Drag Strip

Andrea got to go down the monster slide at the State Fair, called the Drag Strip. I think her gunny sack was covered with tar or something, because she went down really slowwwww.

Yummy!

I love the thought of what kind of breath the people that frequent this stand will have afterwards. Peanuts, Cigars, and Cigarettes! Kiss me now!

Farris Appeal

What fair or carnival would be complete without the Farris Wheel. I hate riding the damned things. As an engineer, I always look at the straps and crossmembers and supports and think, "this thing was put together by a bunch of drunk carnies and was build for ease of assembly and disassembly - NOT STRENGTH OR SAFETY."

However, I love to watch other people ride the Ferris Wheel, as long as they are not loved ones.

I like to think that these two sophisticates in the foreground eating corn dogs may have wandered over there and then got rid of their corn dogs while riding the Ferris Wheel.

This is why I do not write children's books.

Plenty of Poultry

I always like to go to the Poultry Barn at the State Fair. We raised chickens when I was a kid, and they were very interesting to watch. I love the variety of breeds.

I also really like the rabbits, but they were not out yet when we went.

Champion Rooster

This guy looks like he wants to peck a hole in the camera lens.

State Fare

You can't go to the State Fair without getting a corn dog and a lemonade.

Petting Pard

I don't think Zach could be expected to understand the concept of the photo cutaway prop. He looks kind of pissed off.

State Fair: Last Trip for the Old Jeep

I bought a tank of gas for the Jeep on Friday, thinking I had over a week before my new car was going to come in. I thought, "This is the last tank of gas I'll buy for this car."

Then I got a call Saturday saying that the new car was in. Andrea and I quickly put together a short trip designed to use up the last tank of gas. Powell Gardens, Windsor Kansas, and the State Fair at Sedalia. Here it is, arriving at it's final fun trip destination.

One Man Farmer's Market

Andrea is beckoned over to the more sumptuous watermelons in the back of this guy's truck.

Puddle Stomping

We saw this scene twice. What is it about little kids and their love of walking through puddles. His mother wasn't really mad, just amused.

Zach was through with his tough day at Powell Gardens.

Lavender Lines

While we were at the Great Sand Dunes National Monument, there were some storyboards that said that the needles on cactus were able to deflect sunlight. Something about the size or spacing that matched the frequency of the most harmful rays, making them act a little bit like sunglasses.

Sometimes natural structures do seem to be playing with light. I noticed that these beds of lavender seem to have this strange effect like all the plants are working together to make a venetian blind effect for the whole bed.

Coincidence? Or sun stroke?

Butterfly Garden

Powell Gardens has a Festival of Butterflies every year where they somehow get a large number of cocoons from many species and time them all to come out of their cocoons in August.

You go into rooms or tents that are sealed off and full of the butterflies that have emerged.

We took Zach in a backpack, and he was able to track them as they fluttered around.

Then he got hungry.

Barn Repair

There's a sequence of destruction and repair for our barn. A couple of years back, a tree fell on the barn and pounded the front section down into the ground. Our neighbor Kenny said he knew how to fix it and asked if he could take a shot at it.

He jacked it up to level, supported it with props and replaced the upright beams. He was shocked to find that this barn was built by placing the boards directly on the ground. Even with the repairs, there's not much life left in the old structure.

Elephant Ears

We decided to buy this when we were buying our garden plants this spring. Elephant ears come as these enormous onion sized, onion shaped bulbs. You sort of forget about them, and then one day they are making these huge leaves.

Not in my City Park

I can't believe that I found this in a city park right beside a jogging path. I wondered what those city workers did with all their time.

Raising an Engineer

There's really only one way to insure that your son will be an engineer. Baby formula and Star Trek.

Stormy Silos

Here's a taste of what the wild storm we skirted looked like as we went past Wichita on the way back from Colorado.

Captain Adorable II

We stopped again in Las Junta on the way back to rest on a blanket in the City Park and let Zach roll around on a blanket. He was living up to his shirt again.

Crop Dusting

I just want to point out to Steve that not all Cropdusters are single undercarriage style airplanes. These are biplanes. A pair of them was working the same field in an elegant pattern of swoops and turns. You could see the spray bars on the outside of the wings. This Petticoat Junction style of crop duster is what I was expecting to see when Steve pointed another style out to me almost 10 years ago. He's still mad about it, so I hope he doesn't read this.

Santa Maria Lake

We can't say we weren't warned. Our efforts to see the Santa Maria Lake were thwarted by the fact that it's private property. We found that out when we turned down the road to the reservoir, but still drove 4 or 5 miles to get a peek at the lake. The road is barricaded far enough back that you don't get to see the lake. However, we did notice that the area is infested with Marmots.

Even though we were disappointed to be barred at the gate, the beauty of the area inspired an interpretive dance from Andrea.

South Clear Creek Falls

We found this waterfall tucked in the back of a campground inside of a hairpin curve on 149, the Silver Thread Scenic Byway. Someone had gone through and cut down all the wooden hand/guardrails down the path to the falls. This did not deter us.

Hanson's Mill

Andrea and I took Zach up for a hike from Hanson's Mill. This was the path that goes on foot over to Wheeler, but we just hiked for about 15 minutes to see what it looked like.

Seepage Road

There is a road just off of 149 (the highway also known as the Silver Thread Scenic Byway that follows the Rio Grande from Creede toward Lake City) that is called Seepage Road. It turns off of 149 at Hog Mountain near the Eagle's Nest. I went to the geocache on the little hill across from the Eagle's Nest last year. This year, I wanted to go up Seepage Road to find another nearby geocache named Bighorn.

The road is interesting because there are two old ponds that are no longer filled. Jerry told us last year that the lakes were drained to do maintenance on the dams, and that some government official would not allow the lakes to be refilled afterwards. There are big boulders in the valley that used to be underwater. The valley is very scenic with the open bottom and wooded south side and rocky north side. The person that placed the geocache called it Bighorn and said that there are many Bighorn Sheep in the area. We did not see any.

We parked at the lower "lake" and walked in. The site of the geocache looks like an old homestead or corral site. There's nothing left now, but you see little remnants of human habitation, like old tin cans and other trash and debris, well worn and weathered and almost invisible just under the surface.

Chef Le Phew

Kyle is not wearing a chef's hat. That headwear came from Zach's diaper bag. It was not used as something other than headwear prior to becoming Kyle's trendy fashion statement.

Wheels for Wheeler

We saw dirt bikes, ATVs, and a couple of Jeep Wranglers, but ours was the only pickup truck taking the drive back to Wheeler. We had to go really slow. One of the Jeep Wranglers had lost his clutch on the way up and was trying to nurse it back down. He must have succeeded, because we didn't see him stranded on the side of the road on the way down.

My engineering fantasy for this road was to come up with a little mobile rock crusher. The road was obviously graded at one time, but the bowling ball sized rocks had a habit of working their way to the top, making the going slow and very bumpy. Steve was continuously worried about his oil pan. My solution was to have a behemoth of a machine that had it's own rock crusher in it. You drive along and scoop all the rocks up into the machine, it crushes them down to gravel, and you lay down a nice smooth gravel drive behind you. I could retire up there and chug this machine up and down the mountain roads all summer.

Photos by Steve

Big Elk Herd

About half way back from Wheeler, when the sun was getting near the horizon, we were going down the edge of this open valley, we could see an enormous herd of Elk on the other side of the valley. It was one of those times when you see a few, and they start moving, and you see some more, the herd moving together, and then we saw three separate bands all coming together and moving together. I counted as best I could and there were more than 50 elk in the valley.

Multi-Media Man

He may not wear a cape or solve crimes with his surveillance equipment, but to those of us that want vacation documentation, Multi-Media Man is there to save the day.

Steve always finds some kind of silly-putty based material or gadget to attach his devices to the dash.