So this past Monday (a week ago today), Shad, Mark, Jason, and myself took the morning off for a four-wheeling trip up into the mountains west of Fort Collins. We went up this old forest road just a little east of Crystal Mountain, which led us to an old quarry. I think it might have been for getting some sort of mineral, cause all the rocks were speckled with chunks of what looked somewhat like silver. Anyways, we had a blast there trying out all of the vehicles to see what they could do (Mark had his Toyota pickup, Shad his Land Cruiser, and Jason his Uni-Mog). All of the vehicles did far more than I thought they could, but the best was easily the Mog. It was amazing to watch Jason take it over just about anything and everything there. The only limiting factor of the Mog was how top heavy it was.

So it’s been a long time since I have posted. I will try and use the somewhat lame excuse that throughout the school year, I really didn’t have much spare time. However, if truth be told, I really just chose to spend my time on more interesting activities. That having been said, summer is here, and while I still have more interesting things I could be doing, they all require a lot of work, and I am feeling somewhat lazy this afternoon. As a result, I am going to treat my faithful readers to an update on the highlight’s of my past two weekends.

Last weekend being Memorial Day weekend, I decided it would be a good time to get a new guitar. My old one was wearing out, and not worth the money it would cost to repair it. Therefore, I spent Saturday down in Denver checking out the three local Guitar Centers. After deciding on my two favorite guitars, I went back to Fort Collins to relax on Sunday. Then, bright and early Monday morning I went down to the best of the Guitar Centers to take advantage of their super Memorial Day sale. Having noticed that neither of the guitars I had picked out were on that much of a sale, and that neither were quite as cool as I had remembered them, I started playing several other guitars. About an hour and a half later, I walked out of there the proud owner of a new faded Gibson Flying-V. Since then, almost all of my free time has been spent playing it, and it has proven to be totally awesome.

After getting home later that morning, I took of for Vedauwoo Wyoming with my bike strapped to the back of my car. I had forgotten how beautiful that area of Wyoming is. It was a really fun ride, especially given all of the slick rock there is to ride there. There is nothing like flying down a hill on slick rock, not being able to stop cause every bump sends you flying, but not being able to go full out cause you know there is a pretty sharp curve at the bottom, followed by a steep incline you need a lo of momentum for. Riding there was definitely a blast.

Well, a week went by at work (admittedly a short week). In the middle of that week, my new computer came, which was really sweet. Then on Saturday, after spending some more time setting up stuff on the computer, I took off to railfan the Moffett Road (the former D&RGW line west of Denver). I started at a place where the train does a loop almost passing over its self, as seen in the photo below. That is one train, with a helper engine at the end pushing it up the hill. I went on to chase the train into the mountains. I was able to catch it again at this sweet spot in the middle of the mountains. It required a little scrambling to get to this place, but it was definitely worth it. I only wish I had been there earlier in the afternoon. Anyways, it was a totally awesome day of railfanning. Well, that is all for now folks. Tune in next time to here Andrew say: …. “Bother blogging. It is boring and pointless, and it wastes time when I could be biking or playing the guitar. I quit.”

I have always wanted to get into old jazz music, but have had no idea where to start. Generally I like more melodic music, and while jazz can have quite a good melody line, this requires great skill on the part of both the composer and performers. As a result I really have not found much jazz that I really could classify as copacetic. However I have recently realized that Glen Miller and his orchestra are pos-i-lute-ly the cat's meow. The songs he performs tend to be very melodic, and at the same time innovative and jazzy. All in all his music is quite tight, and comes strongly recommended by yours truly.

So I forgot to mention that the beautiful girl in the picture below is Miss Sara Young. We have been "sharing a Psalter" for about a month now, which partly explains the lack of updates on this blog. I realized that I don't really have any good photos of Sara, which is an issue I will need to rectify. Once I get some really good ones, I will post them here, with her permission of course. I do not know how much time I will have for updating, however, as I would much rather spend time with Sara than posting for all 1.34 of the loyal readers of this blog.

The highlight of the trip was definitely the Schofield Pass Trail. This was for two reasons. Firstly, the incredible scenery. I honestly have trouble imagining how anyone could believe there is not a Divine Creator responsible for such marvelous works. The second feature of Schofield that made it so awesome was the fact that it is one of the most deadly 4-wheeling trails in Colorado, and we made it through without a scratch on Shad's Land-Cruiser. The most dangerous part is just after the creek crossing shown below. Supposedly, many less experienced drivers do not take time to let their brakes dry. As a result, when they come to the narrow shelf road that follows immediately, leading down into the canyon, they have no way to control their speed. I should have taken some pics of the shelves, but at the time I was more concerned with spotting for Shad than photographing the decent. However, you can see a little glimpse of the trail over the waterfall below.

This trail proved to provide some excellent camping spots, as well as some beautiful scenery. Although it was not nearly as technical as either of the other trails, it was definitely a fun ride. The lake pictured here was the setting for our camp site. The best part was they had just lifted the fire ban. A good camp fire totally makes a camping trip.

This past weekend I spent 4-wheeling and camping with Shad. We started out on Taylor pass, which runs from the ghost town of Ashcroft to the middle of Gunnison county. We went from this trail to the Reno Divide Trail, which starts near the end of Taylor Pass, and continues to the Crested Butte area. After camping near a lake in the middle of the Reno Divide Trail, we continued on to Crested Butte, where we got onto the Schofield Pass Trail, which took us to Marble. All I will say is when I got home I started looking at old Land cruisers and CJs on ebay. :)

This has been the most time-consuming (and fun) activity I have been working on these past three weeks. I am posting a picture now so that you can all be awed by how much better it will look when I am done, not because I will necessarily do a great job on it, but because it could hardly get much worse. Currently, the paint is 97% striped, and it has a new fork and new cables (thus making it sort of temporarily rideable to the CSU library and back (hopefully)). I have a seat in the mail, and a new set of wheels should arrive at the bike shop by Friday. I do not yet know weather the chrome fenders will fit with the new wheels. If anyone has any ideas for a paint scheme, you are welcome to post them. I want it to look vintage, but it will be a glossy paint job, as befits a ten speed.

Two weekends ago was the unofficial team camp-out. This meant we were allowed to play cards and shoot guns, with out violating company policies. Btw, I really suck at hearts, and about any other card game that is not purely luck. Even most of those. However, it was still fun playing in Shad's camper van, listing to the rain outside and being able to stay perfectly dry. The best part of the trip though was easily the four-wheeling in Shad's van (see video several posts ago).

Left; Mark takes careful aim at the water-filled cup while Shad (center) and Sam (right) look on.

So it has been a while since I posted. This is mainly because I have been far too busy in the past three weeks to make the trip to the CSU Library. Out of the past three weekends, two of them were spent camping. The first of these was in the San Jaun National Forest, which is home to what is probably the most beautiful scenery in Colorado. Unfortunately, it was raining a large portion of the time, so I didn't get too many good shots. The campsite I found was not too far from the four wheel drive trail I rode in on. However, to reach it one had to ford the stream at least three times. It was tucked in a valley in the middle of the mountains, which meant there was no direct sunlight until around 10am. Likewise, it was friking cold in the valley until 10am. However the scenery was totally sweet.
Left; my bike packed and ready to go.
Below; the road leading down into the valley.

Below; clouds rolling in over the mountains.