Monday, July 30, 2007
On the way back home from our meandering Oregon Trail/ Trout Fishing trip, we stopped at a pull-out on the beautiful WY130 Snowy Range Road. We could hear the stream from the road, and wandered down about 50 yards and Logan baited a hook with a worm… and the magic happened.
This was brook trout nirvana… eight brookies in about 10 minutes. See for yourself:
Friday, July 27, 2007
Our last leg of the Oregon Trail journey had us parting ways with the Trail to head southward into the Sierra Madre Mountains of Wyoming to meet up with a fellow busnut and his family and extended family for a weekend of fishing, eating, hiking, and more eating. Craig Shepard of MN kindly invited us to his annual family camping trip, and gave us exact GPS coordinates to find his spot just over Battle Pass on State Hwy. 70… and boy were those coordinates exact. After huffing and puffing our SpaceShip bus over the pass, about a mile later my new GPS software on the laptop said “turn left in 0.2 miles” and I turned precisely into the secluded spot to see Craig’s MC9 for the second time in as many months.
Craig was off fishing with the kids, but his wife Teri introduced herself and showed us a few places we could park and set up camp in their circle. And we quickly did just that.
We’re about halfway through the trip to see a few sites along the Oregon Trail. We finally found a wireless hotspot in Casper, WY… in a Jehovah’s Witness temple’s parking lot, no less, that I discovered while waiting out a huge storm that passed though here yesterday. I came back here this morning to upload a few pics.
More details, pics, and video to follow (of course)!
Sunday July 22, Cheyenne Frontier Days…
Rather than continue to sit around and watch Mom work, the kids and me are heading northward this Saturday up to the North Platte River in NW Nebraska to see parts of the emigrant trails taken westward by over 1/2 million homesteaders, 49-ers, trappers, Mormons, and traders in the 19th century. In the course of a handful of days, we can see several vestiges and landmarks along the Trail (even some surviving wagon wheel ruts), along with good museums (and the occasional roadside oddity).
Our kids are sure to learn something along the way. We’re even taking along Logan’s best friend, Sage, who can hardly wait to go. In this day and age of GameBoy and PlayStation mind-rot, it’s encouraging to see a kid get excited about a good old-fashioned road trip. I’m reading up on what I can to be a halfway knowledgeable “tour guide”, and I’m taking pioneer diaries and stories to read while we’re there. Our “SpaceShip” bus should make slightly better time that the prairie schooner of yore!
Here’s a list of things we might do.
We’ll no doubt be able to do them all this time. But, we’ll see where the Trail leads us. If I find some WiFi access points along the way, I’ll post some updates here on the blog. We’re meeting up with busnut Craig Shepard (gumpy) and his family… and hopefully some other busnuts the last week in July near Encampment, WY for some trout fishing. At some point, Sage’s folks and brother will meet us up near Saratoga for even more trout fishing.
Wagons HO!
Wednesday I got an email from Logan’s COVA teacher asking for any more last-minute volunteers for a scheduled tour of our local CBS news station on Thursday morning. How could I refuse? Field trip!
We arrived a bit early and met the other COVA family we were to do the tour with. Three other families called in sick, so it was just us.
The kids all waited patiently (and quietly) in the lobby, while a bevy of waiting business people made a big ruckus with their chatter and banter. We were glad to see them ushered past the “gatekeeper” after hearing them carry on and on for ten minutes! Soon enough it was our turn to be let into the mystical confines.
Last week I reserved us a spot on Half Moon Bay State Beach for six nights during our upcoming Bay Area blast in April. I went to great lengths to get a site that offers me a windshield view of the mighty Pacific. For some reason it’s important to me.
Six nights came in at exactly $157.50, or $25/ night + a small reservation fee. Darlene commented that this was pretty expensive. (?!) I should point out that the Ritz Carlton a few hundred yards up the Bay from us is $300 per night. Obviously, we forgo the heated towels, mud baths, chocolate on the pillows, et al for moonlit strolls on the beach, seagulls and roaring breakers lulling us to sleep, and pretentious-free solitude. Check out the video below for our beachside digs:
The image of HMB SB used for the above video is courtesy of Ken Adelman’s amazing California Coastal Records projects.
While we’re at it, let’s see some past “windshield views” from our travels…
OK, that last pic makes it look like I have this pressing desire to turn the bus into a boat!
OK, here I am today planning our upcoming bus trip to the Bay Area for the first two weeks in April. Like usual, I’m using the most amazing time-waster ever conceived, Google Earth. If you’ve somehow lived under a rock for the past two years, it’s this FREE software you load on your computer and allows you to zoom from space to anywhere on the planet.
It utilizes satellite imagery and sophisticated hardware acceleration (coupled with a broadband connection) to seamlessly pan and zoom across the globe, and even pull down “into the weeds” for a bird-eye view of your world. From your house… to Barbra Streisand’s (careful… she might sue you!)… all of the way to The Forbidden City.
There… not so “forbidden” anymore, eh? How about Area 51, The Neverland Ranch, and other places you’ll never get to step foot on? Fly on in with Google Earth!
Like with many things Google… it didn’t invent the software, it just used its leverage as The 800 Pound Gorilla of all things Information (and billions and billions of stockholder equity) to buy some of the best software out there… and then promptly turn around and give it away to the individual user. So Google Earth used to be Keyhole Corp. My favorite 3D sketching program for (when I used to do) architecture was 3D Sketch Up, conceived here in Boulder, CO… and bought by Google last year. And now the basic version is free. Gotta love Google.
Anyways so back to my trip… Google Earth lets me see the places we’re going, what we’ll see… and most importantly, whether The Bus will fit in the parking lot! As I’m ticking off the usual suspects of things to see/ places to go/ beaches to camp… Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, Fisherman’s Wharf, Half Moon Bay… I also have a wild hare. I want to tour the Googleplex! That’s the Google Campus in the epicenter of all things geek, Mountain View, CA.
And the weird thing… Darlene and the kids thought it was a great idea. They use Google every day. And in conversation, they use it as a verb, “I Googled for ‘green sea urchin’ and came up with this cool looking one, Dad!”.
To be fair, I also said I want to visit Adobe’s World HQ, Intel, ILM, and Pixar. But I said Googleplex first!
Click on the pic above for the Google Earth map with our “pushpin”places to go & things to see.
OK, so now you do Google Earth. Once you finally have your life back, try Google Sightseeing for some really cool findings here on Our Planet. Don’t say I didn’t warn you…