Commentary and images from the road

image and information from September 13, 2009

This post is being simultaneously published
on Exit78 and Haw Creek Out ‘n About

Mesa Verde National Park, September 13, 2009

I figure she was just thinking about seeing the cliff dwellings up close and personal.

It was obvious, though, to us, that she’s not a regular on trails.

The shoulder bag is a dead giveaway.

Generally, the only places we ever see women with purses on trails are relatively short trails that go to gotta-see sights.

Cliff Palace is certainly a gotta-see, but really….

And the footwear.

Granted, we did see a lot of people wearing sandals and flip-flops, but, again, I doubt that many of them are out on trails of any kind on a regular basis — I think her flip-flops were to show off her pretty red toe-nails.

But the real question was the skirt.

I doubt that she was thinking about the climb up out of the canyon — or maybe didn’t know, until it was too late.

The way out was very steep — and included near-vertical ladders.

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The image on the right was taken from across the canyon.  I processed it on my computer to lighten it so that the dark crack in the rocks where the exit climb was could be seen.

We arrived at Mesa Verde early enough to relax for a while before heading further into the park.

(click on any of the following photos to view a larger image.)

Knife’s Edge, location of the old pre-1950s harrowing route into the park.

Evidence of past wild fires can be seen throughout the park, some quite recent.

Spruce Tree House is the third largest cliff dwelling at Mesa Verde.  Unlike other cliff dwellings in the parks, Spruce Tree House can be accessed without a ranger guided tour, though rangers will be on duty at the ruin when the trail is open.

Spruce Tree House was opened for visitation following excavation by Dr. Jesse Walter Fewkes of the Smithsonian Institution. Dr. Fewkes removed the debris of fallen walls and roofs and stabilized the remaining walls.

It was discovered in 1888 by two local ranchers searching for stray cattle.

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Commentary and images from the road

image and information from September 12, 2009

This post is being simultaneously published
on Exit78 and Haw Creek Out ‘n About

Spruce Tree House information is from National Park Service web page — Spruce Tree House

Clicking on the any following images will open a larger copy of the photo.

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Commentary and images from the road

image and information from September 12, 2009

This post is being simultaneously published
on Exit78 and Haw Creek Out ‘n About

We decided to get away from the almost daily mountain showers and take a day trip to the less visited northern rim of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, one of the newest of our national parks.

(click on any of the following photos to view a larger image.)

Needle Rock from across Crawford Reservoir on the way to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park.

Just as on the south rim, there are a number of overlooks, as well as a campground, though the campground on the north side of the park is significantly more primitive.

The sky over the canyon was awesome.

It was a 227 mile day trip, much of it over twisting and turning mountain roads.  While the road inside the park is a good paved road, the county Black Canyon road between the state highway and the park is graded and graveled.

After a long day of driving and sightseeing, we stopped for pizza in Montrose.

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Commentary and images from the road

image and information from September 11, 2009

This post is being simultaneously published
on Exit78 and Haw Creek Out ‘n About

Our first stop was at the Russellville, Arkansas, Downtown Fall Festival.  Unfortunately, my camera’s white balance was set to compensate for inside lighting and I forgot to change it to auto white balance.  So the composite images, even after post processing, are somewhat surreal, especially considering the holiday and all.

As always, click on any of the following to view a larger image

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Our next stop was Petit Jean State Park.  One of our favorite hikes is to Cedar Falls, the highest water fall in Arkansas — and the most photographed.

We figured that, with the recent wet weather, and rainfall totals way above normal, the falls should be pretty spectacular — and we were right.  We’ve been taking this short, but arduous hike, periodically since 1980.  We’ve never seen Cedar Creek with this much water in it.

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Road trip commentary and images

November 1, 2009

This post is being simultaneously published
on Exit78 and Haw Creek Out ‘n About

This new notebook sure is small compared to her old one.

Check out Day 3 of Rocky Mountain National Park and my other Haw Creek photo galleries.

Work, of course, takes a huge chunk of time and my time is shifted since the simulator is primarily available for the students in the evening. While I was planning for the contract to be over at the end of 2009, there is a distinct possibility that I will be there until the second week of March.

Karen has a new notebook computer. I spent the better part of a day installing all of her old programs and transferring files.  The notebook runs on Windows 7.

I’m going to also be moving from XP to Windows 7.  After restoring my laptop to near original configuration, there are still times where I am waiting an excessive time  for processes to finish.  My new laptop is on order and will be assembled and shipped next week.

Early this year, I rediscovered a love for reading.  I used to read three or more novels a week on a regular basis.  After many years of only a few books a year, I’m now reading at least a couple of books a week.

This has been the wettest year of all the years we have lived in Arkansas.  Much of the state is well over 20″ over the normal rainfall amounts for the year to date.  This is already about the 12th or 13th wettest year on record for Little Rock.  From what I understand, the wettest year on record was in the 1880s, and there was a little more than ten inches more than what Little Rock has already so far this year — and there is still two more months of 2009 to go.

I’m going to be concentrating on posting the rest of the material from our September trip and building photo galleries. I’ll post on other topics as I have the time and the inclination.

Our son-in-law knows a lot about bedbugs.

When he travels, he always takes the headboard off the bed in his hotel room off the wall as that is a likely place to find them.

The company he works for now has a new tool to locate hard-to-find bed bugs — Max, the bedbug dog.

Our son-in-law does make an appearance — of sorts — in the video on the right.

The hand with the bedbug on it near the end of the clip?  That’s his hand.

The star of the clip is, of course, Max.

Got bedbugs?

We didn’t go very far this day.  After walking around town a bit and having a coffee and snack at Artisan Cafe and bakery, we headed up into the mountains on Camp Bird Road.  Unfortunately, it was too cool for our picnic along Sneffels Creek  to sit for too long without a fire and a light rain started not long after we finished eating.

(click on any of the following photos to view a larger image.)

The city population was 813 at the 2000 US census.*

Like most towns in the Colorado mountains, Ouray was originally a mining town. However the evidence does not dominate the town. The largest and most famous mine is the Camp Bird Mine, the second largest gold mine in Colorado, established by Thomas Walsh in 1896.*

While Camp Bird Road is generally passable for small sport utility vehicles, there are some places that are fairly rough and, a couple, like the rock overhang above, that can be down right unnerving for some people.

I still have a lot to learn about my camera, but was able to get a decent time lapse shot of Sneffels Creek without a tripod.

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Commentary and images from the road

image and information from September 10, 2009

This post is being simultaneously published
on Exit78 and Haw Creek Out ‘n About

* from Wikipedia