Great Hikes

We’ve been busy so I havn’t posted in a while but we’ve done some fun things. For my birthday we went to the mountains and climbed a couple of peaks. There are the three mountains right together, Democrat, Lincoln, and Bross. Last year we went there and Dave went up all three but Carin and I just went up Democrat. So, Dave was nice enough to go back and go up Lincoln and Bross with me. Woody went as well but Molly is officially in ‘retirement’ from climbing.

This morning was the annual balloon festival at Chatfield State Park (the one about 3 miles from our house). So we got up early and went down and watched the balloons take off this morning.

Looking towards Mt. Lincoln

Dave and Woody at the summit of Mt. Lincoln

Me on top of Mt. Bross

Looking back up at Bross after the decsent back to Kite Lake.

Some beautiful columbines down in the valley.

Tony the Tiger balloon at the festival.

Balloon directly overhead.

Energizer bunny balloon.

The big takeoff.

Summer is in full swing so we have to take advantage of it while it is here!

Independance Day weekend we camped in the mountains and went fishing; last weekend we took Woody hiking at Mt. Evans. Here are the photos.

The lake at our July 4th campsite. This is not a ‘campground’, it is just a spot in the National Forest where other people have camped and built a fire pit and some trees are split for benches. There are no bathrooms, it’s primitive camping, but the reward is: we had the place entirely to ourselves.

Molly and Woody sniffing around the lake.

Our buddies Mikey and Amanda fishing at a different nearby lake.

Dave’s catch!

Dave, Woody, and I on the summit of Evans.

The real stars of Mt. Evans, the mountain goats. They are shedding their coat so they don’t look as pretty as they usually do. They actually bear an uncanny resemblance to Woody…

Dave looking out over the ‘saw tooth ridge’ to Mt. Bierdstadt

Woody hiking on Mt. Evans

A marmot on Mt. Evans. At such a high elevation there is an amazing amount of wildlife on this mountain. The mountain goats, marmots, birds, wildflowers, and bristlecone pines. This really is a cool place.

I am happy to post that we completed the MS-150! It was a great ride, the MS Society sure takes good care of it’s riders. Good food and lots of it, lots of happy, friendly volunteers. Dave had a few setbacks on the first day (3 flat tires) which got him down a little but he kept on. It was a good experience….but I think if we decide to do it next year we will have to invest in nicer bikes. A lot of the folks on the ride are pretty extreme and I think we may have been something of a laughing stock with our old, old bikes. So many people told me ‘I think something is wrong with your bike, it’s making a lot of noise’. My bike just makes a lot of noise, even when adjusted properly.

The views were great, there were a few times I could have used a few more gears on the hills, though. My favorite quote was from an older lady I talked to on the first day. She said ‘I don’t like to think of this as a 150 mile ride. I like to think of it as a series of 10 to 15 mile rides with cookie breaks in between’.

Here we are, Team ION, at the finish line. 

 Ok, it is Tuesday before the ride and we are feeling a bit more confident. We rode nearly 60 miles on Saturday, and might have gone farther but Dave had a flat. Since we could walk on Sunday we feel pretty good that we can make the ride and survive. Dave is still $70 short of his fundraising goal but at least he’s managed to raise some last-minute money. Carin has graciously donated her dog-watching services so they can stay home and avoid the doggie hotel. I think we are fairly prepared. All we have to do now is pedal away!!

Only one week to go! Are we ready? Well, I’m getting a little nervous. I know the first day will be OK but getting back in the saddle on the second day….oh how that will hurt. I’ve been riding to work a few times a week which is about 18 miles each way (sometimes I wuss out and take the train home) but on the weekends we’ve done a few fairly substantial training rides so I think we will survive. But we will be sore. Also, Dave still hasn’t raised enough $$ so you have a last chance to donate if you click here:

http://main.nationalmssociety.org/site/TR/Bike/COCBikeEvents?pg=personal&fr_id=9111&JServSessionIdr009=1ow8ro3bp1.app328a&fr_id=9111&px=4829500

Thanks for your support and you’ll see photos from the ride soon!  

I have some photos that were taken here in Colorado before we left for Japan but never posted (ran out of time). Kenny and Heather came for a visit and we did some fun stuff, visited Garden of the Gods and took the train up Pike’s Peak (not to the summit, too windy, but most of the way).

I also took a few photos over Memorial Day weekend, we went for a camping trip in the mountains (Woody’s first camping trip). We have had an extremely rough winter here, a lot of our favorite dirt roads were still closed from excessive snow and avalanches over the winter. Even Independance Pass is still closed, which is a paved road that is normally open by now.

Dave, Heather, and Kenny beside the Pike’s Peak train.

The tracks leading up to the peak.

Kenny and Heather with ‘ship rock’ at Garden of the Gods.

A view of Pike’s from a distance.

Clear Creek Reservior…we really like this area. When you turn off the highway on to the dirt road there is the beautiful lake, then a free campground right by it. Down the dirt road a few miles is the trailhead to hike 3 14ers, Oxford, Belford, and Missouri. A few more miles down is a cool deserted mining town, a few more miles past that a deserted mine with a great slag pile I like to hunt minerals in. At the very end of the road is the trailhead to climb another 14er, Mt. Huron. Can’t pack much more fun in 10 miles of dirt road than that! Unfortunately there were two avalanches across the road this winter and one of them wiped out a building from the old mining town. What a bummer!

Sorry for the delay, been busy and have not posted the final photos from our Japan trip. Here they are, the last pictures from our trip. Also, another post will soon be coming with photos from Colorado I didn’t have time to post before we left for Japan.

These pictures are from our last two days, we stayed around Tokyo and tried to catch up on things we hadn’t yet had a chance to do although all the museums are closed on Mondays so that turned out to be a bummer.

I tried to upload a video I took at the sumo match and was unable to. This blog is supposed to support video uploads but so far I have been thwarted in my attempts to use the function.

Me in front of the Imperial Palace. They make you keep a fair distance away, the grounds are huge, but at a few locations you could get a peek inside.

Statue of a famous samurai and his faithful dog in the park where the zoo and a few museums (all closed Mondays) are located.

I called this area ‘cat corner’. Just a corner in the park where like 10 fat cats were hanging out. I guess the lady on the bicycle feeds them. There sure were a lot!

Tokyo tower.

View of the city from the observation deck of the tower.

So looking out of the tower I saw these kids, apparently in PE class. I got to thinking, it’s no wonder a lot of Japanese kids take to dressing up in strange outfits on the weekends. They spend their entire life in uniform. All schools wear uniforms and if you graduate and get a good job what you wear to work is about like a uniform as well. Maybe not so much for the women, but for the Japanese businessman a dark suit, white shirt, and conservative tie is pretty much about your only clothing choice. I can see why you would want to dress up as a goth or cartoon character on the weekend.

And just to leave you on the right note here is the control panel for one of the more high-tech toilets.

Sumo day! Well watching the sumo match certainly was facinating. I was interested in the fact that a lot of wrestlers are not Japanese, or even Mongolian (there have apparently been a lot of Mongolians doing sumo for quite a while) but a lot of Eastern Europeans as well. We got to eat traditional sumo food for about $2 a bowl (one of the best bargains in Japan). The food was good, it was something like beef stew with potatos, carrots, onions, and also seafood and beef. I don’t think it would make you big like a sumo wrestler right away, it seemed like very healthy food. There was one skinny sumo wrestler but I didn’t get a picture of him.

All the top-level contestants in their ‘dress outfit’ before the match. On match day events start early in morning with the lower level wrestlers and throughout the day the contestants are higher and higher ranked. All the contestants come out in their traditional apron-style garment before the match, and these are the top tier.

This is a traditional demonstration before the matches begin.

Another traditional demostration with a bow. This occurs after the matches are over.

Saturday we had a good relaxing day. I think we were starting to get ‘toured out’ so with Steve off work we thought we’d do some simple things. Steve took us to his favorite thrift store (yes, even in Japan I am a thrift-store shopper) and it was great. We got a lot of good gifts for people and ourselves at the thrift store, then headed for a local temple (near the airport, Narita temple) that has a fantastic garden. Japanese gardens are so amazing, they are extremely lush and well cared for. They caused me to say for a moment ‘I should turn my yard into something like a Japanese garden’. Then I remembered I live in Denver where it’s very dry and have two large dogs. A Japanese style garden is not going to happen at my house but I really enjoyed them.

First we went to lunch at one of the cool conveyor-belt sushi places. As the sushi comes around, you just grab what you want. At the end of the meal they add up the plates to see how much your bill is!

The garden at Narita Temple.

The views are so peaceful here.

The temple area at Narita.

A cool fountain area with a large rock in the middle.