Jeepers Creepers

Engineer Pass would open any day; just a snowdrift or two left to bulldoze on its alpine summit. Then, like ants on a Sunday picnic lunch, Jeepers will become Creepers... scratching and crawling their way up and down this stoney, oil pan bustin' four wheel drive ledge on the edge. If you blast a notch of a road out of solid rock, they will come; if you plow away winter's snowdrifts, they will come sooner. That noise you hear in the background is the sweet purr of cash registers... gobbling "goodies" like Johnson's at a Thanksgiving reunion. That stubborn snowdrift gave Engineer wholly to our lonesome selves on a simply gorgeous day, and we did a little preseason boot-scoot boogie. If you'd like to take a little photo trip up Engineer without leaving the farm, read on...

The Reel Bear Creek Highlights, or... Gone With The Wind

I put together a little six minute highlight video of hiking Bear Creek for your Memorial Weekend enjoyment... in case you are trapped indoors by rain, or forty MPH winds like we're having here in the Crevice. God... is there anything more torturous than gale force winds? It's Natures equivalent to water-boarding; I've told Her everything I know and She relents not. 

Efficacy Of A Fulltime Lifestyle... Deconstructing My RV Dream

Sometimes a blogger has to bite his tongue. Other times he must nearly chew it in two and swallow his own foul tasting blood in order to avoid the escalation of absurd "rhetoric." And every once in a while, his thin, age spotted skin gets the best of him and it goes something like this.

A Climb To Chief Ouray's Namesake Mine

View through the long shattered Bunkhouse windows at Chief Ouray Mine

There was considerable disagreement as to when I last trudged up to Chief Ouray Mine... a "his" versus "hers" difference of opinion, which is just another way of saying, "lose--lose, dude; drop it." But of course I didn't drop it because I knew I was right... this time, I'm right. Suffice it to say that it was sometime between last year (not) and a decade ago (bet your paycheck), depending on who you ask.

Reflections On A Communal RV Caravan Of Boondockers

Flowers on Church Door, Lovely Ouray, Colorado... home (base) sweet home (base).

On behalf of Randy and Boonie, advocates of an RV Mobile Community Inc (MCI---my name, not theirs), I would like to express appreciation to all of you who took the time and effort to participate in this discussion. As some so kindly pointed out, this RV version of a Community "wheel" was invented long ago, shortly after we shed gills in favor of lungs and fins morphed into legs...

Cocooned

I will be the first to admit that unofficial polls often go lacking in the science department. But Pal Boonie asked me to respond to his exploratory RV Caravan idea through the lens of my Box Canyon binoculars. In order to do comply with his request, I "need input," as SAINT, the cute little robot from the movie Short Circuit would say. "Need input!"

Remembering Mom... A Mother's Day Tribute

I’m staring at a priceless and befitting photograph for a Mother’s Day tribute... gleaned from eight millimeter home movie frames shot by my Spielberg dad, Everett. Mom’s beautiful face and smile fills the lens of Dad’s wind-up Bell and Howell camera, a snapshot slice of Hilda Mable Johnson parading against the backdrop of a ’55 Chevy… both destined to be “classics.”

Visions of Sugar Plums and Treading Water In Lovely Ouray

We have been taking advantage of a mild spring by trying to finish up landscaping tasks around Mine Shack II, the ones that got shucked last summer in favor of scampering about mountains and wildflowers... and, of course, working. It cripples nowadays, landscaping. I sure do miss that disc in my lower back.

Fine Wine and Flowers

Rounding a sun beaten switchback, near the tail end of a tail-between-legs failed assault on Twin Peaks, Bobbie led me off the beaten path to a discovery she made a few days prior. These are preseason hikes; not two miles ago we were rejected by mounds of deep soft snow. But there, growing out of rock as solid as Gibraltar's, were mounds of Claret Cup cacti, blossoming like Fourth of July.

White On Red Under Blue... Corkscrew Gulch

We coffee'd up in the alpine glow of predawn. Lovely Ouray twinkled below, fast asleep except for a groggy dough kneader at Artisan Bakery. A double shot of caffeine jolted a few belly butterflies awake. I began to second-guess the previous nights plan, conceived over a bottle of California Merlot while staring into a dream inspiring Super Moon. It seemed ambitious now... bordering on dumb.

Another Car-less Adventure From Lovely Ouray

Such beautiful obstacles, Spring Pasque Flowers, they sure can hamper a hikers progress along Sutton Mine Trail. It's just one of many car-free adventures Lovely Ouray offers up to residents and tourists alike. This year's crop of Pasque Flowers is bumper and defies our unusually dry spring. "Mother" is a mystery sometimes.

"And In The End, The Love You Make..."

Lovely Ouray from Horse Thief Trail

I can nearly throw a rock to Horse Thief Trail from our deck. It splits from Lovely Ouray's Perimeter Trail, which takes you on a delightful spin around the wooded fringes of our well-nestled Swiss village. Horse Thief Trail, on the other hand, ushers Crevice Dwellers all the way up to Bridge of Heaven... an honest-to-goodness unvarnished innuendo if there ever was one. Until recently, we couldn't hike Horse Thief to Heaven's Bridge because of an antiquated federal law passed in 1872; something that always ruffled this old bird's feathers.