Sunday, July 24, 2011

Odds and Ends

Thursday at work, Sara spotted this moth outside of our building, so I took a picture of it.


As far as I can tell, it is some sort of hawk moth, part of the Sphingidae family (meaning Sphinx).

I spent most of my weekend at home doing various things (including watching the end of the Tour de France). The stage that determined the winner of the yellow jersey took place in Grenoble, so I went back and looked through pictures I took last August when I was there. The finish line was to the right of the bend in the river:


Julie's place is somewhere in the distance, close to the route leading to the finish.

Today, while walking back home from the grocery store, I stopped by our local pupuserie for some pupusas.


Pupusas are an El Salvadorian food made with thick corn tortillas, which taste really good. These had cheese and zucchini inside.

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Mount Bierstadt

Sunday, I climbed my second 14er (a 14,000 foot mountain), Mount Bierstadt, with Rich and Wally. Rich and I left Louisville a little after 5 am, and got to the trailhead by around 6:30. Mt. Bierstadt is the rounded peak to the right:


We left early enough to see the moon before it set, here shown next to Square Top Mountain:


Once we were high enough, we could see the first 14er I did, Grays and Torreys (although two peaks, they technically only counted as one 14er because the descent from one and the re-ascent to the other aren't large enough). From left to right: Square Top Mtn., Argentine Peak, Grays and Torreys (the two tallest peaks):


On the way up, we heard some pikas, so I took a picture of one. See if you can find it!


Here it is!


From the top, a picture of Frozen Lake in the foreground and Pikes Peak faint along the horizon:


I zoomed in on where we started:


While I was up top, I learned a new peak, the Mount of the Holy Cross. See if you can find it!


Here it is!


Back down at the bottom, I snapped one more picture of where we had just been.


All in all, it was a great hike. The weather was nearly perfect, and it was relatively short and quick (7 miles round trip).

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Trivia and Thunderstorms

Last night, we teamed up with two new people. We finished 7th, which wasn't bad, considering we had probably our worst last round ever. Left to right are Sarah, me, Tara, Cora, Anne, and Jonathan.


Last night, on the way home from trivia, there were several thunderstorms providing nice displays of lightning. The same thing happened tonight, so this time I stopped to take pictures.

Boulder and the faintest remains of twilight:


I couldn't quite capture the lightning from the storm to the north. The orange glow from the lightning was more impressive in person.


The storm to the south was a lot closer. I took this picture walking back to my car:


None of my pictures turned out as well as some that I took back when I lived in New Mexico:


With my old camera, I could do time lapse photography, which definitely helped!

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Wet Weekend

It's been raining a lot lately around Boulder, and this weekend was no exception. Friday night, I skipped the Street Faire, partly because of the weather. Saturday, I went for a picnic at Chautauqua with Rich, Sara, and Sara's nephew Anthony.



I took these pictures from under my umbrella. This was the first rain shower -- the second one we waited out inside Rich's car!

Today, the four of us went hiking at the Brainard Lake area. We ended up hiking around Long Lake:


There was a lot of snow and mud on the trail:


Rich demonstrates one technique for getting off a mound of snow:




This picture shows Long Lake feeding into the South St. Vrain Creek:


I just discovered I completed the St. Vrain trifecta: North St. Vrain last Sunday, Middle St. Vrain last Monday, and the South St. Vrain today!

We managed to avoid getting rained on during our hike, but between the snow and the mud, our shoes certainly got wet.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Fourth of July Weekend

Melting snow was the theme for me this 4th of July. Starting Friday night at Boulder Creek:


I took this video from the walkway under Broadway:


Sunday, I went hiking with Sara at the Wild Basin part of Rocky Mountain National Park. We had views of Longs Peak and Mt. Meeker on our way in:


We made it all the way to Ouzel Falls:


Then came back by Calypso Cascade:


At this point, Sara took the easier and shorter hike (it was her first hike since ACL surgery) to the Wild Basin trailhead, and I went back to Allenspark to get the car.


Monday, I picnicked with (L to R) Fatma, Harald, Roya, Roberto, and Karl:


The highlight of the hike was crossing the creek:


After a barbeque at our picnic site, we headed back to Boulder and watched the fireworks from near Roya's place: