My Parents' Arrival

My Mom and Dad arrived in Colorado yesterday. Today my Dad and I went golfing at a course in Longmont:





Both pictures have Longs Peak in the background. I'm sure a golf pro could say something about my Dad's backswing, but I can't!

After golf I went back to their RV for dinner and to spend time with them and the dogs. Here is my Mom with (L to R) Kelby, Tasha, Suzy, and Terri's dog Jackson (not pictured, Emy).



And finally, a picture of a frog taken on the 18th hole:

Needles Eye Tunnel

Sunday morning, Rich, Sara, and I went up to the Needles Eye Tunnel near Rollins Pass.



A rocky, dirt road took us most of the way up, but we hiked the last 1.6 miles ourselves. James Peak is the tall peak in the background; the road we walked up is in the middle-right of the picture:



Here's a picture that Sara took of me with South Arapahoe Peak in the background:



And in case you're wondering, according to the signs up there the tunnel is called "Needles Eye", not "Needle's Eye".

Living Room

With the arrival of a load of furniture from Washington State, my living room finally looks like a living room! Thanks to my parents for the piano, and Terri for her couch:

Angle-wing Katydid

More bugs at NOAA! This time, it's the angle-wing katydid:



Unfortunately, with all the effort that must go into making the wing look like a leaf, it doesn't fly very well. I say unfortunately, because with a group of us looking at it on the edge of the air intake vent, it got scared and jumped onto the grating above the air shaft.



Before we could save it (but not before I took a picture of it next to a quarter), the katydid fell/fluttered about 20 ft. down to the bottom of the shaft (actually, I didn't think it would fall, so I wasn't exactly hurrying to save it). It pretty much has no chance of flying out now. To make matters worse, they aren't even supposed to be living in Eastern Colorado according to this map. Oops.

Mushroom hunting

Saturday morning I went mushroom hunting up in the mountains with Shuka, Sara, Rebecca, and Julie. We spent a few hours looking, found plenty of exotic mushrooms, but none were suitable for eating.

Here, our resident expert Shuka, explains the basics of mushroom hunting to Rebecca (left) and Julie (right):



Photo courtesy of Sara Lance.

My two favorite exotic mushrooms were the Amanita:



and the Strawberries and Cream mushroom:



Shuka was surprised at how many mushrooms there were this late in the season, so we may go again next weekend.

Caribou Ranch

This morning I volunteered with the Boulder County Parks and Open Spaces. We removed barbed wire fence from Caribou Ranch. Here's a picture of some of the team at work:



And some of the wire we removed:



Back in the days when Caribou Ranch was used as a ranch, the fence kept horses in. Now, the fence can only injure unsuspecting deer and elk.

Speaking of elk, we saw four of them on our way to the site, but I wasn't able to get my camera out in time.

Caribou Ranch was owned by James William Guercio and his family. He's best known as the producer of Chicago's albums in the '70s. He had a recording studio on his property, where many Chicago albums were recorded, as well as Elton John's Caribou album, and Supertramp's Even in the Quietest Moments. Unfortunately, the studio burned down in the '80s and was never rebuilt.



For dinner, I actually cooked something myself: enchilada casserole! And it's 100% vegan, thanks to Sara giving me all the ingredients (and the recipe) before she left for France. (OK, so it took me a week to finally make it, but that's not the point!)

More Wildlife at Work

On my way back from lunch, I saw this spider outside the door. It was moving very slowly; either it was just waking up from the cold rainy night we had, or it had just eaten whatever poison is found in the mousetrap it was next to.



The view through the camera makes the spider look far away from the quarter. Yet when I went to pick up the quarter after taking this picture, the spider looked a lot closer to it!

Thanks again to Wikipedia, I believe this is a wolf spider.



After running some errands after work, I had to swing by the Prius that Roya described at lunch. I don't know what happened to it; I wonder if this is what happens if the batteries are placed in a flame:

Stuff

By popular demand, I will post again. Terri is sick of seeing the green lacewing!

Let's see, Friday evening, I went to a party at Scott's place. Scott owns the house that Sara rents a room in. He had a live band perform in his backyard, which was the highlight of the night.

On Saturday, I went to a party at Paul's. Paul is a coworker of mine who is semi-retired now. He owns a nice house with a pool and horse corral on the outskirts of Boulder.

On Sunday, I invited John (who is from Chicago) over to watch the Colts-Bears game on my HDTV. The Bears won, which made John happy.

Tonight, I accidentally got on the wrong bus, so I had time to kill at another bus stop, where I took this picture of a passing car:



Then I went over to Sara's to see her cat, Karli. Sara is in France attending a conference, along with Julie and a couple other people from work. Lucky them!



Then I went over to Rich's to water his plants. Rich is rafting down the Colorado River right now. Lucky him!



That's about it. I've been busy at work preparing final data from Alaska. Hopefully I'll be done with that by early next week.

Green Lacewing

I found this little guy on the landing of my stairs. I took a few pictures, then set him outside. It looked like he had just emerged from his larva stage, and he seemed a little out of it.



After downloading the pictures, I searched for what type of insect it was. It definitely appears to be a green lacewing of some sort. According to Wikipedia, the vernacular name "stinkflies" refers to their ability to release a vile smell when handled. Maybe he knew I was trying to help him, because he didn't release any "stink" on me. Wikipedia also says they are used as biological pest control.

Ah, Wikipedia to the rescue again.