Fishing trip!!

That's what I said to myself this weekend when I got a crazy idea in my head. I had pondered the idea of throwing my camping gear in the truck and driving down to the only place in Colorado where I have had excellent luck fishing. The place I'm talking about is the Crystal River which is near Redstone, CO south of Carbondale, CO (home of Northface co.) At first I had doubts. What is the weather going to be like? Is it going to be worth the three hour drive just for an overnight trip? I checked the weather and it was supposed to be totally sunny with highs in the low 80's and zero chance of rain. So I said "fk it I'm heading down. I was on my second hole when I realized I made the right decision. Bamm! a hungry brown trout gobbled up my lure and I thought "ok, maybe this is the only fish I get this weekend but will I be able to catch more than one.?" As the trip continued my doubts vanished with each hungry fish attacking my lures on just about every cast. Here's a picture of that first brown.

About and hour later I landed two little rainbow trout. By this time I was thinking "if I catch any more fish I'm going to have to put more ice in the cooler." So I drove back to Carbondale for some supplies and it was also getting pretty hot and I wanted to cool off "hmmmff... low 80's huh, feels more like 97 to me." So I thought I would kill some time and cool down by slamming a Gatorade and making a few phone calls from the shade of a bench outside the store. After I made a few calls the sun was starting to go down. I decided to try a few more places on the river and then find a place to 'car camp' overnight. The last few holes I tried at the end of the day were not so hot and thought 3 fish in one day is not too shabby (especially since the last time I caught three fish in one day in Colorado was the year 2002). It was time to get some dinner and set up camp since the sun was starting to drop below the mountains. I tried setting up my tent only to find out that the elastic cord that holds the tent poles together completely lost its elasticity. "Hmm... ok no tent that sucks... well it's a good thing that the weather prediction had zero chance of rain because I'll be sleeping under the stars tonight."

So I felt like I was really roughing it, I mean who needs a tent anyway. So much so that I thought about how I would describe my "roughing it" setup in terms of everyday living. For instance here is a picture of my "roughing it" kitchen.

Here is a picture of my "roughing it" dining room and kitchen table and refrigerator.

When your "roughing it" rooms can be magically transformed to suit another purpose. For example, my dining room can change into the bedroom, presto change-o!

"Roughing it" can be achieved by finding out that some of your stuff doesn't work (like a tent) but your "roughing it" can be enhanced by forgetting items like eating utensils. So I had warmed up some jambalaya and realized I forgot a spoon. So I slurped down the juice and the solid pieces I ate with some makeshift chopsticks that I whittled out of sapling branches. Hey! it worked!

So after putting stuff away I crawled into my sleeping bag and then I thought "oh no I have to take a whiz." In a tent I hate this because you have to get out of your sleeping bag, unzip the door on your tent, slip on shoes or brave walking barefoot and hoping to not step on anything sharp. However, when sleeping in the back of your truck you can crawl out of your bag stand up and pee off the side without stepping on the ground. I should mention that one should not do this if there is a strong wind blowing in your face. I was lucky and there was no wind at all. The stars were beautiful and it is kinda neat to go to sleep by counting shooting stars but it was pretty cold.

The next day of fishing was awesome and in one and a half hours I caught two monster browns and a little rainbow, I figured that 3 fish was good enough and that I would try one more hole on the way back to Golden. The last place I tried to fish apparently had a natural hot spring. It was pretty random to smell the slight hint of sulphur and see steam coming off of a trickle of water coming out of the side of the riverbank. I tested the water with my finger and it wasn't scalding but was hotter than I like my shower. If I go down there again (probably next summer) I'll pack swim trunks and go for a dip.

The great Montana road trip

Howdy, a few weeks ago Steph and I got her moved up and settled into her new surroundings in Billings, MT. My boss was gracious enough to give me some time off so that it wouldn't be a up to Billings and back again kind of a trip. So being that this was the last time we had together before I went back to Golden we wanted to make the best of it. We were able to spend three days in Glacier Nat. Park and spend some time visiting with Ma & Pa. I was able to squeeze in a little fishing and we did some huckleberrry picking. We came back with a pretty good gob of berries. Anyway, I was a bit of a shutterbug on this trip and snapped off a few pictures. I thought I would share my favorites.

At the Logan pass visitor center there was a mama mt. goat and her baby. Steph and I were a bit peeved at the idiot people pretty much getting on top of the animals to get a picture. The mama goat didn't seem to mind too much but the poor baby was stressed out. You could tell that the poor thing wanted to stay close to mom but kept running away when people were breathing on the mother. Luckily a ranger came by and told people to get back. Anyway, I wanted a picture but didn't want to be a jerk. Steph said "how about we go into the visitor center and take a picture through the glass?" I thought "I'll have to turn off the flash and there will not be enough light, but what the hey I'll give it a shot." It actually worked!

Here is a picture taken from the tour bus on Going to the Sun road. They had a free shuttle, which was nice because we could let someone else do the driving and we could look out the window. The downside was that it ate up most of the day and we spent a lot of time waiting for the next bus, because it not just one bus east and one bus west. It was pretty complicated in that you had to really be on the ball and know which bus to take at which time or you could be stranded on the other end of the park.

Some cool water falls, the St. Mary Falls if I remember correctly.

Here is a picture taken from the Many Glacier visitor center.

Here is a picture of Trick Falls, named so because it looks like water is just randomly shooting out of a rock wall. Pretty cool.

This is a gnarled tree in the area Dad has dubbed the "Twisted Forest." I have no idea what is up with trees in this area. I can only imagine that it is either some localized parasite or some genetic mutation that has been passed on to seedlings and for what ever reason the seeds have not gone to far from the parent tree. Weird

Me catching a monster rainbow trout. By "monster" I mean a seven incher. Hey, it's better than being skunked!

Steph picking huckleberries. She makes a good huckleberry picking companion. She doesn't eat stuff that hasn't been rinsed off. Probably a good idea to wash food first but I have no issues with eating berries right off the bush. So vis a vis, I'm not a good huckleberry picking companion because I will return to the truck with a purple lipped grin.

link

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=opera&hs=AfQ&rls=en&q=i%C3%B1uksuk&btnG=Search&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs
rfai=
This is the link Bill tried to post.

The rains cometh.

This guy was in our yard this morning. If we lived out in the country I wouldn't be surprised but here in town it isn't that common. At least not a buck. Phillp took the picture and went out to look at the garden to see what was left. Seems he was just content to eat the pile of old chard and lettuce Phillip pulled up yesterday so he could plant some more beets, radishes and kohlorabi. At least the compost pile was enough for him. Just hope he don't come back.

We finally got the monsoon season and it really did wonders for the garden. Stuff seems to grow so much better when it rains. Phillip finally got more summer squash than he can cook. Tomatoes are getting ripe so are the eggplants. Cantaloupe will be ready pretty soon. Lost a watermelon to the quail. It grew out through the fence and the quail started to pick on it and now it has been devoured.

Monsoon season put a temp. hold on the prospecting. These thunderstorms build up right out of nowhere and do so quite rapidly. Not enough time to get out of the creeks and tall timber before they hit. No place to be in a lightning storm.

All the water in the birdbaths and the garden draws some birds we don't like. For the most part I love to see all the birds but some of the damn things are like the Mexicans. You give the damn things something to eat and then the first thing you know they breed twice as many more then shit all over you. Then the mess is yours to clean up. Had to start parking the car away from the trees. Just like the Mexicans, I wish the damn birds we don't want would migrate to some other country.

Granny

Why I missed the BBQ

This is why I was not able to come to Jeannine and Bruce's for BBQ. Saturday was the only day I could get the Bobcat from the rental yard. Also that morning Gordie was dropped off by his people who were going to Europe for 17 days. [lucky bastards] I was able to get a bunch of rocks moved and most of them placed. I didn't have the grapple like I thought I was going to so I couldn't build the grotto, or the inuksuk like I wanted. But on the good side the rental yard charged me $80 less than I thought they were going to. Eventually I will get an excavator with a thumb, and I will build these things. In the meantime I have much work to do stacking rock by hand, now that I have the base stones set in place.

Also some shots of the growth on the arbor that I built. Some of the vines are almost reaching the top now.