Some more visuals

This is Sam. He watches the llamas at night.




The field trip stops at Suzy Bang Rock.

This is from the ranch. Awful, eh?

That's Pike's Peak from a mile below. A VERTICAL MILE.

This is Stacey at the top... a VERTICAL MILE from the last picture.

Go West, Young Man Part 2.

We stayed at the Stone Mansion Bed and Breakfast - a 9000 sq foot Victorian/Edwardian style home renovated and run by our adopted grandparents, Jane and Robin. Jane had read our flyers and notes that our friend Sharon dropped off for us before we got there... Oh she did not read them out of being nosey; she read them for accuracy. We were talking with her about our plans and she quickly quoted them to us from the literature we had yet to see, making remarks like "and you'll have no trouble getting up there, your friend gave you excellent directions", etc. So funny. Needless to say, we were very well taken care of. She even made sure I had a hat or sunscreen as we left for the day.
So on Friday we met up with Sharon's family and travelled up to the ranch to help clean and set up. When I say "clean" I mean shovel llama dung out of the area where the ceremony was to take place. Oh, did I not mention this is a llama and horse ranch? Oh sorry - and Daisy the donkey. Yepper, full fledged Colorado breeding ground, Valhalla Ranch is. Even run by it's own singing cowboy, Dennis.
This was shaping up to be a very, very fun event.
So I took some pictures and marveled at the scenery while Sharon's wonderful parents cleaned inside the cottage and the other guys worked around the area. I didn't really notice what the girls were doing...

Let me say something about the scenery... Ever go somewhere, maybe a remote island, a leading museum, the Playboy Mansion... you know, where you are so impressed by the beauty surrounding you that you are rendered mindless and all you can really do is whisper "wow" and point a lot? After a while it simply becomes a dull fuzzyness in your conciousness that you immediately recognize in others around you, causing you to say incredibly articulate things like, "I KNOW, RIGHT??"
If you haven't been, that's Colorado. At least to Stace and I.

Okay, that said.. Where was I?
OH! So we got the area cleaned up, had part of the driveway freshly graveled, grabbed some beers and headed out to Suzy Bang Rock, where Kress proposed to Sharon. And I thought the view from the ranch was something... . Unfortunately I missed part of the story, however Suzy Bang was a local who, if I heard correctly, raised a family by herself, and died of sickness. Her sons buried her and chiseled her headstone into this very large rock. Rather impressive. After taking in the view for a while we headed back into town for the rehearsal dinner at Blackjack's Saloon.

After a very nice steak dinner - Hey, it's COLORADO - we all headed to the brewery and met up with the rest of the travelers. Oh yeah, we ran out the locals. Cowards. Thirty-something thirty-somethings all cavorting and goofing off in a brewery that had a maximum occupancy of 18 or some nonsense. Good times.

Saturday we had wonderful weather. It was actually the warmest it had been all trip at a balmy 73 or so I believe. Earlier in the week the area had some snow and in the upper elevations (8,000+ ft.) it was fresh and abundant. Sharon looked beautiful of course. Kress looked nice in his linen pants and white linen shirt. The ceremony was lovely and their friend Roddy was the marrying official and did a great job. Kress's sister's family did a small clogg for the new couple as it seems she lost a bet somehow and this was her penance. Very entertaining. They actually had a very tasty caterer come from around the Denver area and if you have not tried tri-tip - http://www.askthemeatman.com/tri-tip.htm, I recommend it. They brought their own big cooker, coolers, settings, everything. We all dug into the grub and adult beverages and readied ourselves for some heated horse-shoe competition. As the sun began to set, we lit the tiki torches, the fire pit, and packed the playlist for the Singing Cowboy.

Sunday Stace and I headed back to Denver, stopping off in Manitou Springs to, oh, drive up Pike's Peak! Well, what did you expect?? It was there, we were there... It was simply fate! We were told at the gate that the last mile was closed due to mud. Luckily for us that was not the case when we got up there. Ok, maybe "luckily" is a subjective term. And in case you didn't know, 14,100 feet is VERY VERY HIGH. In Jack Kerouac's wholly wonderful tome, "Dharma Bums", one character seems to discover that it is impossible to fall off of a mountain.
We think Kerouac's a liar.
There were kids snowboarding from close to the top and hitching rides back up the mountain as we Charlotteans were having trouble taking regular steps and not passing out due to the lack of oxygen. Acclimation is KEY. At 14,100 feet the air has roughy half the amount of O2 in it then at sea level. I'm not sure that's exactly right, but it felt pretty close. And Everest is TWICE that high. I mean REALLY. Oh, and according to a very informative sign we passed on the way up, there are over 52 points in the Rockies that reach 14,000 feet or more. Don't get me wrong - I LOVE my Appalachians - but DAMN.
To be honest we didn't do much that night other then drive into Denver as, well, we were both VERY bummed at having to leave. Isn't that sad? I mean we didn't even go down to the bar for a drink we were so ticked. But all in all it was a wonderful trip and Stace and I A) had a great time and B) did a wonderful job of understanding each other, which made it all the better. We are thinking of going back next year if we can swing it.

Now I just need to finish working on Sharon and Kress's pictures...

Be safe, hug hard.
Justin

Visual Aids

View from the Eagles Nest

Smaller set of falls





To the Eagles Nest


To the top of the falls themselves


Some sign we didn't really read...

Overlooking Colorado Springs


Some of the attractions in the Garden of the Gods

Go West, Young Man Part 1.

Ok, so I think I have the highpoints of our trip to The Land of Sky all collected... Hopefully Stace will fill in any blanks.
Let me start by saying that the day before we left for CO we discovered that my debit card had been hacked and a significant amount had been fraudulantly charged to my account. Now that's a way to being a vacation! However we put that on the back burner and left on an early flight to Cleveland. Stace's mum and dad had come into town to watch after the dogs and do a little vacationing for themselves while we were gone. Always good to see them and the last time I guess was the wedding in September? Anyway, Ed dropped us off at the terminal and we headed to our gate. You know, at 6:30 AM on a Wednesday, you don't really expect to see anyone you know... unless you're us.
We ran into a friend of mine and her husband on their way to Canada, a local neighborhood friend on her way to Nicaragua for a month, and a girl Stace used to work with on her way North to visit family. And this is basically all out of the same or immediately surrounding gates.
Our flight to Cleveland was uneventful and smooth. We slept a little or read - usual in-flight actions. It was neat to see Lake Michigan again... We boarded our flight for Denver and while we were on the tarmac, I had a small tinge of panic. Now those who know me know how easily it is for me to talk myself into something. Luckily, it is usually even easier for me to talk myself OUT of that thing... But honestly, this time it was a little tough.
From Cleveland to Denver was a three hour and 10 minute flight. That's the longest flight I have been on and though I bet everyone who reads this has been on much much longer stints in a metal tube soaring through the air, I've decided that any flight longer then an hour and a half is more then "traveling from point A to point B", it's a damn committment. You are in a relationship with that machine for a significant amount of time. And unless you want to spend time in jail or worse, there's no turning around: You're stuck. So I panicked a little. Nothing that you could really sense outside of my own skin, but oh yeah, it was there. "What.. what if I want to go back? What if I want to change my mind?? I CAN'T!" For the sake of myself and everyone around me I was able to quickly quell my inner revolt and napped for a while.
When I woke up I was looking over what I could only guess was maybe Nebraska. I was checking out the scenery; debating the significance of a round plot of land vs. a square or rectangular plot, and all the while keeping an eye out for mountains. I was actually excited! I was finally going to Colorado! I was finally going to see (some of) the Rockies! So every now and then I craned my head to the window, peering as forward as I could in the hopes of spotting a cresting mountain. In my head I was comparing it to whale watching... constantly scanning the land for a glimpse of such a majestic and elusive thing... Of course then it dawned on me that it was actually more like driving to the zoo, cause well, it was pretty certain I was going to see mountains shortly.
That kind of sucked the wind out of my hunt. (shrug) Oh well.
Denver was a lovely city, what we quickly saw of it, and we drove down to Colorado Springs to check into the Red Crags - our little B&B for the night. On the way we ran around the area, checked out the "Garden of the Gods" and got something to eat. The Garden of the Gods is a very interesting spot as it is comprised of many stone formations in a small amount of acreage. There are some hiking and biking trails, along with a very nice souveneir shop. Well, that's not fair... The Trading Post is much more then a souveneir shop. It is Colorado's largest art gallery, according to the local travel info, AND they sell Starbucks coffee! Man, you talk about a place a person could spend a lot of money in quick! They had beautiful sculptures, paintings, photos, jewelry, clothing... A bit of everything.
The Red Crags was a restored large home and carriage house, decorated in the Victorian style. Our room was in the carriage house and our bathroom was down the hall. I spent an hour or so talking with Wachovia's Fraud department and they had closed my debit card overnighted me a replacement to our next B&B, and was refunding me my lost money. Very very helpful people! The next morning we met up with the other residents and had a very nice "gourmet" breakfast. Conversation was lively and we all compared travel notes as to who had been where and what was worth anything to see.
We packed up and drove around a little bit, deciding on going to the Seven Falls. I think it wsa the "In Mountain Elevator" that intrigued us the most. It was in a canyon-esque setting, lined with signs warning not to feed or pet the squirrels and chipmunks in the area as they can carry disease, etc.. As for the Seven Falls, they are a set of cascades, broken up into sections, that you can view from varying heights. The first set of steps to the Eagles Nest, as the lookout was called, was 184 steps. Steep steps. Steep metal steps. Steep wet metal steps. Oh, and the elevator was next door but why use it since we're here already. That'd be cheating. And safe.
We huffed our way up and took a gander. Not bad, we thought. So we hiked carefully back down and wandered around to the falls themselves where there was another set of stairs. These took you along the falls and to the top. The sign said 224 steps. Yep, steep, metal wets steps.
We took our time.
When we got to the top there was an elvation sign stating that we were now at 6800 feet. That's higher then any point on the East Coast. Sweet. Oh, and there was some sign mentioning "bear country" but we hustled on past it and headed for the top of the ridge. At the top, 7200 feet, is local author Helen Hunt Jackson's grave site.
Helen Hunt Jackson had good taste in locales as the vista view from there was really impressive.
After carefully scaling back down the trail and the stairs, we packed up and headed South for Trinidad.
Let me just say that my discussions involving Trinidad led us to imagine a possibly 3 block length ghost town comprised of a saloon/whorehouse and a couple of bed and breakfasts. This is not the case. Trinidad, though evidently not as large as Pueblo, is a surprisingly large little town of about 12,000 residents. Many of the main streets are brick and have "Trinidad" actually stamped into them. I forgot to ask where they were fired, whether in town or out. Evidently the town is know for its violent history as it is a border town to New Mexico and the residents are working to change that monicker. Now they are pushing the "artsy" side, not that it mattered much to us. There is a converted railway station - converted into what, you ask? A BREWERY! The Trinidad Brewing Company is a comfortable place if you are looking for some simple fare and a tasty ale. Evidently they ship to many parts of CO but unfortunately not to NC. We asked.
Oh, the saloon/whorehouse? No, that's real. Well, the saloon part is any way. Back in the day the other was true and the hotel rooms above the saloon are all named after ladies. Except the room called "Joe" but that might stand for "Joesephine", who knows.

The Prodigal Son

So for those of you that do not already know, Colorado is simply astounding. Maybe not so much if you're a sand and surf type, but for my rock and stoney self, it was incredible. I'm putting together a long write up of the trip but just wanted to post something quickly here and let you all know that we have returned and are safe and sound.

More to come shortly.

j.

White Lake Half Ironman / Sprint Triathalon

So last weekend we went to beautiful White Lake, NC as not only did Stace have a team of 18 participants in the Half Ironman, a friend and coworker of mine, Greg Carr, was going to do it for the first time. We had a blast! Man, talk about an incredible place! Forget the beach - I'm heading there in May next year for a week. There are several lakes in the area that were formed by a huge meteor shower thousands and thousands of years ago. The meteors broke the surface and opened up springs which feed the lakes year round. White Lake is the largest and at its deepest point is only 13 feet deep. How is that for cool? They are sand lakes, not mud, and are home to raccoon perch, brim, bass, and "the sweetest tasting catfish you'll ever eat", according to a local fisherman I was blessed to speak with. He gave me the rundown on the lake and town history while we strolled along a pier, waiting on his cousin to show up so for a quick boat ride. Evidently May is the premium time to come enjoy the water as it's about 71 degrees and crystal clear. Later in the summer the sun bakes it to around 85+ degrees and the tourists swirl all the silt and sand up.
The event was even more successful this year then last with a new record turnout of almost 900 participants.

Think about that: Almost 900 people swimming 1.2 MILES to run to a transition area to change out of their wetsuit, hop on their bicycles and ride 56 MILES, only to hit another transition area and finish up with a 13.1 MILE run.

I mean REALLY.

All of Stacey's people finished, save one, who unfortunately had been suffering from severe chest congestion the past week and could not finish the swim. Talk about ticked off. But I can understand it. Luckily he is already signed up for another Half Ironman later this year. I'm sure he'll fly through that.

GREG was AWESOME. AWESOME as in "To inspire awe and wonder". He finished at 6 hours and six minutes which is just inside the top 40th percentile or so. This was his first Half Ironman and that is really an incredible time, especially considering the people who do this thing regularly and for pay were at 4 to 5 hours. Go Greg!

Well, picture wise, I was able to get some really nice shots of not just the scenery but some good ones of the LLS team. I posted the scenic ones on the JKI site -http://justinkeelingimages.blogspot.com/. Check them out and let me know what you think. The LLS group ones will be posted on their systems for their people to order and print off. I hope they liked them too.

Oh, what did we do while everyone was swimming and biking and running? WORKING OUR BUTTS (and backs) OFF keeping them going! We volunteered to help man a water stop and handed out water, sports drink, salt tabs, gels, bars, orange slices, ice towels, chips... and prob something else I'm forgetting. WOW! The run track was a double loop, which means we saw everyone 4 times. You do the math: some 800+ participants coming by us at mile 3, 6, 9 and 12. My back is KILLING me as I was responsible for ice towels. Bending over a bucket, digging in ice chips, trying to cool off enough towels for the army of clamoring hands..
Oh, and did I mention it was windy where we were? And I guess I forgot to mention that we were using styrofoam cups.... Yeah. THOUSANDS of styrofoam cups scattered all over the neighborhood. Yeah. I cleaned those up too.
By the way, Stacey ROCKED at keeping us stocked in ice and water, along with busting her hump handing out sports drink and whatever else people needed.
Afterward we headed back to Langston's Motel where The Front Porch barbeque catered a very nice meal. We hung out on benches and sports chairs, fed our faces, recounted the event, had some beers, and just relaxed. Too bad we didn't get a team shot of everyone in the lake with the sunset... Oh well. Next time.
But it was a good time. There were a lot of nice people and the event was very well organized. Setup Events is really streamlining themselves into an effective Event company.
Stace and her coworker Abbey volunteered again on Sunday for the Sprint Triathlon while I cleaned up the house and got stuff ready for check out... and napped on the beach. :)
Good times, good times.

Again, Congratulations to Greg and all the TnT team. You were amazing!

So what else is going on... Not a lot as it's just Monday. I think this weekend we have a break. I know, it's Mother's Day, but we've traveled and worked the past 2 weekends and we are going to CO. next week so we should probably hang around and gear up for that.

Be safe, hug hard.