Colorado Trip Day 4 - The Family

Okay here is where I start failing everybody. Sunday we had our big family cookout. The entire trip I had my camera held fast in my hand, but once the sunburn set in (about the time we hit Estes Park again the previous day), I was a bit too distracted to snap pictures. So the one thing I should have taken pictures of didn't get any. :-(

The cookout was at Uncle Bill's again, with Bill, Grandma, Ray, Brandi and myself being joined by my Aunt Mary and her husband Lyle, Ray's son Jay and his wife Bambi and their little ones, Bill's son Bill Jr. Bill's daughter Ann and her two little ones and one or two other members as well. I had a great time talking to people I haven't seen in far too many years, but I was in enough pain that it was a little...distracting for me. But I got a chance to talk with Lyle for the first time, met my cousin Jay and his wife for the first time ever, and it was good to hang with the side of my family I never get to see for awhile as well and hear all the old stories about how they grew up, about my dad and the type of person he was, and about how life was back then.

That night, Grandma, Ray, Brandi and myself stayed up for a bit and had some wine, cheese and crackers and talked and told more stories and all got a bit tipsy. It was a nice and informal way to end a long and fun trip.

Colorado Trip Day 3 - The Rockies

We woke up on Day 3 to breakfast cooked by my Uncle Ray (I have never in my life had eggs, hashbrowns and pork chops for breakfast, but it was pretty tasty) and he, Brandi and myself took off in his convertible towards the Rocky Mountains.

The best way in the world to see the mountains will always be to walk or climb up them. I dream about someday taking a backpacking hike through the Black Hills or Rockies and travel for a few days. That being said, if you don't have the time and gumption for a backpacking trip, the second best way to see them has to be in a convertible. It was all open air and sunshine and a view I can't even begin to describe....

First stop was Estes Park and the Stanley Hotel. This is where Stephen King wrote The Stand, and where the movie was shot. More recently the Ghost Hunters did an investigation there and I believe declared it one of the most haunted hotels in America. Sadly all we could do was drive through the parking lot and look at it up close, but it was cool seeing it.

We continued up Fall River Road, which eventually wound up to Chasm Falls, which is where Brandi and I were officially engaged. We hiked down to the bottom of the falls and saw a guy setting up a camera tripod with a bunch of other equipment and his two daughters helping him. We asked one of the girls if they'd take a picture of us with our camera.

After another hour or two of winding roads and breathtaking views, we pulled up to the top of Fall River Road, where it met up with the larger Trail Ridge Road. At the top there is a little cafeteria area, gift shop, a really nice overlook point, and a trail leading yet further up the hillside. The trail looks like the sort of incline that a reasonably out of shape person could easily tackle if given some time. The only problem with this theory is that this particular trail is a filthy filthy liar....

Sure it looks like a pleasant walk, but the thin air this high up gives you the stamina of someone 20 years your senior...and very out of breath. The fun of finally being out of the car lasts until about step four, and by the time you're halfway up you are fantasizing about that car seat. Or at least I was.

Brandi on the other hand, who was up here many many years ago and crapped out on step 3 or so, seemed to be doing okay. Not great mind you...nobody runs up this trail....but she walked the same speed and got the entire way up this time around. Yay Brandi!

And at the top of this trail, the view gets even better. It's almost 360 degrees of pure "Wow!". You can see out for miles and miles and miles, and since it's all a preserved national park, you're seeing nothing but trees and rock and snow and rivers and wildlife. I've often heard of God's country....I have to believe this is it.

After coming down from the trail, we did some gift shopping and descended Trail Ridge road towards Estes Park again. We stopped at the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory (for Brandi) and the Estes Park Brewery (for me), and a small winery with free samples (for both of us). Then we had to hightail it back to Greeley to meet my Grandma and Uncle Bill for grilled steaks and steak fries for supper.

Also along the way back down I noticed something else....annoying. Remember when I mentioned the sun? Yeah my skin had turned a very alarming shade of red, and by this point it'd started seriously hurting, so I went to bed early.

Colorado Trip Day 2 - The Black Hills

Well a brief trip summary after that night.

We started our Friday off by going to get old-time photos done of ourselves (a place in Keystone just puts them on a CD for you so you can get some or all printed as you want). It wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be. The guy doing the shooting was pretty cool, and Brandi and I kinda got into the fun of posing for silly old west pictures.

We then headed out of Keystone towards Cosmos, which is an interesting optical illusion made by a cabin being built on the side of a fairly steep hill, but angled out from the side as if it were level ground. This meant that to keep balance we needed to stand straight up, which meant according to our perceptions we were seriously leaning to the side. I knew the illusion before I even walked into the place and I still got major vertigo when I walked in. Fortunately closing my eyes for a few seconds reoriented my balance, but the interesting part is that even though I know how things were supposed to be, my brain just couldn't wrap itself around the fact that the cabin was build leaning out, not straight up. All in all, Cosmos is an interesting place because of that illusion, but if that isn't the kind of thing you're into, don't waste your money on it. Cosmos is not the Bermuda Triangle of the Black Hills (that is Rapid City).

We then went to see Mt. Rushmore and eat some lunch, then took a serious wrong turn trying to go south to Jewel Cave and ended up driving through Black Hills National Forest (which was good and all except for the being lost part) and finally made our way down to the cave, only a half hour or so late.

Jewel Cave had actually had a power failure due to a storm that came through the night before, and tours were running late already, but Brandi gave her big-sad-eyes look to the person handing out tickets and got us on a tour that was only an hour or so after we got there. We did go on the tour, it was awesome (for me anyways...I love caves), and we left the Black Hills headed for Cheyenne about two hours late.

At 10PM we finally pulled into Greeley, CO and found my grandmother's house. She was still awake waiting for us (thanks Grandma), and we talked a bit and hit the hay.

Top war crimes suspect arrested in Serbia

Let's hear it for justice!

Being a die-hard hippy Democrat, I'm not usually one for hellfire and wrath against our fellow human beings, but Karadzic deserves any horrible death he gets and whatever dark fate is waiting for him afterward. The torture and massacre he is responsible for is on a level that we have trouble even grasping.

Screw this guy. I hope some sense of comfort is brought to the families of all those he is responsible for killing and to all those he's responsible for s3xually abusing when he is ushered out of his mortal coil. I can guarantee you that if half the stories about him are true, he gave out far more misery than he's going to get.

Colorado Trip Begins (Keystone, SD)

Today we started off our Black Hills/Colorado vacation. After working the morning, we took off towards Keystone, SD. After stopping for an awesome burger at Al's Oasis for lunch, we hit Keystone in time to go to the President's Slide, which essentially has us riding up in a ski lift chair to an area that has a nice view of Mt. Rushmore and a burger, brat and beer place, then you ride down the hill on a wheeled cart. While the ski lift wasn't my favorite part of the day (I haaate heights), admittedly after the ride through the hills with my wife driving, it seemed...less scary.

We then shopped around Keystone and had a great dinner on the boardwalk at a place where the women dressed up like cowboy women of ill repute (I'm sure I'll eventually remember what we ate and drank), went mini-golfing, and came back to the hotel room to finally rest.

Tomorrow, we do an old time photo, maybe Mt. Rushmore, Jewel Cave, and then we take off for Greeley, CO (where I was born) to visit my grandma and aunt and uncles. Saturday we head off to Fall River Road and Estes Park, CO and then do family stuff until we come home on Monday.

I doubt I'll have any net connection until then, but I'll keep stuff written down if and when I can and post it when I get back to civilization.

Random thought....

I think we should give taglines to our regular everyday farewells like the Price is Right hosts do. Obviously it wouldn't have to be to spay or neuter pets...but something else important to us at the time.

"Have a good night everybody, and remember.....wash your f#$@ing hands when you go to the bathroom. Bye!"

Snow Day!

About twice a year or so, the network goes down where I work. Being in a satellite office, this pretty much takes out any ability we have to do anything productive.

It really is kind of like a snow day for us. We get up and wander out of our cubes, rubbing our eyes and looking around. We start wandering the hallways talking and laughing and having a good time. We'd go sledding, but we can't quite get the cube walls angled enough to give us a good start.

It only lasted for an hour and a half this time around, but it's occasionally nice to get up, talk and get to know the chuckleheads that work around me every once in awhile.

The more I hear about and see the WiiFit the more I want it. The mere thought of a snowboarding or skiing game where you steer by leaning excites me in borderline wrong ways. SSX game + WiiFit board = Happy Chris. The Wii is truly becoming the party console of choice.

Summer Movies

As with most summers, I find myself weighing the need to see all the damned cool movies with the need to save money for my next electronics purchase (in this case, the Xbox360 fund). This means that I can't see quite as many movies as I'd like to over the summer.

Last summer was a tragedy. I saw a total of one movie last summer....Transformers. And don't get me wrong...I'm very glad I did. Michael Bay action-type movies have a way of not translating so well into the small screen, so I knew that one I'd have to see in the movie theater or I'd regret it.

This year I've seen both Marvel movies: Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk. Iron Man is, without a doubt, the most fun superhero movie I've seen in a very very long time. Marvel couldn't have done better with its new Avengers-based movies right out of the gate. In most circumstances, I try and go into a movie with realistic expectations of what that movie is going to provide me, from drama to plot twists to action, and I note to myself what I loved and what I hated upon exiting the theater.

Knowing this was a comic-book action movie...I really can't say I found much here to hate, and there was a lot to love. Iron Man has potential to be not only my favorite movie of the summer, but of the last few summers. Awesome movie.

The Hulk I have to say surprised me a bit. The previous Hulk film both sucked and blew (no offense to Ang Lee, but I absolutely despised the film, and that was hard to do with me being completely in love with Jennifer Connelly and all), so I can't really say when I walked in if I was predisposed to hate the film, or if I set the bar so much lower that I was prepared to like anything that wasn't as horrid as the previous one.

But actually this Hulk movie was actually downright enjoyable. It wasn't as good as Iron Man, but I had fun watching it, which is more than I can say about the last go-around with this property. Norton does well as Banner, and a lot of stuff was taken from the TV show (LOVED the green eyes!), which is how I was first introduced to the Hulk. They of course had the shared continuity with Iron Man (hopefully a prelude to the Avengers movie coming out in the next few years), and even showed The Leader's origin. I also thought the South American slum city he was in during the first part of the movie kicked ass. So all in all I have to say it was a pretty fun action flick.

Movies this summer I'm still looking forward to? Well Indiana Jones just became a cheap theater movie after various reviews I've read and heard, so Batman and Hellboy 2 are the other two I'll likely shell out for. Those two each have the potential to unseat Iron Man as my favorite movie this year. X-files and The Mummy.....weeeeee'll wait and see.