The Flatlands

John Martin State Park, Colorado

We're heading east on US 50. The highway and terrain have been fairly flat for the last 100 miles since leaving Colorado Springs. The terrain looks more like Kansas than Colorado.

In 1965, I was flying my last mission as a navigator trainee out of Colorado Springs. We had to wait on the runway for the air to cool so that our T-39 had enough lift to be able to takeoff. It was my last training Mission and my first of 40 eight-hour training flights without a navigator instructor. We flew south for 30 minutes and I told the pilot to turn east in the morning toward California. I was checking my maps frantically, looking for the Rockies and seeing only flatlands and the early morning sun dead ahead. The pilot kept asking me if I had any extra maps because the morning sun was in his eyes and he wanted to use them to cover his window. Eventually, the other student navigator whispered to me that we were heading toward Florida so I told the pilot to do a 180.

I regret very much telling Mrs. Phred this story. Whenever we argue about directions and I point out that I am a very highly trained Air Force navigator and scored a 99th percentile on my Navigator's aptitude test...she snorts, "Right, Wrong-Way!"

We stopped early at an almost empty State park on a reservoir. We lay back reading some great new novels by Michael Connelly and Vince Flynn. I offer to make Phred's Rockfish Royal for dinner and Mrs. Phred says what about we just bread and fry it?

"You turn down Mr. Phred's Rockfish Royal?", Mr Phred asks. "Mr. Phred is not offended". he says,...if one prefers to ruin the fine Oregon Rockfish with grease and breadcrumbs, what is it to Mr. Phred?", he fumes..."Mr. Phred does not care how the fish is cooked", he says to her and crosses his arms and looks skyward...

Mrs Phred decides, after some thought, that she prefers Rockfish Royale (1)

We spent the last two days in Colorado Springs. We drove up Pike's Peak to an altitude of 14,110 feet. We ran over two snow leopards and a yeti on the last mile.

The next day viewed Seven Falls and we spent $18 for the privilege of viewing those puny nothing falls. They are nothing to write home about. In Ithaca, New York, one can view gorges with mighty falls cutting strange falls for miles for nothing and get a great workout climbing up and down the canyons. What a rip.

It looks like we might be looking at water park in Dodge City, a night in Wichita, another lake in a Kansas State Park and then cooking fish dinner for an online friend named Hypatia in Missouri. After that two or three weeks in Arkansas...maybe I'll find a home there...

(1) Rockfish Royale

1 cup dry white wine
2 tsp. salt
1 lb. rockfish fillets
¼ cup fine dry bread crumbs
½ cup each sour cream & mayonnaise
¼ cup minced green onions
paprika

Combine wine and salt; pour over Rockfish. Marinate in refrigerator at least 1 hour. Drain Rockfish on paper towels; dip both sides in breadcrumbs. Place Rockfish in shallow buttered baking dish. Combine sour cream, mayonnaise and green onions; spread over Rockfish. Sprinkle with paprika. Bake at 400°F for 10 minutes per inch of thickness, measured at the thickest part, or until Rockfish flakes when tested with a fork.

The Royal Gorge

Canon City, Colorado

We decide to stay an extra day to check out some of the sights. We drive up on a narrow, high ridge called Skyline Drive. There are some exposed, inverted dinosaur footprints. Some big animals stepped on a muddy riverbank here about 102 million years ago. They were rhinoceros sized lizards that were a little uglier than tricerotops.

The suspension bridge over Royal Gorge was built in 1929 in seven months when things were booming. It cost $250,000 and spans a quarter of a mile over a 1,200 foot deep gorge. They claim it's the highest suspension bridge in the world. Those old guys knew how to "get 'er done!" I get very uneasy walking over it. It's the same feeling I always had on top of the World Trade Center, as it swayed in the wind. I give the camera to Mrs. Phred and walk quickly to the other side with my eyes averted from the Arkansas River far below.

The Royal Gorge Park has a lot of touristy things to see. There's a little red helicopter that runs tourists though the gorge at about 150 MPH with 50 feet of clearance on each side about 35 feet over the river...what a hot dogger.

They have a rare white buffalo.

One summer a long time ago, the seven sacred council fires of the Lakota Sioux came together and camped. The sun was strong and the people were starving for there was no game. Two young men went out to hunt. Along the way, the two men met a beautiful young woman dressed in white who floated as she walked. One man had bad desires for the woman and tried to touch her, but was consumed by a cloud and turned into a pile of bones.


The woman spoke to the second young man and said, "Return to your people and tell them I am coming." This holy woman brought a wrapped bundle to the people. She unwrapped the bundle giving to the people a sacred pipe and teaching them how to use it to pray. "With this holy pipe, you will walk like a living prayer," she said. The holy woman told the Sioux about the value of the buffalo, the women and the children. "You are from Mother Earth," she told the women, "What you are doing is as great as the warriors do."
Before she left, she told the people she would return. As she walked away, she rolled over four times, turning into a white female buffalo calf. It is said after that day the Lakota honored their pipe, and buffalo were plentiful.

Another view of the suspension bridge.

The admission ticket includes a spectacular bungee ride. They run you out over the 1,200 foot gorge. You are expected to scream at the apogee. I ask Mrs. Phred to take my picture.

They have a tram that drops 1,200 feet at a 45 degree angle. It was finished in 1997 and takes you to the gorge bottom in six minutes.

Mrs. Phred always wants me to take her picture in front of the carousel...Avignon. Normandy...you name it...but she won't ride...they have a rock band doing a great rendition of "Ride, Sally, Ride" as we leave the park.....

Black Canyon of the Gunnison

Montrose, Colorado

Whoa!...I'm dangerous. I figured out how to set the camera to take a picture in ten seconds so now I just set it on a rock and get Mrs. Phred to stand in front with me. Problem: she didn't like her hair so I just blew up my ugly face...I don't care.


The Gunnison river loses more elevation in 48 miles than the Mississippi loses in 1500. It used to slam though the canyon at the rate of 12,000 cubic feet a seconds in Spring with 3 million horsepower. This allowed the river to carve an extremely steep canyon though very hard rock at a depth of nearly 3,000 feet. The upper portions of the river now have three dams which created high mountain lakes stocked with many species of trout, Dolly Varden and salmon. The lake region is administered by the National Park Service and is called the Curecanti National Recreation Area.

We look down into the steep canyon and eat our lunch in on a picnic table provided by the National Park Service. In 1901 William Torrence and Abraham Lincoln Fellows took a rubber mattress for a raft, arranged to be supplied at various points from the rim, and were able to make their way through the canyon -- 33 miles in nine days. The river is much less wild now that dams have been built upriver. However, the river rapids are still rated class V to unnavigable..



This cliff is 2300 feet tall. The Empire State building would come halfway to the top. The igneous intrusions make a pretty picture. It's called the Painted Wall. The park is mostly a series of overlooks about 200 yards apart. Sometimes you walk 400-600 yards to look into the chasm. What did Nietzsche say?... "If you look long enough into the void the void begins to look back through you. "

Déjà vu all over again

Grand Junction, Colorado

This is a picture of Mrs. Phred without her Indiana Jones exploration clothes. We were going downtown to re explore Grand Junction.

So here we are again in Grand Junction. Last year it was June 1st, 60 days into the tour and we were headed North to Steamboat Springs, the Badlands, the Great Lakes and New England.

This year we're 72 days into the trip and headed east to Canon City, Colorado for a raft trip. The "n" in Canon has one of those Mexican enchilada thingies over it so it is pronounced "Canyon".
Grand Junction lives and dies on oil and natural gas. It was booming last year. This year, oil is back to $70 a barrel and we see mixed signals. The parking lots at the Cinema 14 and Target are full in the afternoon. On the other hand, downtown has many shuttered stores and closed restaurants. A girl wanders the restaurants that are still open trying to sell flowers. A lonely Punch and Judy diorama performs to nobody on Main Street.
We play tennis both mornings. My best score is 6-3 (I'm the three). I'm really "on" the first two games and win each point of both games with brilliant serves and returns. After a while Mrs. Phred's superb physical condition begins to tell the tale...of the four sets we played, three were 6-love.
It's a neat little town with artsie statues every half block downtown on both sides of the street.
We stayed two nights in Grand Junction and moved on to Montrose, Colorado. We want to see the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. Last year, in April, all the overlooks and hiking trails were covered with snow and I was too cheap to spring for snowshoes.
We went to see "Public Enemy" with Johnny Depp and then out to dinner downtown. I thought that the Dillinger character was fairly faithful to Dillinger's history as a depression era folk hero. The bad guys were Baby Face Nelson and J. Edgar Hoover. Dillinger and Melvin Purvis were the good guys in the movie. I may have to write more about both of them.

Show Me the Ka

Chugwater, Wyoming

We drove over Cameron Pass yesterday. My GPS said the summit was 10,300 feet. The surrounding mountains still went up another half mile or so.


We found a campground on a river in the Roosevelt National Forest. It was on the eastern slope of the Rockies about 30 miles from Fort Collins. The river was rushing downhill and swollen from the above average snowfall. The river noise was conducive to sleeping. No electricity there, so we played Scrabble after dinner. I added an “A” to “jar” going down and placed a “K” in front of the “A” on a triple letter score. Mrs. Phred challenged the “ka”, of course, but I was a gentleman and failed to point out that an unsuccessful challenge normally requires a turn forfeit. It’s rare that I win against her. Ka is the part of a person that leaves the body after death, according to the old Egyptians.


Our last day in Steamboat included tennis, a ride on the alpine slide called “The Howler”, a two hour raft trip on the Colorado, a visit to a bookstore and then dinner in Glenwood Springs with Kim and Randy. Mrs. Phred met Kim online. Randy is an architect who wants to build his own RV. Kim just won a weight lifting competition. She was the only one entered in her class, but I’m impressed anyway. Randy is 6’-5”, a former Army Ranger. They were interesting, I’m glad we went.


Dinner was at a microbrewery in Glenwood Springs about 125 miles from Steamboat. I ordered a sampler tray of eight beers.


Mrs. Phred drives home from Glenwood Springs. She tends to run the Toyota about 30 MPH faster over the mountain curves than I do, constantly running up and down though the five-speed manual gearbox. I try to read and clutch the sissy bar at the same time.


You remember that heel pain I was telling you about? I went to WebMD online and came up with a diagnosis of plantar facilitis. That’s a problem with the tendon in the arch attached to the heel. It happens to older people who are a little overweight and who play tennis, jog or walk a lot. They suggest ice packs, stretching exercises and a change in activities. For example, one could substitute bicycling for hiking and Scrabble for tennis.

We are in Wyoming today. We want to go to South Dakota and see the Custer State Park, Mount Rushmore and the Cave of the Winds National Park tomorrow. Maybe I’ll get the bikes down off the back of the RV where they’ve been hanging for the last two months and gathering gravel road dust.

Firecloud Endorses Obama

Steamboat Springs, Colorado

The map below is a county-by-county representation of the 2004 American presidential election. The deep red counties went at least 70% republican and the deep blue were 70% democrat. In between are various shades of purple. The map is adjusted for population which accounts for the strange shape.



The Firecloud Report is endorsing Obama over McCain. I am throwing my financial support to Obama and went online this morning to make my contribution. We are set to receive absentee ballots and have switched from the Green Party to yellow-dog Democrat..

Virginia is normally considered a red state, so Obama's choice to launch his general campaign there is a statement about his strategy and optimism.

While there are parallels between 1968 and 2008 (an unpopular war, an unpopular president), there are also distinct differences (an economy in a deflationary housing death spiral, the dollar a joke, rising unemployment, spiraling energy and food prices and credit and financial markets locked up).

In November, we will be able to say to the world, "Hey, Y'all. Look who we just elected."

You have to give the Republican robber barons credit for persuading the poor and the uneducated to consistently vote against their own self interest by creating phony issues like gay marriage. However, as one notable Republican once observed, "You can't fool all the people, all the time."

You Can Leave Your Hat On

Steamboat Springs, Colorado

Katie sent me an e-mail and suggested Dr. Scholl's heel pads for the bone spur in my left heel. Katie and I went though Air Force basic training at the same time in the summer of 63 in south Texas. My father and my mother's three brothers got leave in early 1943. By late 1943 my three cousins and I, including Katie, popped out in Ithaca at about the same time; your classic war babies (not boomers). It's nice to have a support group. I think I'm the youngest by a few days.


We went to the top of Storm Mountain today to check out the extensive ski lifts and gondolas. This is one of the premier Colorado ski destinations, along with Aspen and Vail. The town is surrounded by ski trails and ski jumps. As we take the Gondola up, it suddenly shudders to a stop, leaving us swinging at 300 feet. Eventually the cable starts again. I'm reassured somewhat by the Swiss manufacturer.


This hummingbird was up at the Steamboat Lake State Park. It has been raining the last two days, so we didn't do much yesterday aside from the drive up to the park.


One of the things to see in Steamboat is Fish Creek Falls. We went there early before the downtown shops opened. I'm anxious to see the legendary F.W. Light store. Their Stetson hats range from $4.98 to $500.00. They've been selling hats here for 103 years.


They have a rodeo here every Friday and Saturday, starting next week. The alpine slide next to the rodeo grounds descends 400 feet over a 2,400 foot run. It's open tomorrow. You get a little sled and ride a plastic shute down. If you go to fast, your sled leaves the shute. We had thought to leave in the morning, but if we do, I'll never ride the slide. Mrs. Phred and I discuss this and come to the depressing realization that there are many things we'll never see or do. We want it all. We want it now. So we will pull out about noon after tennis and a few rides on the slide in the morning.


So many hats...so little time.


Here's my new hat.

Baby, take off your coat...(real slow)
Baby, take off your shoes...(here, I'll take your shoes)
Baby, take off your dress
Yes, yes, yes
You can leave your hat on
You can leave your hat on
You can leave your hat on
-Randy Newman

Hummingbirds Can Fly at 8,000 Feet

Vega Lake, Colorado

I got up this morning and stepped out to our lakeside campground in the high and remote Vega State Park. My red camera strap was being dive-bombed by dozens of nectar-crazed hummingbirds. I retrieved the camera and held up a pink plastic rose. A stream of hummingbirds flew up to my hand and dipped their beaks into the plastic.


We had intended to camp on top of the 10,000 foot flat-topped Grand Mesa. We dragged the Toyota up the mountain for two hours. When we arrived all the campgrounds were closed and under ten feet of snow. So we went to "Plan B" and spent two nights at 8,000 feet at Vega Lake.


I went for a four-mile hike in the early morning by myself and saw some turkey vultures drying their wings, a Northern Flicker woodpecker and sub-alpine meadows full of wildflowers. Lately, when I hike, my left heel becomes very painful for about 36 hours. It's disturbing. I've read that when you get old, your body starts falling apart. Aside from the results from a few motorcycle crashes, my body has served me well, up to now.


We've driven several hundred miles now in the Colorado Rockies. The state is amazingly green compared to brown Utah, only a few hundred mile to the west. I put it down to the adiabatic process. That is the process by which air drops it's moisture as it is lifted over an elevation as it flows over a mountain range. There are places in Hawaii that get hundreds of inches of annual rainfall as the tropical air get lifted and cooled by flowing over a volcano. I seem to recall that air tends to be two degrees C. cooler for each thousand feet of additional elevation.


We've moved on to Steamboat Springs. There is a lot to do here. Our new GPS sent us down two hours of dusty, washboard, switch-back roads this morning. We made the mistake of asking for the shortest route. Next time, we'll try the quickest.


The rivers and streams are still swollen with snow melt. We saw some kayaks today on the Colorado River who were negotiating some amazing rapids in the canyon on the highway. The kayaks almost disappeared in the huge rapids.

The Greatest Invention

Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado

The canyons and mesas of the Four Corners region are filled with thousands of ruins built by eary Anasazi Indian inhabitants. Some of the most visited are here in the Mesa Verde National Park in the Southwest corner of Colorado. Though dendrochronology, the study of tree rings, the constuction of these dwellings can be dated very precisely.


The best preserved ruins are those built in caves or cliff dwellings sheltered by rock overhangs. As we drive the rim of the mesa we can see a half dozen examples of these.


The Indians here lived on top of the mesas for thousands of years. During a 20 year period ending about 1276 A.D., they retreated to cliff dwellings and then abandoned these within a ten year period. The reason for the retreat and exodus is thought to be a 23 year drought which decreased food supplies and increased warfare over scarce resources.


A major source of food was corn. They used a "dry farming" (no irrigation) method, planting in wet, low-lying areas where water pooled in the spring after the eight-foot snowfall melts.


The development of Maize (corn) by an early Mesoamerican geneticist probably happened sometime between 10,000 and 6,000 BC in southern Mexico. This development has done more to enable a population explosion to six billion than any other human invention.


From the 1938 to the 1960s, Mangeldorf's 'Tripartite Hypothesis' on the origin of corn was widely accepted. He believed that corn was developed from a cross between an undiscovered wild Maize and the plant Tripsacum.


In 1968, George Beadle, in retirement, began to provide convincing evidence for his own 'Teosinte Hypothesis', which simply believed that Maize was developed from the plant Teosinte. Today scientists generally accept the Teosinte Hypothesis because of advances in the study of genomes.

The Million Dollar Highway

From Ouray to Durango - Colorado

The thermometer read 15 degrees this morning at dawn. The campground is empty and silent except for us and several hundred birds chirping about spring. The piles of snow are beating a slow retreat.


The hike we took yesterday was an odd mix of deep snow and slippery, gluey mud. We went up a trail called “The Pinnacles” for about an hour before turning back.. Sometimes we would break though the snow crust and sink to our knees. Sometimes our boots would pick up several pounds of mud where the snow had melted. One of the things to discuss on a hike is the tracks and the scat. We saw lots of deer sign and a few bear tracks. This is the time that the bears are coming out of hibernation with new cubs, looking for breakfast.

I learned that they took out a 56 pound lake trout from the frozen lake where we are camped last year. The fishing here is reported to be the best in Colorado. Soon they will be releasing several million eleven inch sockeye salmon from the upriver hatchery. That explains the giant trout. Trout are very aggressive eaters and love little fish. We made a special trip to Gunnison to buy a fishing license. The sporting goods store was a rat’s nest of fishing tackle, deer antlers and snowshoes. A good pair of snowshoes goes for $125. I fished for about an hour and didn't catch anything. I scraped up some loose dirt and buried two boxes of worms in the ground and added a little water. They won the worm lottery...never give up.


We moved today. We drove from Gunnison to Montrose, then down though Ouray to Durango. Rand McNally thinks the winding 75 miles from Ouray to Durango is the best drive in Colorado.


The high mountain passes go up to 12,000 feet. It's good to be back to 6,000 feet after a week at 10,000 or more. The air that we breathe is 21 percent oxygen. However, the amount of oxygen available for your lungs is a factor of partial pressure of oxygen and is measured in torr. As altitude increases, the available oxygen pressure in torr decreases. The percentage of oxygen in the air is always 21 percent no matter how high you go, but it’s 21 percent of a smaller total air pressure. At sea level the partial pressure of oxygen is 21 percent of 760 torr, while at 10,000 feet it is 21 percent of only 199 torr. The older you get, the more susceptible you are to lack of oxygen at altitude. In the Air Force, we had to strap on our masks for anything over 8,000. Rapid heatbeat, rapid breathing, headaches and decreased mental acuity are a few of the early symptoms. Death is the last, most serious effect. I lost consciousness in about a minute at 23,000 feet in the altitude chamber...what a nice way to go...Euphoria, followed by nothing. They should use these on death row.

We want to see the ruins at Mesa Verde tomorrow and maybe take a hike or two.


It might take a couple of days to explore the Canyons of the Ancients. There are over 6,000 ancient pueblos up on the desert mesas. After that, there is a trading post in the desert we want to see. It's over in the "four corners" area on the Ute reservation in ther high desert.


We got satellite TV back in the Curecanti National Recreation Area (Direct), but no cell phone (ATT) or computer air card (Verizon) service. I learned how to record TV programs yesterday. The receiver is now set to record all future “South Park” programs until the disk is full. “Dr. Who” was on yesterday with a new Doctor that I didn’t recognize. Dr Who, I guess.