UnReal Estate

Believe it or not, this sign is advertising an empty lot to the right of this drive, not the strange pieced together cabin you see behind the sign. And for your information, an empty lot in Capitol City Colorado, 120 feet by 140 feet with no utilities and no access via road in the winter is $80,000.

Capitol City

After going through Lake City, we went up Henson Creek to Capitol City. All that remains of this town that once had hundreds of houses is a couple of log cabins.

There is also the remnant of either a smelter or a brick kiln across the creek, but we did not go over there.

My theory is that when the mines played out and the people started to leave, that the remaining citizens saw in their houses an easy supply of firewood. Each year, more people would leave, and the remaining residents would survive the winter by burning their abandoned houses to stay warm. That is why one cabin remains, once he leaves, there's no one left to burn houses for wood.

North Clear Creek Falls, Very Photogenic

Another scenic overlook, and more photo ops at North Clear Creek Falls.

Silver Thread Scenic Byway

There is a great scenic overlook on 149 that gives you a view of Hermit Lakes and Hermit Peak.

Little Lion

It looks like the Little Lion is up for a little nap. Zach doesn't sleep all the time in the car, just most of the time.

Freemon's

No trip on 149 between Lake City and Creede is complete without a stop at Freemon's General Store to get some ice cream.

Day one

We started off our time in Creede Colorado with a little road trip. Here we are, going off to Lake City with Kyle and Zach.

On the way, we see a herd of Bighorn Sheep.

Super Kyle

Kyle finds that Zach's tiny bib makes an excellent mini-super hero cape. I believe the superpower you get from this cape is the ability to resist spit-up.

Great Sand Dunes

Tucked in the corner of the San Luis Valley up next to the Sangre de Cristo mountain range in Colorado are the highest sand dunes in the United States.

It's the strangest, most improbable sight, to see this little chunk of desert looking terrain in the Rocky Mountains.

Sands Hotel

We stayed in the Sands Hotel on our vacation.

You might recal that the Sands Hotel was imploded in Las Vegas in 1996, a shell of it's former self and hardly reminiscent of its heyday with Frank Sinatra and crew, but we stayed at the Sands this year.

Granted, it was in Walsenberg Colorado, and JFK probably never stayed there, but it was quaint and charming in a different kind of way.

Bailing out on the Great Bend Route

We decided to try something different and drove through Great Bend on the way out to Colorado. For the 5 hours or so that I was driving along this route, this is the only picture I took.

Andrea likes the hay bails, and these were nice and green. It was hot on the plains the day we went through, which always makes you appreciate the cool temperatures in the mountains more.

Wind Power

This is a wind turbine in the Smokey Hills Wind Project, just west of Salina on I-70.

When completed, this wind farm will be one of the biggest in Kansas. The turbines are 80 meters tall with 80 meter diameter blades.

I think they look cool.

Easter '08

I found a couple of old pictures from Easter 2008 that I love.

In the first one, I'm surfing on the prairie, I think.

The second one is a Mikealope, a rare and endangered species of half deer, half person. When cornered, it tends to stare blankly at you, or run in front of your car.

The Old Jeep Cherokee

I am turning in my 1995 Jeep Cherokee today for a new car. It has 362,841 miles on it. I've had some seriously good times with this car, and resisted getting rid of it for a few years now.

However, as I am finally turning it in and contemplating that it is going to be destroyed in the Cash for Clunkers program, I have been thinking about all the reasons why I am not sad to see it go. You see, as an old car, it has accrued all sorts of aliments that I have ignored up to now. Here is a partial list of what I can remember:

The roof leaks above the driver's side front windshield, leaving puddles in the front driver's floor.
The windshield is pitted and has some little cracks to the point where it is hard to see out of.
It is increasingly difficult to put it into reverse, I have to put it in 2nd, jog it, and quickly go over to reverse.
It smells funny from all the drinks I have spilled in it.
It is loud. The seals on the windows have successively failed to the point that the highway speed wind whistles through the little cracks. It has also lost a couple of insulating or shielding panels so that you can hear road and engine noise from below the car.
The muffler front connection pipe rusted through an fell off last month. I rigged it back together, but realized it wouldn't last much longer.
The radio doesn't work worth a damn. The cassette stopped working about 3 years ago and the radio volume has such rusty points in the knob that it sounds like an old fashioned AM radio on a lightning storm when you adjust the volume. Sound quality is horrible.
Gas gauge isn't accurate.
Speedometer hasn't been accurate for years.
There are multiple lights out that I haven't tried to fix.
The blower has one speed, high.
The rear tire mount sagged, but still works. You have to lift the tire to get it to catch closed.
The hatch back pistons work intermittently. Sometimes they hold the hatch up, other times they don't.
The front tires are bald. Worst, I replaced the rear tires 4 months ago, so the rest of the 2 years or 30,000 miles I could have gotten out of them is wasted.
The rear shocks and springs are about shot. Worst, the front ones failed last month and I had to replace them.
The emergency brake hasn't worked well for years.
The headlights are so dim I can't see well at night.
The headliner is coming off right above my head.
The front bumper is rusting through
The rear tire mount is rusty to the point where it almost doesn't catch and it has to be repainted every year.
The roof around the upper rear tail light is rusting through.
The cargo strips on the roof are coming off.
I have a small hit on the right front fender above the wheel that I got a month ago and never repaired.
The light cover on the left front is cracked from when I hit a deer 4 years ago.
The driver's window won't go up by the handle when you take it all the way down.
The driver's side door lock freezes in the winter.
The radiator inexplicably leaks and the motor tries to overheat, but I think that's just a loose radiator cap.
The rear cargo light stopped working a couple of years ago.
The rear door latches are so hard to open that I have to open it for people.

One the plus side, happy memories:
This is the car I took to Colorado about 4 times, Yellowstone and the Black Hills, New Orleans and Tampa, and to the Chicago Marathon, as well as every other fun trip in the last 15 years.
I quit chewing tobacco the day I picked it up from the dealer and haven't touched the stuff since then.
I never got it stuck 4-wheeling.
It's the car I took my wife to the hospital in when we had our son, and it's the car I took our son home in.
It's run well and faithfully for 15 years and it could carry a ton of stuff inside it.
I was able to pull the buzzer alarm out when I first bought it and it hasn't buzzed to warn me about anything since. It's nice and quiet when it comes to annoying alarms
I pulled the driver's side door light switch out when I first bought it, and I can get in and out of the car at night without a light going off.
The 4WD still works, but I never used it enough.

OK, I need to go turn it over to be put out of it's misery.

I am looking forward to having a new car.

Super Happy Baby

This is the picture we will use for the baby actor portfolio.

Balloon Landing

I've seen a hot air balloon around town before, with the Remax Real Estate logo on it. This morning, I saw it low over the road and followed in order to watch it land.

The cool part is that you could see the reverse shadow of the dump vent that they open to let all the hot air out. They missed a pond by about 10 feet.

Watching the half baked and dangerous way that they landed makes me thing twice about taking a ride on one of those things.

Fleming Elk

Zach got to meet and feed the elk after our treks in the woods.

Backpacking Baby

Zach loves to ride in his backpack. I can't believe that he can fall asleep while being jostled around back there.

Instant Fossil

I found this bleached snail shell in the woods out by Jacomo that looked like some ancient relic.

Old Tyme Scenes

I don't remember ever going into Old Missouri Town quite at this time of the year before.

It's quite rustic. How much time did they have to spend on flower gardening? How did they keep the livestock out of flower beds?

The sheep smelled really bad.

Missouri Town Mansion

I took Zach through Missouri Town to get to a secret Geocache. I love this scene.

Mommy Makes Hats

Andrea made a couple of hats for Zach to wear to Colorado.

This is the Court Jester version, there was also a Russian Bear version complete with little ears.

Yellow on Yellow action

I love to see the giant yellow bumblebees on the giant yellow flowers.

Heartland Garden

They opened up a new section of Powell Gardens that is based on farms in Missouri.

Zach & I could only get a quick once over, as it was so hot that day.

I forgot sunscreen, baby hats, and the cover on the stroller. The giant metal praying mantis approved of the way I improvised.

July's Blooms

I went out to Powell Gardens on the weekend they opened the Heartland Garden and took some closeups of the flowers in bloom.

Children of the Corn

This is what you look like when you spend too much time picking sweet corn.

Water Gardens

Here's some scenes from Powell Gardens water garden.

Coneflowers and Honeybees

Powell Gardens must have some wild honeybee hives. I've never seen any man-made hives out there, but there are plenty of the embattled insects to be seen at the gardens. So plant some flowers in your yard for the honeybees!

Moonbow

This is the astronomy picture of the day from a couple of days ago.