Zachy's Wacky Faces

He's starting to get an onery look to his smiles and laughs. He likes that wrinkly nose look, too.

Lexington Missouri

We travelled to Lexington just to see the swollen Missouri River, but ended up seeing lots of interesting things. You don't get to see churches complain about the weather very often.

I love the old Schlitz beer signs. Reminds me of many a bar outside the gate of a large factory. Sometimes it was Pabst Blue Ribbon, and sometimes it was Miller High Life, but there was always a nice big beer sign on the wall outside.

Big Brutus

I took a trip to visit customers near Pittsburg Kansas. The whole area around there was once coal strip mines. There was a huge excavator (I would say Steam Shovel, but this one was electric) that was the second biggest in the world. It's been out of production for around 25 years, but they made it into a museum. I had an hour to kill around lunch, and paid the admission and went over and climbed around on it. It is hard to believe that it actually used to move around. It's covered in pigeons now, but it's still pretty impressive.

September's Extremes

We roasted in the beginning of the month and had very cool nights and fall colors by the end of the month.

Joplin Trip

I travelled to Joplin in late August, which would be 3 months from when they were hit by the devastating tornado.

Surprisingly, the town was very well cleaned up already. Some buildings were still standing with partial damage, but all the tree limbs and building debris were pretty well cleaned up.

The Floody Muddy Missouri

The Missouri River was up way out of its banks most of the summer. While flying into the airport, you could see that the river had turned into a sea. The power plant just north of the airport was now on an island in the swollen river, with the employees being taken to work by boat.

We drove out toward Lexington to see just how high up it was. We saw fields over a mile across under a couple of feet of water. The trees on the regular bank of the river were completely surrounded by water. The roads next to the river were closed as they went into the water.

We were enthusiastically greeted by a muddy mutt that showed us by jumping in that the road was under water.

Balloons over Albuquerque

I had heard that there was a lot of hot air balloon festivals and events in Albuquerque, but I was still surprised to see one.

Colors

We were travelling, 5 of us, in a rented Ford Explorer, spending many hours driving. And like most people that drive for hours and hours, we had lots of treats in the car. At some point, I heard Andrea explaining to Zach what the M&Ms were. She was telling him about all the colors that they were, going over each color and showing them to him. He tried the M&Ms and of course, he loved them. For the rest of the trip, when he saw the M&M bag, he would say "I want colors!" And now that's what we call them.

Mesa Verde

After spending the night in Durango, we headed out to Mesa Verde.

I had been there in 1999 with Steve and Rita, but I guess I didn't remember it very well. I had also been there around 1975 on a family vacation.

You drive in and immediately start climbing, and before you know it, you're 1500 feet above the surrounding plane. It's sort of like being on a huge flat mountain.

We wanted to tour the cliff houses, but the wait was over 4 hours to get on one of the guided tours.

The temperature was oppressive. We had just spent almost a week in the mountains with brisk nights and pleasant days, and this brutal sun and arid desert-like atmosphere seemed to suck the moisture right out of you. There were areas that had been burned back in 2000 and they were still pretty barren and desolate looking.

When you got up to the edge of the mesa, it really dropped off quickly. You felt like you were staring off the edge of a wall. It really made you wonder what the people were thinking of, to put homes in the side of the canyon wall like that.

It's hard to believe that so many of these amazing dwellings were built almost 1000 years ago, lived in for less than 100 years, and then abandoned.

American Basin

I remember American Basin from 2000 when Steve and I climbed Handies Peak, our first 14er together. I remember it being unbelievably beautiful, full of flowers, and I remember regretting that the road had been blocked off. It used to go up the basin about another mile, and we had to walk that distance. I remember finishing our climb and getting back to the Jeep and having a massive headache hit me just as I sat down.

This time around, it was harrowing just getting a little way into the basin, but we pulled over and got out to take pictures and it was beautiful. I think the time we went before was a little later in the summer, because this time it was mostly yellow flowers, and I remember a lot of purple when we were there before.

Zach loved the flower meadow, mostly because it had a little stream in the middle and he could throw rocks into it.

There was a serious photographer there, with a big box camera and a heavy tripod. He dropped a fancy graded filter, which I found after he left, but he was long gone before we could return it.

I remember seeing the American Basin on a calendar a few years after we visited last time. It is one of the prettiest alpine meadows you will ever visit.

We originally planned to go from Animas Forks to American Basin and then back again, but the road was so horrible that we figured it would be easier to go down rather than trying to go back up and over. So we traded a terrifying hour long drive for a 6 hour drive. The return trip went from American Basin through Lake City and Creede, then over Wolf Creek Pass to Durango.

Cinnamon Pass

There are some places that you go that may be beautiful, and may take a long time to get there, and you may have really looked forward to going, but in the end, it's just a big hassle.

For me, Cinnamon Pass was such a place. We left Animas Forks, and the first half mile up to the pass was so trecherous that it hardly seemed worth it. The road was not bad after that, but the pass itself was not a cheery place. I can't remember whether I had a headache or Zach was being irritable, but I remember feeling anything but euphoric at the pass. Zach insisted on going out to see the snow, which was across a trecherous scree field. I took him anyway, as I am a sucker for baby adventures.

There were some close peaks on the shoulders of the pass, and we briefly considered climbing up one, but we did not want to take the time and we were not feeling up to it.