Yes to photography

I also have adventures without Sarah. Lately I had been thinking about improving my photography techniques, so I took a couple photography books out of the library. I learned many things about shooting landscapes with an object of interest in the foreground. But partway into the second book, I stopped enjoying the reading and gave up. So, this is one new thing I know how to do. In future posts, you will enjoy many photos of landscapes with an object of interest in the foreground. Also, there are some flowers peeking out of the shadow of a tree.

I also got to photograph a couple things I have always wanted to get shots of. Well, I have "always" wanted to photograph the Denver Chalk Art Fest since I heard about it last year. This year I got to catch part of it. Here are my pictures:

The other thing I always wanted to get a shot of was lightning. I have clicked my way through many storms on the horizon and have never actually gotten a picture of a bolt. But not long ago, there was a fantastic storm to the north of Denver that was tossing about a bolt a second, often cloud-to-cloud. So we drove up to the top of a parking garage and I kept taking shots. I might have gotten 20 shots with bolts in them. It was like shooting fish in a barrel, and none of them is particularly artful as a photograph, but hey, it's lightning.

4.

I have finally been having some adventures, so here's a catch-up post, with pics from spring through early summer.

Above, a close-up of some snowflakes. As "spring" came to Denver, it just kept snowing. One storm had particularly large and well-formed snowflakes, and I got several photos of them. And here is a shot of a tree in the park.

This is Sarah. Together, we have been having adventures. We went to the little resort town of Manitou Springs...

I don't know what this is... er, I guess the sign on the building says it is the Miramont Castle Museum... but I lack photos from the more interesting parts of the trip, like when the car broke down on the highway in a blizzard.

Here we go on a spring snowshoeing trip at Echo Lake, with 70 degree weather and lovely sunshine.

Then, we went camping at White Ranch, the lovely park outside Denver with free hike-in campsites. While we were there, Sarah stumbled on a letterbox. From reading the materials inside, we learned that letterboxing is NOT geocaching (in which participants use their GPSes and a set of clues to find boxes filled with trinkets -- take a trinket, leave a trinket). The letterbox contained a book, a stamp and pad, and some pot.

Many people had written in the book and added their own stamps. Many people expressed that they weren't looking for the box when they found it (wedged in some rocks at the campsite). A couple people expressed that they were upset that it wasn't a secret drug stash. And someone else indicated that they were adding drugs, so no more disappointment would result.

We relaxed, and went on a hike and saw some cactus flowers.

And we went on a hike outside Boulder, yay! In the distance you can see the red tile roofs of the university. The end.

Post 99

You may notice that there's a new design for the blog. All I really wanted to do was make use of the archive feature of Blogger's new templates (and it is a lot easier to access old posts now), but I also made the background black in order to show off the photos better. I don't know if I'll keep this format or not.

Time to finally post the rest of the photos from the fall. I went on a camping trip with my friends that was supposed to get us in touch with, you know, the other side of Colorado, and involved lots of Carhartts, dogs, chopping wood and firing the BB gun at beer cans. I appear to already have forgotten anything particularly interesting that might have happened there, so here are some photos. Hopefully you can get a complete mental picture of the weekend just from what you see below:

The overalls-with-tie look sums up our complicated relationship with redneck culture.

Before the warm weather ended I got to participate in a ride with the Denver Cruisers, who meet once a week simultaneously at many bars around the city, and each group is led via secret route to a central gathering point for music and food. There was a nautical theme to that week's event, so here we are:

And here is a "map" of our route:

I had never done one of these before and had thought they were just a nice tame community event, but apparently the group is somewhat known for breaking traffic laws, terrorizing cars, cycling drunk, smoking pot, and littering. Ha! Cyclists. The cops did show up when we were at the cul-de-sac of death. Below is a video of the cul-de-sac, in which people rode about at high speeds and sometimes in the wrong direction, mostly managing not to crash. There were a lot more people in it at most points but this video was taken shortly after the cops drove through.

Before the leaves all fell off the trees, Kris and I went to the botanic gardens, where I got these lovely photographs. Click on any photo for a larger version:

And these are from trees on my street:

That second one is crazy, I can't believe there was something that looked like that ON MY STREET.

I also had the wonderful opportunity to go horseback riding for the first time. The lovely woman I was seeing, who knew I had never ridden a horse and wanted to do so, set up a surprise date in which I was taken to the mountain home of a friend of hers who owned horses and given quick lessons on brushing, saddling and riding the horse. Here I am on the horse.

I didn't ride the horse all that long in the end because it was difficult remembering all the things I was supposed to do to make the horse do things, or not do things (such as run downhill at full speed), and the experience was more about teeth-gritting concentration than carefree fun. But it was still a very cool thing.

On another day, I went for a hike at Barr Lake State Park. Here are some pictures.

White-tailed deer, which are more rare out here than back east.

Then I went to the Grand Junction area to do some camping before it got too cold. Here are some pics from that:

This is the road that winds through Colorado National Monument, seen from a cliff high above.

Inside this old shelter were books with pages and pages of comments left by hikers, below.

This looks like a beach. It's actually ripples preserved from the time of the dinosaurs.

I'm off to California at the end of this week, so I'll have some good photos from that, I hope. Which I will eventually post, years hence.