Two Days in Yellowstone and Not Gored By a Single Buffalo...

Liz is taking over this blog post, as Doug is busy doing something on the laptop across the table (Doesn't she have her own blog? you ask. She does. But its readership is somewhat dubious). We arrived in Yellowstone Wednesday morning, after spending Tuesday night at the Climber's Ranch in Grand Tetons National Park with an amazing view of the menacing Tetons. So far we have made the most of our Yellowstone experience, having navigated both the traffic riddled roads of gawking tourists to see some of the more popular sights, as well as a day hike to Osprey Falls where we were the only hikers to be seen for hours. Tomorrow, we head north for Glacier National Park for part 2 of the adventure. I was going to post some super rad pictures from the trip so far, but I think the request was too much for this cafe wifi to handle. Cheers!

I no Longer Shoot my Co-Workers!

Almost Packed...

it is, of course, after midnight as i post this, because liz and i have been running around all evening, getting last minute grocery items and finding the best way to fill our trunk space, for we will be off tomorrow for parts unknown.

We'll be heading up to Yellowstone til the weekend, and then a few days up in Glacier National Park, and then over to a coworker's cabin outside of Eureka, MT to celebrate the 4th.

That said, contact will certainly be much more sparse over the next two working weeks if you need us, so, if you need us, well... too bad.

I'll try and keep up with at least putting up some pictures as we go along, if only to manage the volume of shots we take. Cheers!

Comic of the week: Yes, more bacon references

I'm not sure why this week has seemed so pork-saturated (though there has been fan-tabulous bacon on both of my last two meals) but here is some more digital goodness centered directly on the salty sweet non-kosher treat.
mmmmmmmhmmmmmmm

(p.s. we still have an extra ball ticket. we take all comers)

***Update: Ticket has been spoken for. woooh.....***

Help Needed

In the form of a willing patron of a baseball game this weekend. Specifically, we have one extra ticket for $16 for the Mets v. Rockies game this weekend, downtown in sunny Denver, Saturday @ 6:05 p.m. mdt. Applicants feel free to inundate the comments section, or feel free to tell anyone you know who may want to come.

Applicants need no special skills to qualify for this position, other than being a fan of baseball, not be annoying, and be willing to cheer for the rockies - even though they wear purple.

Rocky Mountain Snowpack

What is it they say about the best laid plans of mice and men? Liz and i are learning this firsthand as we're attempting to make some outdoor weekends happen in the rockies this month and further North in the coming weeks, and discovering quite a bit of the white stuff. But, to back up to last Saturday...

Liz jumped ship a little early on her conference on Saturday morning, and we made haste out to Estes Park to find Mark & Kate. And find them we did, over at Ed's for some mexican food and some refreshing cerveza. They regaled us with the story of discovering that their rope was ten meters shorter than they realized... once they were on the route. funny for us, most likely terrifying for them.


We found our way over to the Mary's Lake campground, the only real convenient camping space left for the weekend since, apparently, it is the high season and all of the tourists are out. (this was another conundrum for the weekend, while we were indeed walking the streets of Estes Park Saturday night, and Mark did buy a pair of sunglasses... but do we qualify as tourists ourselves? I'm not sure...) The campground was pretty pricey, and while we didn't get a picnic table, we did get...uh... oh! annoying drunk people! I've never had the experience, that is, on private propery on which i had to pay to sleep on the ground, in which i had to walk up to a group of drunken morons at 1240 in the morning and tell them to stop playing Rossanna at full tilt out of their volvo. i felt old, i felt lame, but mostly i felt a burning rage to punch them all in the face. It's one thing to be annoyed on BLM land where we didn't pay anything to camp, but to drop nearly $40 on a campsite for two tents and then be subjected to horrible horrible music is beyond me.

The following morning, Mark completely ruined our ability to feel superiour and smug, though, as his un-staked tent took a roll in a wind gust from the campsite and then launched 50' in the air (no kidding!), tumbling and turning, Mark in a dead sprint after it for at least 1o or 15 seconds. said annoying drunk people couldn't help but chuckle, and we watched our elititst intentions fall apart with his unpoled tent skin.

oh, and we went hiking, too!


The original plan was to start at the Bear Lake Trailhead, and then hike up to Lake Helene, and then down to the Fern Lake Trailhead. Upon arriving at the starting point, we were soberly told that we wouldn't be able to really do that without some crampons, an ice axe, and some serious determination.

Lacking all three of those, we decided to hike up to the Loch and Mills Lake instead. Liz and I made it out to Mills lake last year over much more snowpack, but really enjoyed seeing it all melted out as well. The Loch was probably the prettier locale of the two, though, and is currently the prettiest place i've seen in the park thus far.


Kate has also been nice enough to allow us to borrow one of her old (but still incredible) big digital cameras, and was even nicer to show us how to use the darn thing. Some turned out pretty darn good ... most did not. BUT, we will hopefully beat the learning curve when we hit the road next week. The full suite of pics from the point and shoot can be found at flickr here.

BACON

A post of the weekend's activities forthcoming, but until then, enjoy this link that my wife sent me because she is brilliant:

Comic of the week: Math jokes are funny, correct?

Maybe I've waited a tad too long in order to get proper feedback on this, but, what would you do with the better part of a free day in Denver? Hmm... Liz is in her third and final day of a conference (who holds conferences Thurs-Sat anyways?) on the south side of Denver, and as soon as she is done pretending to be awake, we are ditching town for Rocky Mountain to meet up with Mark & Kate to camp tonight and do a hike to Lake Helene tomorrow.

That said, it is now currently 0845 hours and i am sitting outside of a panera bread on the patio , drinking my homemade coffee and poaching internets. I have about 6 hours to myself. The itinerary that i have come up with so far:

Blog
Check Fantasy Baseball Scores
Map out where our campsite is
Go to Mac Outlet store for new liz laptop battery
Go see the Hulk?
Go to Mile High Comics?
Hang out @ Tattered Cover bookstore
Call any remaining friends who are in town this weekend

Either way, I'm enjoying sitting in the morning sunshine and being responsibility free for the time being. Your comic this week comes from the genius of xkcd, a comic centered around puns that generally have something to do with a programming language or school of calculus. If you hadn't noticed, the comics around here don't usually involve snarky cats or mischevious toddlers, but the nerdiest of the nerdy. So, I don't want to hear any complaining.

On Bachelorhood & Climbing

Liz is home now, back from a five day trip the New England shore to see some friends get married and catchup with a number of old college buddies, and even some Middleville folk who get to live on the seashore. (If you're lucky, maybe she'll take a second to talk about it and post some picture over on her corner of the interwebs) We don’t often part from each other for more than a few days, and I noticed some things about my daily life that pretty much immediately fell apart the day after she left:

- Showers were not nearly as important. If a shave and some deodorant could fake it, they won. It's not that I'm overly stinky to begin with, but, it mostly was a cause of:

- I can't go to bed on time or get up on time without a wife. I have this weird default setting for my sleep schedule, one that made me enjoy college but almost get bounced out of it at the same time: I just won't go to bed. I'll be really tired, 10:30 at night, and needing to go to sleep. Normally, liz usually wanders upstairs and my brain catches the clue that it is time to go to sleep, and I follow after a few moments. Without her, my brain is utterly clueless and before I know it the battery in my laptop is dead and I've watched the same episode of SportsCenter 3 times and it's 1:30 in the morning. This obviously leads to a horrible, rushed and nervous morning routine, which involves coffee being quickly made (still with my French Press though, I'm not a total heathen) and eating a bagel in the car.

- I don't really remember things. Dates, names, times. Pretty much gone.

- I allow myself to talk myself into things that are obviously horrible, horrible ideas. Liz is fantastic at stopping this; I'll come up with some absolutely fool proof way to rig the car, or arrange our camping gear, or some hike or climb that we need to do over the weekend, or some new gadget that we can. not. live without, and I'll take my news home and run it by liz. She'll take literally 5 seconds to ask a single question that completely alluded me and derail the whole thing. The moral of the story is, if I wasn't married I'd most likely be off getting lost every weekend on a trail too long for a single day, be broke on buying iPhone accessories before I even bought an iPhone, and would spend more time re-arranging house furniture and garage crates than any human should.

I startup the first pitch

That said, the weekend was suprisingly enjoyable and without too much alarm without liz here. Sean and Dylan arrived at mi Casa on Saturday morning, and we drove down past Lyons to meet with Dennis and Clare to head over the Ironsides formation at the Ironclads. This was the site of Liz's first ever outdoor lead (photo evidence here) where we camped and spent a sun drenched day on the slab. This weekend was a little cooler as the sun slowly found it's way over the lip of the NW facing wall, but was perfectly suitable for working up a sweat. Dylan and I started off the day with a 2 pitch climb that we swapped leads on. I led the bottom 50' 5.9 stretch of Alloy Madness, and then allowed Dylan to leapfrog me up the remaining 90' of 5.10d goodness. He had never gotten up the route before, and made it look easy (like usual). I then gussied up my courage and followed him up, eventually finding success. The route spit me of a handful of times, especially through the ridiculously thin traverse that makes up the Crux, but I eventually found myself at the top look at a fantastic view of the valley floor.

Belaying Dylan from above

Rapping down, lunch was in order until it was my turn to head up Gypsies in the Palace (said earlier liz lead route) which has a 5.10c upper pitch that I couldn't hack through last summer. Making the first of 5 five bolts on the upper route, I found myself stymied by the sparse moves and couldn't bring my brain to allow me to really put myself out even just slightly above my last clipped bolt. (and we're not talking five foot above, we're talking just at my knees. I'm a gigantic baby.) Spitting and clawing for ten minutes got me nowhere, so I eventually lowered down, tired and annoyed. There was another route to climb that day, but I think my attitude was spent and I didn't bother to keep my harness on, and instead opted to a granola bar and a book on a big flat rock.

Clare (on left) and Dylan (right side) race to the top

Everyone seemed to have a nice day of climbing, Sean got his first lead of the year in, and we all left tired. Post some wonderful mexican food in Lyons, we drove home happy with sore arms and fingertips. I did not have a camera on me, so you'll have to peruse Sean, Dylan, or Clare's photostreams to catch some pictures. (included pictures were judiciously stolen from Sean.)

Sunday found me running the soundboard for church in the morning, and to the Home Depot in the afternoon. I finally purhased the hardware required to erect some shelving and pegboard in our garage, and managed to organize and elevate most all of our junk off of the ground. I'd post a shot, but it's really not that impressive to anyone but me and possibly liz who have had to learn how to live with a (wonderful!) skinny garage.

Friday Comic of the Week: Joe explains the MiddleEast Tension

For the record, i don't think it's racist, i think it's true. Well, just because something is true doesn't mean it is also racist, but, ok, just trust me here that while it is tongue in cheek, it is still true.

Have i walked all over that yet? Ok, great.

Tonight was a wonderful night of pizza, beers, and ... flagstone! As liz is currently off in New Hampshire to see two crazy friends get hitched, she has the camera and i was not able to capture any images of the masterpiece that we began to lay down in Sean's backyard. But, i'm sure he'll post a shot of the final product. The climbing caravan leaves tomorrow morning at 730 for the Ironclads, and i will make a point to yell at other people with cameras to document diligently for me, and then steal their work and share it with the world. Scouts honor.

Feeling Down? Here's your answer:

Graph Jam is currently my most favorite website - always good for laugh.

Text Message of the Day

Liz (6/3 3:40 p/m/): Oh i've been very busy. Quite. Come home - our house smells like cake!

Down on the Farm

Saturday morning was a little slower, a little lazier than last weekend. I awoke from one of the sea-faring dreams that folk have from time to time, attempting to get back to land along a long dock of some kind while the surf broke on my head coming at me from the shore. (i have strange dreams) I sat up after being tumbled upside down one last time, needing my feet to feel the ground if i was to have any kind of breakfast to speak of.

Some tea and a bowl of cereal later, liz and i set off to brave Walmart, in search of a new organizing system for our car camping foodstuffs. $40 in rubbermaid products and spent patience for shrieking children later, we drove north the ten miles to the Grant Family Farm, outside of Wellington, CO.

Grant Family Farm is the farm that Liz and i, along with Mark & Kate, are going to be enjoying a share of vegetable goodness from this Summer into the Fall. We were arriving for a farm tour in the afternoon, and we weren't quite what to expect. The email RSVP had said that over 200 people had responded to coming, so they had to make a second tour for the day and still didn't know how it would work with so many folk. We arrived to the Grant family farm house, and found a large gathering of people in the backyard, surrounded by tables of deviled eggs, watermelon, and a cooler full of wonderful Fort Collins Brews. (sidenote: the FC Brewery is also where we are going to be picking up our share of veggies this year, and i was informed that they run a special on that day for the CSA members. Score!)


Old Man Grant then stood up and spun a yarn or two about the history of the 28 year old farm, and mostly about how the farm manages to keep their 1800 acres organic. The concept of sustainable agriculture is one that has captured Liz and I's attention over the last year, and it was fantastic to hear some of the details of how Grant pulls it off. For 2/3rd's of the crop, they seed in rotation with grasses that are only grown to be put back under and fertilize the soil. Because of this, and also due to their rotation of field use every few years, the soil is kept incredibly fertile and the bugs that like a particular crop aren't given time to set up shop in one particular part of the farm.

The other 1/3 of the farm is more of the mixed veggies that take longer to seed than spinach or lettuce. These plots control weeds by a system of turning over the soil with a machine that takes a long spinning bar about 2" below the ground, before any seeding occurs. This pulls out any weeds without disturbing the soil below. The next step is apparently a heater dragged across the fields that doesn't burn the weeds persay, but the heat almost melts them into oblivion. (Sounds biblical, no?) The last step is actual manual labor to get the final remnants of weeds that simply couldn't take a hint. Worms are controlled by a natural bacterial spray (i can't recall the name) that is only harmful to worms and nothing else, and bugs are controlled (this was my favorite part) by predator bugs that find crop-consuming bugs tasty, and have a dedicated corner of fields to live in and winter in all year long.


We then took off on the tour, took a look at some sprouted lettuce, some newly planted artichokes and cilantro, and listened a bit more about the what the CSA accomplishes for the farm. Last year was the first year for the CSA, and they finished out the year with 125 shares being sold to the community. This year they had already, uh, (what's the term for multiplying by 7?) increased the shares out to nearly 730 by the end of May, with more to be added as the summer rolled along. Josh, the director, told us that the CSA takes one semi truck off the road for the farm a week, and given that the farm moves about 300 trucks a year, we constituted a little more than 8% of the farms traffic with our 26 weeks of 26 trucks. This particular farm is also large to handle an unknown number of share members, which is a huge benefit and difference to most other CSA's that have to limit their numbers and memberships due to limited plot size. When asked if that trend could be expected to continue and turn the entire farm into a community CSA, Josh only shrugged and smiled - "that would be fantastic, wouldn't it?"


We then rolled over the chicken pens, where a few dozen chickens and turkeys were holding court within the chicken-wired-pen that was larger than any backyard that i've ever had. This was probably my favorite part, as i cannot wait for happy eggs from happy chickens that are truly pastured and enjoying their chicken lives. (see kate?! happy chickens!) I don't ever recall seeing a mixed pen of chickens and turkeys, though, as the giant gobblers strutted slowly and seemed to spend their entire day being louder and meaner than any of the tiny stupid chickens in their midst. They appeared to have a decent amount of anger issues. Maybe they know how ugly they are.


All told, it was a wonderful afternoon that made me miss the farms and fields of home a little bit, if only back home i could look out on the crop fields and see Longs Peak in the background like we do here. I suppose i'll take what we have here. It also got me more excited for fresh veggies every week, starting in a few weeks. We do know, though, that both of us will be out of town the first week of July, and we'll have to take suitors for who would like a crate of greens that week in the town of Fort Collins. Any takers?