TX skyline

I worked in Texas for about a week recently and found a lot of color in the evenings! It was like this pretty much every day. 

#OptOutside 2015

We decided to participate in #OptOutside for Black Friday this year so we went to Ledges State Park. Having never been there before, we were pleasantly surprised at how big the bluffs and "canyon" were. It was really cold and windy but we managed to make a big loop out of one of the higher trails.

The road through the park passes through a number of stream crossings but we weren't allowed to drive through due to "winter conditions/high-water". It's a big area worth checking out again sometime.

First snow!

The first snowflake spotted at our house this season!

...and it was accompanied by quite a few others.  

Typically we don't have much snow this time of year so we had to make sure and go to the Jolly Holiday Lights pre-opening walk. Temps were around 20° and it was a little windy but still worth it.

Hard to get a picture of it with my cellphone but there is fog rolling off the lakes in Waterworks Park since the water temp. has not caught up with the sudden cold air. It was pretty eerie and made the walk even better. 

Into Fall

So....went ahead and skipped Summer there. We'll just go straight to fall. 

A hawk ate a bird on top of a pole in our backyard. 

I did not edit this photo - I was getting ready to mow the flower meadow down and noticed that there were two cone-flowers still holding on. It's frozen pretty good a few times now so I guess it's a right-place right-time sort of deal.

Short days mean good sunset views. 

CO/UT West trip, Spring 2015

Road-trip!

We went on a trip to Colorado and Utah in May and, as usual, it has taken me a really long time to post up anything about it. This is Charlotte's second time out to Colorado and she was a good traveler again, somehow doing 12hr driving days without much hassle. We brought the mountain-bikes and Charlotte's WeeHoo so that we could try some fire-roads or double-track in a couple locations. I had planned to ride in Moab and Durango. Since we had the mountain-bikes, that meant we took the truck which hadn't been out of the state for a while. The trade-off for massive fuel consumption is non-critical packing organization.

Last year we lodged in Golden the whole time and visited things within a short half-day radius of there. This year we went big and stayed in Golden for a day, then blasted out to Moab and made a big loop through Durango, back to Denver and home.

Here we're at a rest stop in Nebraska(ish) somewhere. 

And then we were in Colorado. Wow, that was fast!

Big Skies!

We made some pretty good time and had one of our faster Pella-Denver legs yet. I think the rebel seat-belt mode helped.

The air was decently clear, we could see the mountains when we were still about 80miles from Denver.

It was dark when we got into Golden. We managed to get a room in our usual Residence Inn by taking what appeared to be the last one available and it had hearing-impaired hardware all over in it. At least it would be quiet - if anything went wrong, there would only be flashing lights?
We packed the bikes and essentials into the room and got ready for some shut-eye. This is was also our first test of having Charlotte sleep in the same room as us. Last year, we used rooms which had a separate bedroom. It worked out amazingly well, - she got her pajamas on, climbed into her bed and went to sleep! 

In the morning, we decided to go for a run. Corrine has a half-marathon registered a week or so after we get back so one of her longest training runs is due. We weren't sure if the altitude would be a factor since we are about 5,000ft. higher than home.

I don't know if the difference was just getting out of the humidity/death-air we left at home or what the deal was but I haven't felt this good during a run all year! I ran 8 miles (with stroller and Charlotte) and Corrine ran 12! There were some substantial grades in there too.
This was several miles longer than my usual "long" runs plus I had the stroller and I was still o.k.
I don't know what the deal was but it was great!

Charlotte and I hung out for a little while at a playground while we waited to catch Corrine on the way back from her extra miles. This was a large sports complex on top of a pretty tall hill. I think we're about 1000ft higher than Denver here. It had a bunch of nice fields and mountains on three sides, not a bad way to play sports-ball. 

We grabbed some recovery food from a Cuban place. It was most certainly authentic! 

We went for slightly less exotic for supper and tried a nice steakhouse. 

I'd ordered (I think) a Rogue Dead-Guy and it came in a glass which must've been 24oz. I suppose the place is called "The Keg". 

The next day, we continued west into the mountains on I-70. We were headed to Moab in one shot.

Such a gorgeous place to drive, as always.

We stopped to stretch our legs for a little bit in Vail. 

Vail had a *really* nice playground tucked away down a frontage road and you can't ask for better surroundings!

We made good time and hit the Utah border in no time. Things got a little cloudy but the sun was still out on the La Sal mountains.

We grabbed a picture next to "the sign". I had to run across a parking-lot and a highway for the timer on this one. 

We got a hotel room and wandered around a little, deciding to get some food at the Moab Brewery.

Fantastic beer, all made on-site. I got one of the short-run high-proof stouts, now regretting that I didn't buy some to take back home. 

The next day, we found Wicked Brew's new location and loaded up on some espresso. It was time to break-out the WeeHoo and hit some fire-roads!

We decided to ride Onion Creek Trail first. This one runs in a slot-canyon for something like eight miles before it leaves the river and climbs up onto a mesa. Out base-fitness is so much higher than the last time we were here, this was easy even with the trailer. I suppose a couple years of training and racing will do that! The WeeHoo is working out great and even has enough clearance to do the stream crossings.

We stopped for a snack and to evaluate the weather. We were seeing some fairly dark clouds which were moving in different directions from each-other. Figuring that can't be good, we decided to turn around here. We had a ways to go yet before the really huge climbs so that was fine. 

We headed back with a few minor sprinkles. I don't have any pictures of what happened later. The temp. dropped and it started raining. Then it started hailing. We were able to get rain gear on to stay dryish but it was just blazing down and jackets don't help a lot with the hail. There were still a couple miles remaining to the truck so Corrine and Charlotte stopped under a small rock outcropping while I rode back and got the truck. The water depth in the streams had approximately doubled within about 20 minutes time. Thankfully the water wasn't too deep for the truck yet so I was able to drive back in and load everyone up. Somehow everything turns into an adventure. Good times!

We decided to go for a hike in Negro Bill Canyon. It's been years since any real hiking so this was great! 

See, clear skies right?

Charlotte working on balancing (or chicken-dance?). I need to get her on a slack-line.

Here's the Nego Bill Canyon trailhead. This hike has a small arch at the end of it.

Rain-gear is on already - we had a few sprinkles and weren't taking any chances.

Much like Onion Creek, this trail had loads of water crossings. Charlotte and I only fell in once!

We made it to the end and lounged for a little while to eat a snack and dry some socks. 

Here's the arch. Pretty small by Moab standards for an arch but still neat that it's hidden away back here.

The wind suddenly started gusting and thowing sand at us so it was time to head back again. We never really got rained on so that was good. Charlotte ended up walking almost five miles by herself on this one, we were definitely pleased.

We also went on a road-ride while we were here. There's a fairly new paved trail which goes from Moab out to the Poison Spider Mesa trail-head. 

It routes in the scenic byway river canyon so the views are fantastic the whole time. 

We stopped back in town to visit Poison Spider Cycles before we left. Charlotte is working on putting a poison-spider sticker on her bike which was inside the truck.

This is the view on the way out of Moab when heading East. You get to see the La Sals for quite a while.

We arrived in Durango and got a hotel next to the river and within easy riding distance of down-town. It was about this time that I noticed that the bike-rack and rear bumper of the truck were dripping with oil. The rear axle pinion-seal had failed and was unloading the gear oil. The axle wasn't very hot yet so I'm thinking this only just started when we were going over the pass before descending into town. We had a pretty long 80mph haul to get here so I'm not sure why it would have just started. Ah well. There was a dealership on the end of town which had parts in stock and could fix it asap. We got to live car-free and use only our bikes for a day. Sweet! Like I said before, somehow everything is always an adventure and I wouldn't have it any other way.

I think this place had about the nicest pool house we saw on the trip. 

We walked across the river so Charlotte could swing and there was a guy practicing jumps on his slack-line. 

Pack everything into the hotel and get some sleep!

The next day, we went for a ride around town to visit some shops and the fish hatchery.

This place was pretty cool and had a lot more public access that expected. You could wander around all over and feed most of the fish.

We lounged for a while and called it a day.

The next day, we were packing up to head out when, with about one load to go, our hotel room electronic lock completely failed. The maintenance staff tried to charge the battery and then eventually did a firmware flash but the actuator refused to move. 

The design on these locks turned out to be secure enough that there's nothing to do without functional electronics except use a complicated folding bar assembly which goes under the door threshold and pulls the inside handle. The hotel did not have this bar assembly. 

After a couple hours of work, using the door of the next room down the hall as a template, a new entry device was fashioned out of a variety of wire coat-hangers and we were on our way with an apology and half-price on the whole stay. 

Side-walk chalking while we waited.

Good location right on the bike strip and good hotel, I'd stay here again.

One last thing to do before leaving Durango, we drove to the Colorado Trail trail-head for a mini hike (we were out of time after the lock thing and had a lot of mileage to cover in the afternoon).

Things were nice out here as usual. A little different walking this time compared to MTB a few year ago, we didn't cover very much distance but it was so beautiful that it wouldn't have mattered if we only went 50ft. 

Inspecting plants and seeds for potential emergency food source?

We added to the cairn herd.

Driving east, we switched highways through Pagosa Springs. This was a really neat area. The town itself is pretty flat, sitting in a valley, but there are some really high mountains not too far away and it's bordered on 3.5 sides by national forest property. I tried to take some phone shots and you can see the mountains in the background. Sort of a weird desert/plains zone between Durango and here so there's a pleasant feeling of finding an oasis or something when you get here.

We stopped at a small brewery for some food. You could thrown peanut shells on the floor here!

On the move again, we headed N-E and found some extremely long, straight roads which I'm sure bored commuters test their top speed on.

We made a late stop in Denver to get some sleep before heading home.

And we're off! Denver to Pella today. It was a pretty easy trip with one notable event where we drove through a 40mph-and-still-can't-see type rain storm in Nebraska. 

Lots of this and we eventually made it home around midnight-ish.