year, nobody else to consider. I was going.

It really isn't a bad road at all, although I hear back in the day it was practically a one lane road. It's easily a two lane road now, but no real shoulder in a lot of places. Still, with a little common courtesy and sensible driving -- not a problem at all. A little rain and snow flurries. That was all, weatherwise.

On some switchbacks, I stop to take pictures of Idaho Springs from above, and I can barely see Mt Evans through the clouds. You can't really see Evans from Idaho Springs down in the valley, but get up a couple of thousand feet from 70 and you can. I can also see Little Sugar Loaf off to the southwest, and I am looking DOWN on clouds -- something that I always think is cool.

The whole road was peppered with mines, some operational, some not. Every now and then you'd see a car at the bottom of a dropoff to give you a sense of forboding -- but my guess is that these proably didn't go over with people in them -- I'd bet they were junkers, pushed by locals over the edge just to see what would happen. They were obviously popular rifle and pistol targets as well. Near the top, the road is even paved and has guard rails, and there are many nice homes along the way.

Got over to Central City which at first looks like a quaint mountain town, but it's been overrun by casinos and the associated tourism so much that they've built ANOTHER 4-lane road from 70, cutting through the mountains straight to Central City -- you bypass Idaho Springs that way. Nothing to see here, folks -- move along. I took the new Parkway back to 70, then up to Empire to go over Berthoud Pass on US 40.

My car had been acting up since filling up at some station around Castle Rock. Acting up as in "no power". I'd filled with 85 octane. I thought that might be it. So I stopped in a little store in Berthoud Falls and got some fuel injector cleaner to add to the gas. It was the first time I noticed the altitude. About 9,500 feet or so. Kind of dizzy, a little disoriented -- easily confused if I don't concentrate.

From the store you could see new snow in the trees 500 feet up the mountain. "Down here" it was rain. Drove through the lane addition project construction on US 40 there and before I knew it it was snowing. Hard. The higher I went, the harder it snowed. By the time I reached the pass, there was maybe 1/4 mile visibility. The old abandoned Ski building that I saw there in 2001 was in the middle of being torn down (Guess the Interior Dept bought it and was removing it... good). Down from over 11,000 feet to about 10,000 the snow continued, then changed to rain and then it cleared out and was quite pretty.

I found some National Forest over by Granby Lake and drove in and looked for a place to camp. There were other people back there. I was a little leery because of Mark's and my experience in the national forest a couple of years ago and the partiers. But I saw a lot of retired people and RV's. It seemed like a different kind of place with lots of official signs and rules posted.

I found an empty spot and pulled my car in. I should have realized that this was a place tyically multiple people camped. Still, it was about 7:30pm and nobody else was around. I decided to hike my equimpent 1/2 mile across the bog on the valley floor and camp behind some trees, out of sight of the road.

I Guess He'd Rather Be in Colorado

Thursday, June 9

Took off closer to 7:00 PM than 6:00 as I had intended. Somewhere between Rocheport and Boonville I realized I'd forgotten my backpacker guitar. I was a little more upset about it than I should've been, and I knew it. Realistically speaking, it wasn't going to get played. It wasn't really why I was going to Colorado. I'd had these fantasies, of course, about playing it by the camp fire maybe my first couple of nights. But I wear myself out up there, and generally go to bed when it gets dark.

Three hours after I left, somewhere around Topeka as it was getting dark, I noticed lots of thunderstorm activity especially to the northwest.

Going through the flint hills, I made a mental note that, at least on I-70 -- Missouri is flatter than Kansas. There's one place I can think of on I-70 in Missouri where you have maybe a 300 foot difference between hilltop and valley-bottom, and there is actually quite a bit of that in the flint and black hills of Kansas.

People say Kansas is flat, ugly, and boring. I, for one, find it envigorating -- all that vast, open space, and you can see so far in to it. I'm in the middle of "Dances With Wolves" country. I think it's beautiful.

It is long, however, and the plan tonight is to stop at a truckstop near Russell, KS and zonk out in the parking lot. I pull in around 12:40 am and put the window shades up all around the car, put on some David and Steve Gordon (Zen Garden) music quietly on the MP3 player through the car stereo, and kick the seat back. Kick my shoes off, and pull out the pillow I brought with me.

I'm Back...

Of course, there's lots to report, but first there's this float trip -- then I'll blog out the whole vacation.

It was good.

Herding Cats

Well, Bart's back, if I hadn't mentioned it before. Thursday morning, while waiting for Vicki to get back from the dentist, I was organizing Brian's Ipod for him and I heard the sound of tinkling liquid. It was too loud to be coming from the litter box. I turned toward the stairs, and there he was, picking up where he left off before we sent him to live with Brian.

"BART!!!!!!!!!!!!" I yelled. He immediately stopped and looked at me to see how serious I was. Then he took off up the stairs.

With good reason -- we said if he didn't stop we were going to have to put him down. I grabbed him and put him in the litterbox, then sopped up the mess and hit it with the enzyme. I didn't tell Vicki as we were headed off that day to see Brian off in Indianapolis for his deployment to Iraq. Figured she had enough on her mind.

I put one of the CatScrams at the bottom of the stairs pointing across the hallway to encourage him not to linger in the hallway. It seems to be working. He skitters by it, and there have been no more... ahem... "accidents" since then.

We went to see Brian off -- there was a special dinner for families of reservists who had been activated basically to let us know "hey, he's no longer a reservist, here's what you can expect now that your boy is an active Marine". Plus, how to get in touch with him, and a little about what he'd be doing.

Well, what he'll be doing is a lot more involved than training Iraqi soldiers and police, it seems. As a matter of fact, he seems to be part of the CAG, or Civilian Affairs Group. He'll be learning some of the language, and his job will be basically working with Iraqi civilians to re-build, re-construct -- in other words... just excactly the kind of target the terrorists like the best.

< /RANT ON >
This speaks volumes about our enemy. What should be the safest job for us is, in fact, the most dangerous. These people want Iraq to fail and fall in to their hands so badly that they use -- as their primary tactic -- the killing of civilians -- to keep chaos and disorder in place. The hope is that people will become frustrated with the fact that the new government can't keep the peace and either vote the terrorists in or simply let the terrorists take over.

Any group of a few thousand loosely organized people in any country who are willing to stoop to this dispicable level of -- ahem, "engagement" -- can, over time, cause the same amount of chaos being caused in Iraq by these villians. People don't seem to understand that.

The gleeful Bush/America bashers like to point to each little bombing and say, "look, it has failed" -- which is all the freaking terrorists want. All they have to do is kill a few people a day in some sort of dramatic fashion (explosion, beheading....) and it will run every day as a top news story. This is easy for people who have brainwashed people to blow themselves up in the name of Islam. The daily news stories magnify their puny successes -- and over time this myopic view will cause public sentiment to shift away from getting rid of them or further marginalizing them, and in the end have us turning the reins right over to these folks. If you think Jerry Fallwell et al are bad, stop and consider this.... how many dreaded Christian-Righters have you heard about kidnapping aid workers and cutting their heads off -- filming it for the world to see? Think about that next time you want to draw some sort of moral equivalence between Al Queda and the American Religious Right. I'm not a part of it, but get real!

Do Iraqis have to do things our way? No. But get serious. There are several thousand black-hearted evil people over there that want to run Iraq THEIR way -- and given a choice, I think the other 20 million+ Iraqis would take our way over theirs. And we're not even insisting on that.
< /RANT OFF >

Sorry, I don't usually rant on this blog -- but it couldn't be helped this time.

Ok, well Saturday I ran around and bought stuff -- food for Colorado and a few other things for the house. Then we went to see Gaelic Storm at 7 at Jesse. They were fantastic. Loved 'em. They are all extremely talented. I must say, though, that I think Ellery -- the fiddle player and probably the quietest member of the band is the one who really puts the sparkle on their sound and puts them over the top. It's not that she gets out in front of the music and takes over, but her playing weaves and winds around the band holding it all together with a silver thread.

Sunday I spent making up trail mix and dinners for the trip, and waterproofing Sam's backpack. Hung out with the neighbors for a while, then came back home. Kevin and Adriene came over and we watched some "reality" (shudder) competition on the Food Network. The little brother of a friend of Kevin's was on it... but he was eliminated last night.

And... that's the way it's been.

The last few weeks....

Busy. So why isn't it reflected here? A certain dear aunt of mine has pointed out that the posts have been severely lacking.

It's partially it's because it's been THAT busy.

Couple of weekends ago the Groves came up to see Téada, a traditional celtic music group. They are very good, and a bunch of young pups. Cami "discovered" them at Irish Fest in KC last year where she was art director (and I believe will be again this year?). Anyway, it was a small, intimate setting... the sanctuary at the Unity Center here in Columbia. The Unity Center is a kind of really, really generic Christian (mostly) church. It's kind of like to belong you have to agree that Christ, or someone like him fictional or othewise, had some really wise things to say sometimes. :-) Actually, that's just my take. I really know very little about it except what I saw when I was there.

It was kind of funny because live Irish music is generally accompanied by the audience participating by clapping and short, sharp "whoop"s at tempo changes -- the atmosphere in a church sanctuary, however generic, wasn't real condusive to that at first, but eventually the spirit (no pun intended) caught the best of everyone.

Took the kids down to Rock Bridge State Park and took the trail back to Devil's Icebox (the entrance to Conner's Cave and Devil's Icebox Cave. Stepped in and looked about a bit. Nathanial was very excited. Here's a shot up to the top of the sinkhole that you go down into to get to the caves:

This last weekend we helped Kev move, and Bri get packed. He left yesterday for Indianapolis. Tomorrow we go to Indianapolis for a seminar for how to stay in touch with him while he's in Iraq, what to expect and all that. Then we'll drive back that night. We could be home by 2:30am if all goes well.

With Brian leaving for Iraq, and Kev having the dogs, we pretty much had to take Bart back. Last week I had the carpet he'd basically ruined at the bottom of the stairs replaced. According to Brian he was well behaved the whole time he was over there -- and today is day two -- so far, so good. This was our best chance of getting him over the habit, anyway. Several months somewhere else, and clean up the old damage so he can't smell it. We're keeping our fingers crossed.

Also rented a roto-rooter type machine and routed out our sewer pipe because of a backup we had the week before when the washer went to drain.

Tomatoes are growing slowly. Probably need more fertilizer/water and definitely more sunlight.

I've been collecting everything for the Colorado trip. Got maps, park info, books describing back country campsites and trails. My equipment will all fit in my daypack -- sleeping bag, tent, cook kit, extra clothes and warmth/dry layer -- but no room for food. I ordered a Mountainsmith Outback backpack that's supposed to be 2700 cubic inches. It's about the same size as their famous Ghostpack. I'm not sure what my daypack is, but without overstuffing it can't be any bigger than about 2000 cubic inches. But the new pack isn't here yet. I have Sam's frame pack if that doesn't work out. Just tie everything that won't fit inside to the outside.

No matter, I will make do and have a good time.

I did get some WorldWide Sportsman shirts and a pair of their zip-off pants/shorts in the water-resistant teflon fabric at Bass Pro. Niiiiiiiice. I think I want another pair of those pants. They're better than the Columbia Packables I have -- fit better, and are water resistant and fast-drying.

Had molds made from my teeth a couple weeks ago to check out my bite. I've had some jaw problems so doc is checking out how my teeth fit together. It's all related. Long story short $525 for a night splint to hold me over until I decide if I want braces/a retainer later.

Oh, the car is fixed, too from the deer damage.

There's more, for sure, but that's all I can think of off the top of my head.

I need to be better about keeping this thing up to date.

So Fly, you gotta wonder why...

Got the tent rainfly done.

Set up both tents (the big new one for luxury camping) and the little backpacking tent and seam-sealed and water-proof sprayed them. I lost a stake, so I painted the rest flourescent orange.

Here's the tent set up with the new, homemade rainfly, and another shot of it all rolled up and packaged in the new ditty bag I made especially for the tent -- and a pen for size reference.



I was at Walmart this weekend and I saw they have a new model of the kids tent (the one I bought for backpacking) -- and wouldn't you know it has a better rainfly (though the one I made is probably better still). It's also apparently smaller (the package is a couple of inches shorter) and its apparently lighter just by hefting the two side by side. However, upon further inspection of the picture, it's got more of a hexagon design. They still say it's 5x6. But that got me wondering. If it's smaller and lighter and a hexagon instead of a rectangle -- they probably mean its 6' in its longest dimension, and 5' in its shortest dimension. My 6x5 rectangle is about 8' in the longest direction (catty-corner).

So I'm not sure. If anyone has bought this tent, I'd like to know what the real dimensions are.

Did all kinds of things around the house... touched up paint on the cabinets in the kitchen where it had chipped, replaced the molding by the stove with smaller molding so the drawer can open ... had to putty and paint the lowest few inches of the wall to do that.

Finally planted the moss rose in the strawberry pot -- I noticed a bunch of seedlings from last year's moss rose coming up in it, too.

There was a bunch of other stuff I did, too -- oh, like re-gasket the Big Green Egg and align the lid better, and I fixed the little ceramic disc at the bottom that the fire sits on. It's been broken in half quite some time. I used the fireplace/furnace cement. It just might hold it together.

I bought a pair of crampons on Ebay for $23.... they're older ones, but hey... I'm not going to climb ice, just maybe hike in some snow on a relatively steep slope. I laughed when I read that these were "obsolete" in terms of technology. They're spikes that strap on to your shoes. If they worked 50 years ago, they'll work today. I'm pretty sure snow and shoes haven't changed that much. Maybe the new ones are better for ice climbing, but I think those people are nuts anyway.

Also did a 10 mile round-trip bike ride yesterday. Not as bad as you'd think, especially since most of it was on "the trail". I'm not in as bad shape as I thought I might be. Still, want that old ticker and lungs hepped up for hiking next month.

Well, gotta go!

Thinkin' 'bout drinkin'

One song I heard while listening to Thayrone the other day that I'd never heard before was a perfect pop/country/bluegrass gem by the Meat Purveyors called "Thinking About Drinking". So I listened to a little more of their stuff on Rhapsody. They're an Austin Bluegrass band that likes to cover songs from other genres -- that last album covered everyone from Nick Lowe to ABBA to Ratt (yes, Ratt!).

The hook is a thing of beauty, and reminds me of a very similar song by Jimmy Buffett which tried to distill country music to its essence, "Why Don't We Get Drunk" (actually, the two songs sound quite similar but then again, why wouldn't they?) Anyway, the hook is

When I'm not drinkin'
I'm thinkin' 'bout drinkin'
When I'm not thinkin'
I'm drinkin' 'bout you

It'd be corny if it wasn't so darned good, and that's what good country pop is about. Heartfelt corniness to help you feel better when you're blue.

They also covered a really good Nick Lowe song I'd never heard before called "Without Love" - which isn't corny at all, it's actually a lyrically pretty song for the most part and I think they actually did a better job capturing that beauty than Nick did. And then that got me looking around for his contemporaries, one of whom is Nanci Griffith -- and I saw the old song "Gulf Coast Highway", which I believe is an Emmylou Harris song. But the group "Evangeline" (unfortunately not carried by Rhapsody) is the one I first heard do it and it made the hair on my head stand on end it was so beautiful. It's closer to Emmylou's version than Nanci's, but there's just a little extra something about their version (and no, I don't think it's Jimmy Buffett but he does sing the male part of the duet on the song) -- perhaps it's because it's a nosalgic song about the gulf coast sung by people who are from there and love it.

Ah, the wanderings through the train of thought music world.

Oh Deer

Went to Mom and Dad's Sunday for Mothers Day. Did a Swiss thing. Stroganoff and Fondue. It was a nice day.

On the way home, just out side of Mt. Sterling on Hwy A, a doe eyed me from the ditch. She decided to try to cross anyway. I didn't think fast enough to honk, but I did react with the brakes and had slowed down to probably about 35 when I hit her. She hit the front left headlight, rolled up on the hood a bit, then was thrown forward down the road about 15-20 feet (or so). She rolled a few times, scrambled to the ditch on the other side. Then she lifted her head, and stood up and staggered off.

The headlight got pushed back a little, and there is a dent just above it with a paint chip thrown out. The hood is fine. The front quarter panel might be flared a bit. It's hard to tell. I just want the major bend out and the paint repaired before it rusts, and the light adjusted if it needs to be.

Wouldn't you know I JUST paid it off this month.

Drove it to Fort Wayne and back monday and tuesday. Jammed to Thayrone and the Bone Conduction Music Show all the way home (thanks to recordings my brother gets to me -- we don't get Thayrone here. Wish we did) Folks, it's radio the way it's SUPPOSED to be - you and the DJ, hangin' out, playin' tunes.

I love the farm country in Illinois, especially eastern Illionois between Terre Haute and about Montrose. Those big ordered fields of green, beautiful trees, clean buildings and hard-working folks on tractors out on a beautiful spring day with sunshine, blue skies and puffy white clouds *sigh* -- does the soul good. I had to let out a few healthy Tim Allen style "Aaaaauuuurrrr!!!"'s.



A few people expressed concern with my plans to climb Longs Peak this June, including one very nice lady I'd emailed about her experience -- she said in June the snow in the steep area at about 13,300 feet called "the Trough" may not have melted, which might make it a more difficult climb than I'd bargained for.

I have looked up what different "classes" of climbs mean. I'd always said "If I can't walk up it, I ain't climbin' it". Longs sounded about as difficult a climb as I would attempt. I said that if I had to use special equipment -- you know, ropes, little metal rock clamper-thingies, or having my grip being the only thing between me and a plunge to the depths below (otherwise known as rock climbing) that would be out. Well, it turns out they have these "classes". Sniktau I'd call a Class I. We did a little trail detour on rocks and had to put our hands down occasionally for balance which wanders into Class II -- but I'd still call it a Class I climb. Haven't been on a real Class II.

Class III seems to be what Longs Peak is in mid summer after the snow melts, with a little Class IV due to some steep exposure but still on stable rock you can stand on. I'll have to check it out and see how bad the trough would be with crampons (basically snow cleets) and no ice axes. I'd be willing to use crampons for part of a climb (as long as it was somewhat like scrambling), but I'm drawin' the line at ice axes. See, you have to hold on to those. Grip. Plunge. Death, or at least serious injury. Bad. Not for me. I want to have fun and live to have more fun another day.

So, to make a Longs story short, it might not happen this summer since I'm going so early. I might break down and do Greys or something before I head home.

Oh My God and Trail Ridge Roads are definitely on the agenda. And some backcountry hiking/camping.

General Business (that is, being busy)

Did several things over the weekend -- filled a woodpecker hole in the side of the house, screwed a piece of siding in that's been sticking out, mulched the garden, measured brick molding to be replaced on the house, cooked chicken for South Beach purposes, cleaned out the car, checked for why I had buzzing in my rear speakers, replaced my car battery, changed the oil, and washed it. Plus, I made a dashboard mount for my new GPS.

That's right, I got a GPS. A cool little Garmin Vista. I didn't go with one of the cheaper models because I wanted mine to have an altimeter and be capable of having topographical maps loaded on it.

It was pretty cool -- I could see where I was on the road all the way up to Fort Wayne and back. Helps you visualize your progress.

I really got it for backcountry hiking, though.

Got Mom down here for her Birthday/Mother's day. Vicki's off this week and spending it with her. I'll take her back next mon/tue.

Need to make sure Mom's computer can be remotely managed before we take her back so I can fix problems from 500 miles away and give little tutorials like we did before. Something "broke" since Christmas and last time I tried I couldn't do it.

I have all the parts to build my rain fly for my packable tent, now I need to get off my rear and do it.

I also need to finish putting the new smoke gasket on the Big Green Egg. Oh, and plant the moss rose in the strawberry pot on the deck.