Eric & Shannon Robinson

We had a great time in Flordia celebrating with Eric and Shannon for their wedding.  They married on October 31st (Halloween) at the Swan and Dolphin resort.  It was an outdoor wedding in the early afternoon.  It was very nice and we are super proud of both of them.  Who knows it may not be long and we could be grandparents.  I took some of the photos that I had taken and made the video above.

The rehearsal dinner was at the Melting Pot, and the dinner for the wedding was at the hotel in the steakhouse.   I think everyone had a blast, I know that Candy and I did.

We were able to spend a day at Universal Studios and one day at the Disney Animal Kingdom.  For Universal, we got in as soon as they opened.  Lucky us we were able to ride every ride that we wanted and the wait times were not bad.

For Animal Kingdom we also got in early and we had a group of about 15.  The Bride and Groom and most of the people that were in the wedding.

Once we finished our day at Animal Kingdom, we started our drive down to Sanibel.   Eric and Shannon were getting ready to leave to D.C. to see the sites.

Looking Good

As you know Eric is now working for Disney.   I grabbed this picture of his FB page.  The young man is looking good!

Happy Mothers Day

Damn that was fun!  Had a great Mother’s Day Weekend!  On Saturday, Clark called me at 6:30 AM, and let me know I was scheduled to work the door at the CMHS for the dive meet.    I rocked out of bed and hit the shower.   I threw on my Slash T, a pair of jeans and my skull vans.    Got to the school just a little before 7:00 AM.    I worked the door until 9:30 AM and then grabbed a seat in the bleachers to watch the meet.    Clark did OK today, he ended up in sixth place, and he was trying a couple new dives that he wants to do in state.

I did manage to get 4.3/Miles in on the treadmill.   For the last three days, I have spent an hour on the treadmill, walking and running.    I am trying to get some weight off, and running is the fastest way to do it.   This brings my weekly total up to 26/Miles.   Glad to be home and trying to get back in the groove.

I baked up some chicken thighs for dinner and candy made a salad.  After dinner we decided we need to get out of the house, so we went to the movie to see The Great Gatsby, it was pretty decent with some good actors.   Candy was surprised because we rarely go to an evening movie, most of the time we catch a matinee because it’s cheaper.

This morning, Candy and I took the dogs over to the dog park for a walk and to play in the creek.   They both had a great time, and go nut’s when we say the work walk.  Mable starts talking and crying like a baby in the Wal-Mart.

When we got home, Candy made some chicken salad sandwiches and we loaded up a couple of packs with food.   We had the sandwiches, chips, pudding, oranges, raspberry tea.    We drove up to the top of GCR and parked and then hiked to a nice rock out cropping.  We climbed up to the top and found a place to sit down and have a little picnic.    This is what Candy wanted to do for Mother’s Day, and I have to say it was a great way to spend it.   The sun was out, in the 70’s.  We had all taken jackets but opted to leave them in the car. It was nice to have Eric and Clark with us, and I think they enjoyed themselves.  I got this picture of Candy and the boys.

We ran over to HD and got a few plants for the backyard and spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning up the backyard and planting our new flowers.

The Day After

Hope you had a Merry Christmas and are looking forward to a Happy New Year!  It was pretty quiet around the Robinson house this year.    The boys, Candy and I, were together on Christmas Eve, we ate on the snacks that Candy had made and then opened presents.   Everyone seemed pretty happy with what they received.  On Christmas Day, we had all our favorites.   Candy cooked up a rib roast, cheesy corn, mashed potatoes, garlic salad and more.   

We were supposed to make a quick trip out to KS to see family.  But on Christmas day we decided we were going to stay home and relax and get ready for 2013.   I hated to miss my Dad’s Birthday, but with all the travel I have done this year being home with some time off is something I need.

I headed out this morning and did a 5.2/mile loop.   As I was walking down the street to the trail head I caught one of our neighbor’s feeding one of the deer.  She stood with a bag in one hand and her other hand was out flat and the deer was eating from it.  I will have to keep my video camera handy so I can get some footage for the television show When Animals Attack.

While on the trail, I did manage to get a couple of decent pictures of a chickadee and magpie.   I was lucky that they sat still long enough, which is usually the problem.   It was cold out this morning, around the mid 20’s.   I was dressed warm enough so the cold didn't bug me.  Made my way down along the creek and took a couple of pictures.   The snow still covered the trail and the trees.   With the light breeze blowing snow off the tree’s it almost appeared as if it were snowing.

We went to see The Hobbit this afternoon.  I really enjoyed it and the 2+ hours blew by pretty quick.   Many of the same characters from the previous movies were in this movie as well as many new characters.   If you were a fan of the Lord of Rings trilogy, you will probably like The Hobbit. 

Happy Hiking

Mt. Rosa

Sunday June 10^th is Eric’s 21^st Birthday.  We had talked about making a trek to Cripple Creek but we settled on doing the Mr. Rosa loop.   I picked him up at 4:45 AM and we were in the parking lot and headed out by 5:15 AM.

We moved at a slow steady space for the 6.77 miles with an elevation climb of 5131 ft to the Mt. Rosa summit.  We arrived at 9:30 AM and sat atop while we ate the bagel sandwiches Candy had made for us.  We snapped off a couple of photos and after catching our breath we headed back down.

 

Just after leaving the summit we came across four couples who were working their way up.   They must have come up the back side of the mountain.  Other that them we didn’t run into any else until we were on Seven Bridges almost back to the parking lot.

Working our way down the west side of Mt. Rosa we encountered Moths.   I am not talking about a couple Moths for about three miles we came across, I don’t know, hundreds of thousands, millions, a shit load!   I tried to get some pictures that would capture what we saw but nothing came out.  Here is a link (http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/insect/05597.html ) if you are interested in Moths/Millers and where they come from and causes for over population.  The warm winter that we had must have allowed the cut worm to go crazy.

The loop took us 14.3/miles today and took us about 8/hours.  Not one of my best times.  Considering the elevation gain and the fact that I haven’t done any distance hikes lately I can live with that time.

The way down was hot!  I think today has been one of the hottest we have had this summer.  The heat was just bouncing off the trail and back up into your face.   I ended up with a little sun burn and so did Eric.

I picked up some new tunes for the hike, four new bands:

Rev Theory http://www.revtheory.com/

Burn Halo http://www.burnhalo.com/

Egypt Central http://www.egyptcentral.net/

Adelitas Way http://www.adelitaswaymusic.net/main.aspx

Each one of them, have some decent tracks.  One song that really sticks out to me is Adelitas Way – Somebody wishes they were you.  Here is a link to the song on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4YbPaa5E1I

Check out Sick by them while you are there.

St. Mary's Falls

I left the house at 6:20am and headed over to pick up Eric.  We were in the Gold Camp Drive parking lot at 7:20.  We were the first ones on the trail this morning.  It was cold and windy when we started.    It stayed that way until we got off the road and caught the trail head.

I put my MicroSpikes (http://www.pogu-spikes.com/) on once we hit the tunnel.  This is the first time I used them.  There was quit a bit of ice still on the trail and we had a light dusting this morning.  Eric didn’t put his on until we reach the top and figured he better have them on for the descent.

Saw some rabbit tracks but no rabbits.  We did come across several chipmunks chattering away up in the trees.  One chipmunk was running up the trail with a big pine cone in his mouth.

We managed to get six miles in round trip.  We climbed 1,401ft with an average moving time of 2.3/MPH.   Total hiking time was two hours and forty minuets.   I did manage to snag a couple of pictures today and have included them.

We reached the top of the falls at about 8:40am.   We thought about having our sandwiches but with the wind blowing it was to cold to stop moving.  The falls were covered with ice.  I ventured out a little ways but didn’t go to far.

We worked our way back down moving at a pretty good pace.  On the way down we ran into two other hikers working there way up.

Happy Hiking!

Round-A-Bout

Eric and I left the trail head about 8:45AM.  We made our way up High Drive and then took the twilight canyon trail.   This is a pretty decent incline for about 2/miles.  We made our way up twilight and then lower Captain Jacks and then the upper Captain Jacks and then down 666.

I only got a few pictures today but the ones I did get seemed to come out very nicely.    We found a Blue Jay, Chipmunk and a Toe head.  Not sure what the Chipmunk was munching on  but he looked happy

We logged just a little over 8/miles today.   Not sure about Eric but I ended up with a pretty nice sunburn.

Most of the trails were icy and in some sections we were in about 8/inches of snow.  We only came across a couple of other hikers today, most of them on 666 on our way down.

Happy Hiking!

End of Month

We just got back from Durango, Colorado; we took the big boy and got him all setup in the dorms at Ft. Lewis College. The room is an ok size and he has a roommate. We never did get to meet the roommate but they will make friends quickly. I was pretty excited for him, looks like he is going to have a blast. We have no doubts that he will do great!

So for the month I only got 99.91/Miles in. I came up about 20 short from August of last year. I am going to have to really step it up this month as I need 155/Miles just to be on track with last year.