Colorado with the Riggs Family
Spent a recent weekend in Colorado with Shannon's family, was a great weekend. They are big game players which is fun for Shannon since I provide no competition for her when we play at home.
Went for some awesome runs in the mountains, wish I would have taken my camera on the runs. On a long hike/run up a trail I came within 50 yards of a red fox - first time I've ever seen one in the wild. Was pretty cool - he looked at me for 30 seconds before simply turning around and walking away.
recent branches
This looks like beautiful country. Great take on camouflage graphics in Shannon's jersey. Wonderful to be outdoors with family, isn't it? Nature seems a cathedral of sorts to me, yet can often be pushed aside by modern day-to-day demands.
I'm pretty sure I saw a wolf or a coyote on my way home from the ER at 2AM recently - not far from the major St L shopping mall, pretty far downtown. A beautiful creature in an unlikely scene.
While we were in CT,there was a coyote in Manhattan. Here's a more recent story of the same ilk.
http://www.wnbc.com/news/8181516/detail.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/30/nyregion/thecity/30coyo.html?fta=y
For those into games, we recently found these two at a garage sale. They are clever.
Rumis.
Blink.
Riley is now staring to push me in chess, as well. If anyone is interested I suspect he'd like a game the next time we're together.
Wow, Jeff's right - looks gorgeous.
Pic 3, is Shanon sampling the local flavor of tree? I don't doubt her nature knowledge is far beyond my own, but I think bark is one of those items you save as a last cast scenario meal.
The tree in pic #3 is dead. In fact, the vast majority of the lodgepole pine trees in Colorado (and the west in general) are dead or dying.
Shannon is looking under the bark at the killer. The mountain pine beetle .. it's simply ravished the forests.
So far the beetles have eaten through 1.5 million acres, about 70 percent of all Colorado's lodgepole pines. The tree's entire population will be wiped out in the next few years leaving behind a deforested area about the size of Rhode Island.
b: very interesting that the beetle is the killer, i guess its time to beat them to it.. hey all humans like competition
shannon doesn't know any beetle killers to save the trees?
s: i think the beetle will win the battle, they were here long before humans and will be here long after.
There is no way to kill them to save the trees, a ton of money has been spent trying to find a solution and the only solution is to burn the infected forest down to save trees that aren't yet infected. That doesn't work well in Colorado though because so many homes are built close to the forests so burning trees would risk the homes.