Hood Walking

I didn't get out and walk this morning, so I ran out after work.   Cruised through the neighborhood this evening and made a 3 mile loop.   It was a little windy this evening, but over all nice to be out.

OK, so I feel better, I sent my letter and bitched about the trail closures.  I know it probably wont do any good, but at least I got it off my chest.   The Forest Service is holding a meeting on Thursday and I figured I would go check it out and make one more attempt to get my voice heard.    I am thinking about taking a week off work and spend my time hiking these trails, for what I guess will be one of the last times.   Not sure when they expect to close them, but I imagine it will be soon.

The letter I sent to the Forest Service may show up in the Gazette as well as the Cheyenne Edition.   I submitted it to both papers trying to get the word out.   The Cheyenne Edition editor wrote me back and said that it may be in this weeks publication.

Always something to laugh about

Not much to report on today.   We went out and did a quick 2 miles this morning.   I then headed over to the shop to play around with some new items I received for Christmas.   I stopped in, turned the heater on and then drove over to Starbucks's for a coffee.   When I returned about 10 minutes later it had heated just enough to be bearable.

First thing I did was get the battery charger going on the old Model A.   Santa brought me a new rotor, distributor cap, wires and coil.   Took about 30 minutes to get the new parts on.   I pulled the starter cover and added a couple of new felt washers.   I tried to start it but the battery was so weak that I could only get one turn.   I decided to leave the charger on over night.   Will get some gas tomorrow and see if I can get it running.   I would like to have it ready for spring and summer and drive it around.

Back at the house I did a little repair on the basement door.   Guessing the cold weather had caused it to swell so I sanded down the door edge and it closes now and doesn't rub the door frame when closing.

Below is my route log for the last two days.   It's snowing out now, doubt that it will amount to much.  Going to try to get out again tomorrow.

Happy Hiking

Home again!

Wow, I was on the road last week and it was a busy week, but home now and trying to get back into the groove.   Did 3.5/miles this morning and it felt good to be back on the trail.   I am going to try to walk to work everyday this week and keep the walking up through the Holidays.

I counted 15 deer this morning.  They are like rats around here.  Speaking of rats, for the last week we have had the smell of something dead in the office. Found it last night, we had a dead mouse under the book shelve.  Not sure where the hell he/her got in from.

It was cool out this morning, guessing in the mid 20's when I left the house.   Made a run up through BCP and over to the nature center and back.   I should have gone a little further but needed to get home so I can go fight with people at the Mall.   I am not ready for the holidays and I can't believe that this year is almost over, but it is so suck it up.

Below is my track and elevation log for today.

Happy Hiking

Ricardo Gonzalo Pedro Montalbán y Merino

Mortally wounded, Khan activates the Genesis Device, which will reorganize all matter in the nebula including the Enterprise. Though Kirk's crew detects the activation of the Genesis Device and the Enterprise attempts to move out of range using impulse engines, with the warp drive damaged they will not be able to escape the nebula in time. Spock leaves the bridge and goes to the engine room to restore the warp drive. When McCoy tries to prevent Spock's exposure to high levels of radiation, he incapacitates the doctor with a Vulcan nerve pinch and then performs a mind meld, telling him to "Remember". Spock restores power to the warp drive and the Enterprise escapes the explosion. Kirk arrives in the engine room, where Spock dies of radiation poisoning. The explosion of the Genesis Device causes the gas in the nebula to reform into a new planet, sustainable of life. A space burial is held in the Enterprise's torpedo room and Spock's coffin is shot into orbit around the newly formed planet. The crew leaves the planet to pick up the Reliant's marooned crew from Ceti Alpha V. In the final scene Spock's coffin is seen to have soft-landed on the planet.

Ricardo Gonzalo Pedro Montalbán y Merino - November 25, 1920 – January 14, 2009) was a Mexican radio, television, theatre and film actor. He had a career spanning seven decades (motion pictures from 1943 to 2006) and many notable roles. During the mid-1970s, Montalbán was notable as the spokesman in automobile advertisements for the Chrysler Cordoba, in which he famously extolled the "fine Corinthian leather" used for its interior. He also advertised the Chrysler New Yorker.^[1] From 1977 to 1984, he became famous as Mr. Roarke the main star in the television seriesFantasy Island. He played Khan Noonien Singh in both the 1967 episode "Space Seed" of the first season of the original Star Trekseries, and the 1982 film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. He won an Emmy Award in 1978 for his role in the miniseries How the West Was Won^[2] and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Screen Actors Guild in 1993. Into his 80s, he continued to perform, often providing voices for animated films and commercials, and appearing in several Spy Kids films as "Grandfather Valentin".

Why the tribute to Ricardo, I don’t know.  I was watching him in Star Trek II this evening and that made me remember him from the old Chrysler Cordoba commercials and Fantasy Island back in the day.   In the late 80’s I was driving a 1975 Chrysler Cordoba with rich Corinthian Leather.  It was burgundy in color and a pretty decent car being that when I got it was already 10 years old. People used to give me shit when they would get in, oh, feel the rich Corinthian Leather. LOL

Hit the trail this evening about 4:30 PM, it was already getting dark.   I did a 6.8 mile loop up through Bear Creek Park and up the mountain and down the other side to High Drive.   I had two head lamps with me and I needed them.   One was on my head and the other attached to the chest strap on my back pack.  If you are going to hike in the dark, make sure you know the trail and where you are going or you will get lost.   I had a pretty good time and didn't fall on my ass.  This is the route that I took this evening.

Happy Hiking

Happy Birthday Candy!

Today is Candy’s birthday.   I am baking a cake now, so I have a few minutes to catch up on the last couple of days.   We started this morning with a nice 5 mile hike.   Got out on the trail before it got to hot.   We hiked up Twilight Canyon to Captain Jacks and then down High Drive.   No bears spotted today.  We did count 14 deer on the drive through the neighborhood to the trail head.

I did snap off a couple of pictures but haven’t had the time to get the loaded up yet.

Now that we are home it is time to play catch up.  I have a long list of things I want to get done this coming week.   I still have another week off so that I can get some work items done around the house and shop.

Our gutter’s on our home are full of scrub oak acorns.  The tree’s overhang the gutters and drop nuts and leaves through the seasons.  Every year I end up on the roof cleaning them out so they will drain.   Last month I got a couple of quotes to have the gutters replaced.   I scheduled the removal and installation for August 3rd.   We went with Leafguard guttering systems: http://www.leafguard.com/index.php

It took them about 4 hours to remove the old and put up the new.   We went with white to match the window frames.   They look good so let’s hope the work as they are guaranteed not to clog.

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.