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2007 | |
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Last update 2/24/08 |
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a little vacation |
monday, 7/17/2007 | |
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Saturday, September 1 – We set out in the loaded car at 7 AM and drove
to Amarillo, stopping only for gas. Since it was still before 2 PM,
we decided to keep going. We considered stopping for the day at Lake
Merideth, being a “National Recreation Area” as it is, but on a
former trip, Tom R and I had swung by and it wasn’t at all
appealing. Just a big hole full of water with no trees. So we kept
going up through Dumas, Dalhart, and on across the border to
Clayton, New Mexico. There is a state park just north of Clayton, so
we decided camp there for the night. The lake is small, sunk down in
a ravine, with just a few scrubby trees and bushes, but they had
decent facilities.
Sunday, September 2 – Up at dawn, temperature 57F. After coffee and a
breakfast of oatmeal, we were on the road at 7:30 AM. We headed west
again, turning off the main road to drive into the
Capulin Volcano
National Monument.
Monday, September 3 – Morning temperature 50F. We were up early, had
coffee anf oatmeal again, and were moving out at 7:45. We drove
through Salida, and on up to Buena Vista – a lovely drive in the
Arkansas River Valley that runs up the east side of the Sawatch
Range of the Rockies. We found the public showers on Main St. (for
future reference) down by the river. Since it was still early, we
drove up to Leadville and toured the National Mining Museum, which
had lots of nifty mining stuff as you might expect, then continued
north on highway 91 past the vast old Climax molybdenum mine to
Copper Mountain Ski Area, which sits on I-70 on the western side of
the continental divide.
Tuesday, September 4 – We made a breakfast of scrambled egg and cheese taquitos with flour tortillas, which wasn’t as much trouble as it
sounds like.
Wednesday, September 5 – We had some rain during the night, but only
an occasional light sprinkle when we got up and made coffee and
pancakes for breakfast. After breaking camp, we drove south to Buena
Vista, then west up over
Thursday, September 6 – After breakfast (those great muffins!), we
began driving south. This time, we drove on highway 69 through the
high valley that bisects the Sangre de Cristo range to Walsenburg,
where we picked up I-27.
Friday, September 7 – We finished off our eggs for breakfast and headed for home. The drive was uneventful, though the traffic through Dallas was very heavy as it always is. It’s good to go on a trip, but it’s also good to be back home. | ||
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summer rain |
sunday, 7/15/2007 | |
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I was looking at outdoor webcams in the area to see if the weather was really as bad as the radar seemed to imply (it was) and of course as I searched, I surfed to some a bit further away. They were having a glorious clear day at the beach on the French Riviera at Nice. Not so in Galveston. I am finally switching to "clipless" pedals on my bike, which means I also have to have special shoes that lock on in much the same way that ski boots lock into bindings. I didn't have metric tools here at the apartment, so I just finished installing the pedals this afternoon. M and I bought them Saturday while shopping in the rain in time for my upcoming birthday a few days hence. When the weather clears, I'll give them a test ride. Everyone who has switched from conventional toe clips tells me that you will fall over at least once after coming to a stop and forgetting that your feet are "glued" in place. We'll see. Hopefully I won't break any bones. The rain has allowed me to do some reading, and I recently finished All Quiet on the Western Front, which is an easy read and used to be common on the high school reading lists of English teachers. Somehow, I missed it. It was excellent and still relevant considering that we (humans) can't seem to figure out how to quit having wars. A coworker's girlfriend recommended a contemporary book I had put on my buy-later list when we were out having "group therapy" at a bar after work Thursday evening, so I went ahead and ordered The Kite Runner. It is about life in Afghanistan, and the reviews are universally good. I've been lately filling in some gaps in my CD music collection for albums I have only on vinyl. I immediately make a duplicate to play in the car, then rip to mp-3 format on the computer and file the original away in a cabinet for safe keeping. One of my recent additions was the Beatles' Abbey Road. It had been a long time since I listened to it, and I was blown away by the music all over again. Those guys were amazing. It's 5 PM on Sunday, and of course now that the weekend is over, the sun is finally trying to shine a little. Oh well, summer will surely get here soon! | ||
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brazil and back |
thursday, 7/5/2007 | |
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My business trip to São Paulo last week went very smoothly. This was my first trip to South America, or even south of the equator, as it was for most of my five fellow travelers. Our trip began at Houston (Bush) Intercontinental Airport, where we all met in the "President's Club", a lounge for business / first class travelers on Continental Airlines, where the free food and drinks start before boarding the plane. The nonstop flight left at 9:30 PM, so we started with a multi-course dinner on the plane, served on a linen "tablecloth" on real china, with cloth napkin, wine in a real glass and metal utensils. Afterward, most people read or watched something on the personal video monitor attached to our seats for a while, then turned out the lights and reclined fully and went to sleep. The seats are the real draw in this section, as they are similar to a typical living room recliner, which makes sleeping very comfortable compared to the cramped seats in the coach section. Even so, the difference in ticket price is too steep for me to ever consider paying to sit in this section on a personal trip. I estimated that for every five first class seats on a Boeing 767, they could have squeezed in 16 coach seats, so the first class cost should reasonably be a little over 3x coach, or even 4x counting the other perks. But the premium is almost 7x.
Brazil has almost as much land area as the continental U.S. São Paulo is just barely south of the Tropic of Capricorn, so it is just outside the area defined as "tropical." As the map above shows, Rio de Janeiro is at almost the same latitude (actually slightly north of the tropic), but it is a good 250 miles away. Some of us in our traveling group had hoped to take a quick trip there on the first day if there was no business, but much to my surprise, there is no passenger rail service between these two large cities, and the trip by bus is five hours each way!
When we arrived at the plant site of our hosts, we had a round of introductions and pleasantries along with our first taste of the strong local coffee, which was excellent. Fortunately for me, they have no objection to using sugar. We toured their facilities thoroughly, which were top notch by the way, then headed straight to dinner. Someone in our group had asked about a place where all sorts of meats are roasted on spits, and waiters walk around with each piece, displaying it right at your side and asking if you want him to cut a piece off for you. If you want some, you grasp the piece with tongs as he cuts it away. You couldn't eat what you had just received before a different waiter was there asking again. We had our first taste of the popular caipirinhas, mixed drinks made from limes, sugar, and cachaça, a Brazilian sugar cane liquor, and batidas, made from cachaça, milk, and any sort of fresh fruit you desire. These people believe in fresh fruit, serving it at every meal. The joke, as related by our hosts, is that the great thing about cachaça is that you can either drink it or pour it in your car's gas tank to use as fuel! It wasn't bad, but fearing an unpleasant aftermath the next day, I stuck with a making a good bottle of Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon disappear. Our hotel rooms were actually more like small one bedroom apartment suites, with living area, full kitchen, and separate bedroom. The shower was a nice big walk in with tiled walls and clear glass doors. All of the toilets in both public and private bathrooms featured what we would think of as kitchen sprayers on hoses mounted nearby. Sort of a bidet without the need for a separate porcelain fixture I suppose. We all noticed that stone is a preferred building material everywhere, with countertops, restroom partitions, floors, etc. made from polished slices of granite or marble. When we stepped of the elevator the first time, the hallway was pitch dark. We stood there momentarily, then stepped out to see what was up, and the lights came on as the motion detector sensed the movement. I couldn't make the lights work in my room and had to call down to the front desk. They told me to put my keycard in a slot just inside the door, and voilà, everything came on. When I took the card back out, the lights stayed on for about 30 seconds, then they all went out. What a great idea! During lunch the next day, which was a nice buffet, we learned that when ordering water, one must specify whether it is to be plain (sem gás in Portuguese) or carbonated (com gás). When I discovered a local soft drink called Guarana, made by a large beverage company called Antarctica of an Amazonian fruit of the same name, I started ordering that instead. We amused our hosts by trying to learn Portuguese colloquialisms for the remainder of the trip. It seems to have influences from Spanish, Italian, and French, but it is a different language. The essentials:
Our second night, we had a brief excursion to a shopping mall, changed some dollars to reais, and looked for souvenirs. Our host negotiated a price in each store when one of us found a treasure. Soccer jerseys for the local team, the Corinthians were popular items. There were a lot of shops with high quality leather goods, like purses (bolsas) and shoes. We ate at a German restaurant there in the mall and sampled Brazilian beers along with our food, which was muito bom. Our hosts recommended Bohemia as the best brand, so we obliged by ordering lots. Bottles of beer are brought to the table in an ice bucket, and small glasses are used, with each fresh large beer bottle used to refill several glasses to keep it good and cold, community style. One of the things you hear about the men in South America is that they are affectionate. It's true. They made a point to hug and exchange a kiss on the cheek as both a greeting and a goodbye each day. Not a bad custom, though it takes you by surprise the first time. Our last night, we went to a restaurant called Baby Beef Rubaiyat, a very nice place with dim lighting, well dressed waiters, an amazing salad bar with high-end items you never find in the USA, and beef to die for. We started in the bar with caipirinhas and hors d'oeuvres, then moved on to the dining room where our attentive host remembered that I have a fondness for a good cabernet sauvignon with dinner. He looked over the wine list and picked one, then had the sommelier open and pour for me to inspect and accept for the group - a very classy gesture I think. We were there eating, drinking and talking for a long time. One of my younger coworkers wanted to go out afterward and sample the nightlife, so one of our younger hosts took three of us in his car to look for a suitable place. (I came along to make sure the youngsters stayed safe and out of trouble). Unfortunately, most places were already closed on a Wednesday night, but we found one where we had some more beer and food, finally leaving when they literally folded up all the other tables in preparation for closing. But they graciously never asked us to leave. Our host told us this was a rule in Brazil - a customer can always stay until they are ready to go. Apparently the spirits we ingested were of good quality, because everyone made it to our meeting on time next morning. The trip home was just like the trip down, although I'd say we all slept a bit more.
Adeus Brasil! Eu retornarei algum dia! | ||
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a new place |
sunday, 6/17/2007 | |
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I've been back to my retina specialist a couple of times for checkups sine I had laser surgery in February, and it appears that everything in my eyes is stable for now. My problem tooth, on the other hand, didn't fare so well. The intermittent pain got so bad I told the dentist if he didn't do something for it, I was ready to get someone to use some pliers to yank it out. I told him I had started myself on some leftover antibiotic capsules and was on the verge of breaking into my emergency travel stash of hydrocodone for the pain. That got his attention, so he prescribed an antibiotic and gave me a prescription for some fresh pain meds until they could fit me into their schedule in a week or so. I don't really like taking narcotic pain relievers, but I made an exception this time so I could sleep at night. (I have no idea why some people become addicted to something that makes you so spaced out.) When the week passed, the dentist began a root canal but couldn't find one of the roots, so he set me up to see an endodontist to finish it a month later. But, the pain was gone, so I was happy. The endodontist finally finished digging the roots out of the bone and charged a lot more money. Last week, I went back to the dentist so he could finish with a permanent filling. The whole ordeal took a couple of months.
We spent one whole day burning three big brush piles that used to be a huge sweet gum tree right in the center of the lake lot. It took a couple of tries to get the piles to burn, but a homemade flame thrower made from a pesticide sprayer full of diesel fuel did the trick. The shade from the tree was nice, but it was in the way of future building plans, and of course every year it dropped thousands of those nasty spike covered balls that are so much fun to step on with bare feet. We had paid a crew of immigrants to take the tree down piecemeal on a Sunday morning in February. They hauled away the biggest piece of the trunk as part of the deal. (I love doing business with people who do what they say on a handshake.) Next project will be digging out the stump and some much needed major dirt work to get the contour of the land ready for building on. We'll have to find someone with a serious backhoe for that. We loaded most of the remaining big limb pieces onto the flatbed trailer several weeks ago and set out hauling them back to the house so we could unload them in a pile to rot. We only made it 5 or 6 miles down the road before one of the four trailer tires disintegrated. With no spare, we unhooked the trailer on the side of the road, jacked it up, and drove into town with the rim to find a used tire. After a couple of strikeouts, we found a little place in an old former filling station that had just what we needed. The guy mounted a decent used tire, made change in cash from his pocket, and we were on our way. After driving back and putting the wheel back on, we noticed another tire on the other side had gone flat. Not wanting to repeat the exercise, we unloaded all the wood to the edge of the woods beside the road to lighten the trailer, aired up the flat tire with a little emergency compressor I keep in the truck, and we headed home. We eventually had the same guy replace the last two old rotten trailer tires with "newer" used may-pops. All set for next time. We pass our special wood pile every time we drive to the lake now, but it is quickly recycling itself and disappearing.
M was down this weekend, and we were hoping to have some relaxing pool and beach time. Unfortunately, we had endless thunderstorms, so there was no hope of outside activities. Instead, we shopped a bit, and I spent the afternoon hanging all of my many framed pictures on the apartment walls. I must say, it looks a lot better now. Our boat mechanic left a phone message a couple of days ago that the ski boat is finally fixed, so I'll plan to pick it up and we can hang it in the boat house at the lake next weekend. On next Sunday morning, I'll leave from the house for the airport to fly off to Brazil. Hopefully, we'll have some fun in addition to our business activities, and I'll have some pictures to post next time. | ||
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spring fun |
sunday, 4/22/2007 | |
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The weekend turned out nice here in the city, and it was our 28th anniversary, so M and I tried to take advantage. On Saturday, we did some shopping early, took a nice bike ride, ate lunch, sunned ourselves at the pool along with the other apartment dwellers, had a nice dinner with a glass of Chianti at an Italian restaurant, and went to a party for a bunch of my coworkers in the evening. A lovely day all 'round.
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human pin cushion |
sunday, 4/15/2007 | |
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Last Tuesday, I became a human pin cushion. A group of us are planning to travel to Brazil on business in June, and my fellow travelers and I were given a list of recommended and mandatory immunizations as we submitted our passports along with visa applications to the consulate. I took my paperwork to the designated local occupational health clinic, and they rounded up all the proper vials and syringes. The nurse asked me where I wanted them, and I volunteered my left arm. She asked why I didn't want any in the "hip", so I told her the story from my childhood where we were playing in my grandfather's barn on an improvised swing, made with rotten rope of course, and it broke when I sat in it. The good news was there was a lot of hay on the bare dirt floor to cushion my fall. The bad news was there was a board with a nail in it sticking straight up under the hay. I couldn't sit down properly for several weeks, and the obligatory tetanus shot in the arm didn't hurt nearly as bad as the nail in the buttock. So, if I'm going to be punctured, I prefer they stay away from where I sit down. The nurse ended up giving me three shots in the left arm, two in the right, and a TB test in the left forearm. So just in case we're kidna0ped and dragged into the jungle, I should be resistant to typhoid, tetanus, polio (yes, I had the sugar cubes, but they don't count anymore), hepatitis A, and hepatitis B. There was some confusion on whether we needed yellow fever, so if it turns out we do, I can get that when I go back in a month for the round 2 of the multi-part hepatitis regimen. I declined some other offered vaccinations, such as chicken pox and measles, since I developed antibodies to all the childhood diseases the old fashioned way - I had the diseases. Tuesday evening, I felt like I was coming down with the flu and went to bed early, but I was OK the next morning. Unfortunately, for the third or fourth weekend in a row, the weather was cold and rainy, so we mostly stayed inside. Today it is just lovely. Oh well. | ||
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easter spell |
sunday, 4/8/2007 | |
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Last weekend, we had a lot of rain in the city, so we mostly spent our time indoors as much as possible - shopping, watching DVDs, cooking and eating a steak dinner with a nice bottle of Beaujolais, and finally driving 30 miles to the west side of town to see the Cirque du Soleil. One of the nice things about the Cirque is that the seating under their big tent is cozy, and even near the back you feel close to the stage. Our seats were in the center, so the view was just great. This venue was way different from their last show that was designed for full sized sports arenas. Like everyone else, we really enjoyed the show, although the guy next to us complained that this circus had no elephants (he was joking). For the Easter weekend, I traveled back home, just in time for the cold snap, or as the old timers call it, "the Easter spell". We managed to get some chores and yard work done on Friday, but it got really cold overnight, so we lit a fire and mostly stayed in the warmth inside the house on Saturday. The only good thing about the weather was that this should be the last shred of winter before it gets good and hot, just how I like it. I've about decided to move to an apartment closer to work so the drive will be easier. Monday, I'll go check out the finalists, update my comparison spreadsheet, and make the logical selection. Or more likely I'll go with my gut, since there are too many intangibles to assign rankings in a spreadsheet. | ||
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three day weekend |
friday, 3/30/2007 | |
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My change in job assignment and location back in January resulted in my pattern of every other Friday off to be switched to the other set so that our manager group would be balanced and half available each Friday. Actually, Fridays are very quiet at places like ours around the city, since either everyone works 9-hour days and half the people are off, or in some cases, everyone works 10 hour days and everyone is off. Driving to work every other Friday like I do, there is much less traffic to fight. Today is my day off, and I would normally have driven home last night, but we have tickets for the Cirque du Soleil performance of Corteo on Saturday night, so M is driving down this evening. This morning, I went to the dentist for a cleaning, but I also had a very sore tooth. My current dentist is one of the good ones who will try the simple fixes first - in this case grinding down the tooth a bit to make my bite match up better, since the tooth may simply be inflamed from too much pressure. Too many dentists would be anxious to do a root canal and crown immediately, for several hundred dollars. The hygienist harassed me as usual about flossing more, brushing better, and using some kind of fluoride rinse every day. She drew blood from my gums getting all the gunk off. Perhaps that is my punishment for being bad. I imagine she'll fuss at me again in six months. I'm having fun at work these days, staying very busy with my troop of young engineers who are all eager to learn and make an impression to further their careers. There are no duds in the bunch. It pleases me no end that half the new hires these days are women, and they are capable and career oriented, even when they are building families. The opportunities for women and minority groups are definitely better here than at my former company, as evidenced by who is in managerial positions at various levels. Although there is really no formal diversity training in the company, I think the proximity to an urban environment provides a more modern view of the world than exists in rural areas. Admittedly, the very top management is still all white males, but there is lots of diverse talent coming up through the ranks to take their spots someday. One of my most experienced engineers (5 years) recently accepted a challenging new assignment, and she asked early in the week if I wanted to go to lunch on Thursday, to which I answered "Of course". We rounded up some other people and headed out, and one of them announced that it was her birthday! When we were done eating, I told the waiter to put her meal on my check. When she didn't get a check and started to ask, I had to fess up. I told her it would be bad karma to allow a friend to pay for their own lunch on their birthday. One of the others at the table volunteered immediately to mail me a list of birthdays... M and I were down in the space center area last weekend looking at apartments so I can try and find something I like closer to my workplace. It might be a fair trade to exchange the forest I live in now, with all the biking and walking trails, for living close to the bay, with the potential for water sports. I would really love to get back into sailing after all these years, but it's hard to find a nice apartment in a nice area for a reasonable amount. I suppose I'm too picky, but I have to have a washer and dryer, and I have to have a south facing exposure with lots of light coming in. So far, nothing has taken my breath away. We stopped into a bicycle store in our travels so I could look at some of those funny little pedals that require special shoes to clip into for my bicycle. The sales guy was talking about the importance of keeping your foot aligned to prevent joint and muscle pain, and it occurred to me that this is probably why the 63 mile ride last fall was such a killer. I had removed my toe clips because they had broken, so I had nothing on the pedals to hold my feet straight. Still thinking about whether I want to spend the money on the fancy pedals. I took the ski boat to my favorite boat mechanic a couple of weeks ago, and he called this week to tell me the motor mounts are rotten, so it will need some serious repair. They will have to pull the engine and do some fiberglass work, then reinstall. The engine runs good though, and the boat is in great shape otherwise in spite of being 15 years old, and hauling countless kids many miles learning to water ski, so I asked him to have it ready for Memorial day if at all possible. I planted four tomato plants in pots on the balcony back in January, and I now have baby tomatoes rapidly getting bigger. By the end of April, I'll be slicing them for dinner. Yum! The clouds have thinned a bit, and it is in the low 70s outside, so it must be time to take a long afternoon bike ride. Off I go... | ||
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a long overdue update |
sunday, 3/18/2007 | |
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A couple of people have recently asked me why there has been no update to my ramblings for awhile, and I was surprised that I had gone six months since my last posting. Well, that's probably a long enough break, so time to catch up. November, 2006 - Not much happening besides work except for Thanksgiving, when youngest daughter was in for a couple of days. December 2006 - One of the unit managers I work with talked me into interviewing for a position at his plant site to manage a group of young engineers, and I finally agreed to do it, though it means I will have to drive 31 miles each way to work every day. I got the nod and will start the new assignment on January 1. Only youngest daughter made it in for Christmas, so it was quiet around the house. January 2007 - We finally had some cold weather starting about mid January. It was very nice and warm up to then. The new work location is good in every way except for the longer drive. Lots of people around the city drive further every day, but it's a waste of time and money. Since I drive a route over small back roads, it takes 45 minutes to an hour each way. On the 13th, we were out looking at modern lightweight street bicycles and bought a nice Lemond Etape for M. They didn't have quite what I wanted at that store, so we went back to the apartment for lunch, and I got online to find locations for another bike store. I found one that had a great sale on 2006 model TREK 1500s, so we headed across town to have a look. I liked the bike a lot, so we bought one and loaded it in the car and took it home. Later in the evening, we went to see the Symphony performing Bruckner's Eighth downtown. Our seats were in the third row, which allowed us to really watch the musicians in action. I wondered if we would get too much of the closest instruments, but the sound was just fine. February 2007 - The weather stayed pretty cold. The pool pump at the house died when the motor got flooded during a big rain, so we had to take the pump to an electrical repair shop to get a new motor ordered and mounted. Unfortunately, in spite of the cold weather, the pool began slowly turning green over the coming weeks. On the 9th, I went to see my retina specialist in the medical center to find out why the vision in my left eye was deteriorating, and an angiogram showed that there are too many blood vessels growing in a clump under my macula (the center of focus), which is where fine details are discerned. By the time of the exam, I could barely make out the big E on the eye chart. On the 20th, I had a treatment on the eye. A special chemical is injected into a vein in the arm and allowed to circulate for a few seconds, and some of it collects in the problematic veins in the eye. Coherent (laser) light of a specific wavelength (689 nm) is focused through the front of the eye onto the spot on the retina for a few minutes, and hopefully the veins are damaged by the activated chemical to the point that they quit growing, without harming the retinal layer above. For three days after the test, the patient must completely avoid direct sunlight, or there is a risk of getting serious burns while the chemical is still in the body. I did my best Michael Jackson imitation, wearing a wide brimmed hat, long sleeves, and gloves while driving or walking outside in the daytime. My next appointment to asses progress is in a month. March 2007 - On the 3rd, M and I rode in our first organized bike ride since the one last October. This time we did a 43 mile route on our wonderful new lightweight bikes. We started in a pack of about 1000 other riders at 7:30 AM on a crisp sunny day. We averaged 13.6 mph over the route and got back to the finish line around 11:15, just in time for free food and a surprisingly good live band. We're still not quite up to par with the full gear and regalia of most of the other riders. We're still using normal shoes with toe clips on our pedals rather than the special shoes that bind to funny-looking stub pedals. And, we don't have brightly colored skin tight jerseys with a team logo. Instead, we wore (gasp) ordinary T-shirts. In spite of our lack of conformance to current fashion, we managed to finish 3rd in our mileage class among the people riding in company sponsored groups. I even have a nice little wooden plaque on the wall of my office at work to prove it. Heck, if we had all the fancy gear, we might have done even better. Or not...
I was back home for the weekend, so I got the repaired pool pump installed - this time raised up 4 inches on a separate slab of concrete so it can never get flooded. The piping all had to be redone, so it took a bit of work and several trips to Lowes. With the water circulating and some heavy doses of chlorine and algaecide, the green color in the water is getting lighter and lighter. My next eye doctor appointment is on Tuesday afternoon.
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As
a bonus, we walked across the dam to an area where there are exposed
dinosaur footprints preserved by chance in the sedimentary rock and
now exposed for view. Geologists surmise that the animals walked
through a mud flat, since Clayton was on the edge of the great
inland sea that once covered part of the interior of North America.
The prints were preserved when a sudden flood washed sand into the
depressions, covering them with the first of many layers for a few
million years. Pretty cool actually. We set up camp, then headed
back into town to have dinner at the Ecklund hotel, an old western
restaurant and saloon that has been turned into the area’s only
tourist trap. The food was good, and it was a nice old building. We
crawled into the tent at dark, getting our first chance to test our
latest investment in car camping equipment – an inflatable air bed
with its own little pump. Wow! The blow-up mattress covered the
floor of the dome tent, and it was like sleeping on a regular bed;
nothing like the little individual air-mattresses of old.
Apparently, there was a guy in these parts
who loved this place so much, he persuaded the politicians to name
it the very first National Monument in the USA. He also built the
road up the side of the cone with nothing more sophisticated than
some mules. This part of the country is dotted with old extinct
cinder cones, and this one in particular is nicely preserved, with a
crater you can walk down into, and lava outcroppings in the bottom.
After
our hike down into the crater, we headed down the volcano and on to
Raton, where the land rises, and we caught I27 to head north into
Colorado. Before we left Raton, we drove out to Sugarite Canyon to
evaluate the state park there as a potential stop for the future.
Just on the other side of Raton Pass, we stopped at the tourist
information center in Trinidad, Colorado, then kept moving. We
headed north, passing the Ludlow Massacre Monument, site of the most
deadly labor conflict in US history in 1914.
After a tense standoff
between miners, their families, and militiamen over poor working
conditions, several women and children were burned up in a tent in
the mining camp. A small war broke out, leaving somewhere between 70
and 200 people dead before president Woodrow Wilson sent federal
troops to quell the violence. We left the Interstate at
Colorado, heading up into the mountains of the Sangre de Cristo
Range of the Rocky Mountains on Highway 165. I was on the lookout
for our first “attraction”, but still we came upon it suddenly when
we encountered sudden traffic congestion in the middle of nowhere on
both sides of the road. I knew where we must be and pulled over to
park.
We walked the rest of the way to climb around Bishop’s Castle
along with all the rest of the gawkers. The place is still as
amazing as it was last time I was here in 2001. The builder, who has
been going at it since 1969, was actually outside working on the
entrance stonework while expounding for a small crowd on the evils
of Social Security.
He is a real iconoclast, and more than a little
bit wacko, but he has certainly built something completely unique.
We put a few dollars in the contribution can and climbed all around.
We continued driving north to Cañon City and drove up to Royal
Gorge, though we didn’t pay the $23 each the concessionaire wanted
to get out onto the bridge. After taking a few pictures, we drove up
the road toward Salida, stopping for the night at a Forest Service
campground at Hayden Creek. After setting up camp and cooking
dinner, we turned in early as it was cold and dark by 7 PM.
We drove west past Vail, with all its fancy
houses, then turned south again on US 24 up over Tennessee Pass. The
long broad valley below the pass was the home of Camp Hale, a
training base for16,000 10th Mountain Division soldiers learning how
to deal with snow and rough terrain for the Italian campaign in
World War II. The camp was later secretly used by the CIA to train
Tibetan insurgents, finally closing down in 1964.
We turned west
again at Twin Lakes onto highway 82 up over Independence Pass and
down again into Aspen. Being Labor Day, the Forest Service Ranger
office was closed, so we drove on up Maroon Creek Road to see if we
could get one of the few campsites in the area. We got lucky and
were assigned a walk-in site at Silver Bell campground, so we set up
the tent. Since it was getting late, we drove back down the hill for
dinner at Little Annie’s Restaurant (overpriced like everything in
Aspen), walked around a bit among the “beautiful people”, found a
wine shop and bought two bottles, and finally made our way back to
camp for the evening.
Breakfast taquitos were a local staple food during our
younger days living in Corpus Christi in the late 70s, though those
usually had some minced potato and maybe some bacon or sausage mixed
in as well. Other people eventually discovered them, and now every
fast food joint around has some variation on their breakfast menu.
After breakfast, we drove the rest of the way up to Maroon Lake,
where the road ends and the trail begins. We hiked up to Crater
Lake, which sits at 10,076 ft, wandered around a bit, then continued
climbing another mile or so in order to get a picture looking back.
While there were a few other people out hiking on the way up, we
passed a lot of people on the way back down, some of whom didn’t
look as if they had ever hiked in the mountains before; no water, no
raingear, flimsy sandals, etc.
It was after noon when we got back to
Maroon lake, and we headed down the road to break camp. With light
rain beginning to fall (those other hikers were learning about
mountain weather about now) we drove on down to Aspen, then back up
over Independence Pass and down to Twin Lakes Campground, where the
weather was nice. The campground host told us we could stay until
Thursday, but after that they were closing down for the winter. I
told her we would like to stay in No. 23 (the best site from
previous visits), and she offered to bring us some wood she had
picked up for a camp fire later. We had bought some rib-eye steaks
and potatoes at a store earlier, so tonight we had a great dinner,
along with one of our bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon. The steaks were
great – the potatoes were a little crunchy in the middle, even after
spending an hour wrapped in foil directly on the coals. Perfect camp
food. With a fire to watch and keep us warm, we actually stayed up
after dark!
Cottonwood Pass. The road on the west side
of the pass is unpaved, so it isn’t a quick route by any means.
Eventually, the road meets the Taylor River, and then intersects the
road between Gunnison and Crested Butte. We headed up the hill and
found Cristiana Guesthaus a little after noon. This is a lovely
little bed and breakfast that is reasonably priced and is very
popular year ‘round with hikers, mountain bikers, and skiers. The
muffins they serve in the morning are the best I’ve ever eaten. We
showered, then walked over to Elk Avenue, the center of town, and
sat down for lunch at the Brick Oven Pizzeria. The food is
excellent, and they have at least 20 beers on tap, many from
Colorado microbreweries. We had a pitcher of a local pale ale. A
little rain shower blew in, so we had to move inside for a while,
but when it stopped, our cheerful waitress, who was so typical of
the friendly Crested Butte locals, helped us move everything back
outside into the sunshine. We nursed the pitcher for a long time,
enjoying the surroundings, the music, and the atmosphere as long as
we could. We finally left when the rain came again, this time socked
in for the rest of the day. After a drive up to the ski area and
around, we rested up back at the guesthaus. The rooms don’t have any
televisions, which I consider a real plus. You can go out in the
lobby areas and chat with the other guests or read a book upstairs
on the deck instead. There is a shared computer for those who need
to check e-mail. For dinner, we put on our raingear and walked back
over to Elk avenue and decided to try the Wooden Nickel. The prices
were pretty steep, and after our big lunch we weren’t exactly
famished, so I opted for a buffalo burger. It was really excellent,
but it was so big I couldn’t eat all of it.
The weather was good, and the driving was
easy, so after considering stopping early at the State Park at
Trinidad for the evening, we decided to keep going. Eventually, we
made it to Palo Duro Canyon, the traditional stop a day away from
home. We lit a lantern for the first time in order to cook dinner,
which was supposed to be macaroni and cheese and tuna.
Unfortunately, I spilled the macaronis while trying to drain them,
so we had to go to plan B – Ramen Noodles! It wasn’t our best dinner
ever, but it was quick and easy. A group of three women camped in
the vicinity were in a festive mood, and they carried on yelping and
laughing until after midnight. The wind in the canyon blows in long
gusts that shake the leaves on the scrubby trees in different areas
in succession. It is like listening to a symphony, where an
instrument over there starts out softly, then the sound slowly rises
to a crescendo before gradually diminishing, until another gathering
sound drowns it out. All this was taking place as frequent flashes
of distant lightening brightened the sky to the east. The rain
finally came and drove the frolicking females in the other camp into
their tents. And I finally was able to fall asleep.
M
and I both took a week off from work the week of July 4, but it
rained some or most of every day. The lakes and rivers swelled of
course, so we raised the boats as high as we could and tied them to
their straps, and our neighbor, who lives at the lake full time,
offered to call if we needed to do anything else. It appeared that
the crest would still leave us with a foot or two of room until the
boat windshield contacted the rafters. We had a little reprieve from
the rain, but this weekend the weather is back to its old tricks,
and we've not been able to get out and ride bikes or enjoy the
beach.
We arrived at around 9:30 AM, and a driver with a greeter met us at
the jetway exit to escort us through customs. I don't know how
she did it, but we somehow bypassed all the lines and sailed right
through with no problems. Although it is the dead of winter there, the
temperature was very pleasant. A passenger van with a driver in a suit
was waiting for us outside the baggage claim area, and after he
learned all our names and made some chit chat in English for a few
minutes, we were off.
São
Paulo is an enormous city of 15 to 20 million people, depending on how
many of the outlying districts you include. In fact, it is the
largest city in South America. It sits on a high plateau 100 km or so
inland from the coast, with undulating hills covered by buildings as
far as the eye can see in any direction. Unlike American cities
where tall buildings are concentrated in downtown or other high
density areas, 20-story apartment buildings were scattered about
everywhere. There were some multilane roads, but not much of the
limited access variety so the flow of traffic was not so fast.
But we did make our way surprisingly well for a Monday morning. And
speaking of the traffic, there are lots of moderately powered
motorcycles, most with a cube shaped box fixed onto the back for
carrying things. The riders travel on the stripes in-between the lanes
of cars and manage to move at least twice as fast. I asked what
happens when a car changes lanes suddenly. Our driver smacked his fist
into his palm. Enough said.
We
finally had an opportunity on a city weekend in May to get
down to the beach for the first time this year. It was one
of those rare days on the coast when the air is actually dry
and mild. We set up our chairs and umbrella and enjoyed the
morning before walking across the street for a burger at our
favorite place, "
I
took the week of Memorial Day off so M and I could spend
some time with son, who was in from California. Youngest
daughter was in for about a day as well. Unfortunately, the
big boat was still in the shop , so we couldn't water ski as
hoped. The weekend before the holiday was pretty busy on the
lake, since the weather was superb, and lots of people
besides the regulars were out enjoying it. We stayed at the
house on Memorial Day and grilled some chicken. On the
following days, we had some nice relaxing time lounging out
on the deck at the lake.
My parents joined us for lunch and visiting on a couple of
days.
M,
son and I traveled back to the city in separate cars caravan
style on the following Friday morning so we could move all
my belongings to a new apartment much closer to my work. We
took in a baseball game on Friday evening(the Astros lost).
Saturday was a really long and tiring day, but with the help
of a rented U-Haul trailer, we got it all done. Son left for
Dallas early on Sunday to catch a flight back to San Jose. M
and I spent the rest of the morning cleaning the old
apartment and loading the last items, mostly plants, into my
car. When we were done, M left for home, and I turned in my
old keys and headed for my new home away from home.
This
morning, we took another bike ride before M headed home. I
looked on the web to see what all was going on in town, and
it happened that this was the weekend for the Houston Grand
Prix. So, I loaded up my camera and headed down to the
Reliant Stadium / Astrodome area where the parking lot had
been turned into a race course, complete with concrete
barriers topped with fences to protect the spectators. I
actually only drove as far as Hermann Park, where the
parking is free, then took the light-rail train to the
venue, saving $13 and avoiding the hassle of the giant
parking lot. I paid for general admission and walked around
the infield until the marquee event started at 2 PM. I tried
taking pictures from several different locations but the
double layer of protective fencing made it a bit difficult.
When
it was about half over, I noticed that the attendants who
were guarding the entrances to the grandstands (those
tickets cost more) had left their posts, and there were lots
of extra seats, so I walked right on through and found a
nice seat high up. Finally I could see the cars screaming by
without looking through a fence. To me, these super high
tech race cars are a lot more interesting than the stock
cars of NASCAR, but the smaller crowds show that they
haven't figured out how to market their events like NASCAR
does to the good ol' boy crowd. Instead, they appeal
to serious motor heads and to people from other parts of the
world. In fact, most of the drivers were from outside the
US. All in all, an amazing amount of effort went into
turning a parking lot into a world class race course.
On
the 10th, M and I got up at 4:30 AM and drove to Austin to
see youngest daughter's apartment and to go on the Canopy
Tour west of the city where she guides people on weekends.
The idea is modeled after the canopy tours that have become
popular in tropical rainforest areas. We spent an hour and a
half sliding on zip lines between platforms mounted up high
in very large old bald cypress trees growing up from a creek
bed. It was a lovely sunny day, and we had a nice time.
When the trees are fully leafed out, it will probably be
even prettier. We all spent the afternoon sipping
beers and margaritas on one of the decks at the Oasis, a
restaurant on the side of the hill overlooking Lake Travis.
Very nice indeed.
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