Road Trip: Trail Ridge Road, part 2

I haven't been able to post photos for about a week.

The Blogger photo uploader was undergoing maintenance, so I thought that was the reason.  But I still couldn't upload photos after the maintenance was completed.

I re-booted my router and now things are working much better.  Here (finally) are some photos from our trip over trail ridge road last weekend.  Please enjoy.





Road Trip: Trail Ridge Road

The leaves have been changing and dropping.  The wool sweaters and fleece pull-overs have returned to our selection of favorite clothes.  There has been snow in the mountains.  We haven't had a freeze at our house yet, but certainly it's getting close.

Hubba and I got to talking about Trail Ridge Road and how two summers are now gone and we had not taken that trip yet.

Trail Ridge Road is the highest continuous road in the country.  It passes through Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP) from Estes Park to Grand Lake, Colorado.  The road is closed in the winter.

On Saturday, I checked to see that the road was open.  We knew it wouldn't be for long, so we seized the day and went for it.

We were hoping to see some wildlife, but only saw a herd of elk lounging at an overlook with a whole lot of people taking photos of them.

The road winds through the park reaching an elevation of 12,183 ft.  That's more than two miles above sea-level and the views are incredible all along the way.

Once we reached Grand Lake about 80 miles and 2 hours from our house, we took the more conventional way home through Grandby, Winter Park, Berthoud Pass, Idaho Springs and Denver.  The conventional route was a four-hour trip.

We're happy we took the trip because there's a lot more snow in the mountains today and the east side of Trail Ridge Road is now closed.

Fiber Arts Friday: Cashmere and Silk

For some reason I thought this was a Camel/Tussah Silk blend.  So imagine my surprise when I read the label again and saw that it is actually Cashmere/Tussah Silk.

I haven't spun anything like it before.

As you can see, I have some overspun areas.  One day I'll figure out how to make those on purpose.  ;-)

Of course this is part of Fiber Arts Friday.  Please head over to Wisdom Begins in Wonder and see what you can see.

10/10/10 10:10 GMT

This morning at 4:10 am at my home in the Mountain Time Zone it was also 10:10 am at Greenwich Mean Time... 10/10/10 10:10 GMT.

It was the World Wide Moment.

More than 1700 people living in more than 80 countries took photos at this time in the name of peace.

Since it was dark, I decided to take a photo of something in my house that was peaceful.

For me, spinning is a peaceful experience and I am currently spinning some incredibly soft cashmere/tussah silk roving.  So right now, spinning is both peaceful and luxurious.  :-)

This is my World Wide Moment photo:

You will be able to see the photos that everyone else took on the World Wide Moment site.

I am having a couple of issues uploading my photo.

1. It's too big. Mine is 2.99 MB, allowed is 65.31 MB.  I have (so far) been unable to figure out how to save as a smaller file.

2.  The date and time on my camera are incorrect.  While I was looking at the properties of my photo, I noticed my camera thought it was yesterday night.  I vaguely remember not caring about the date and time too much when I got and set up this camera, but I guess I now know why it's relevant.

I'm going back to sleep and will try again a little later.

Not So Happy Caturday

Three weeks ago I announced that we had a new barn cat.

Today I tell you that we are again, kitty-less.

The cat has been AWOL for about 10 days.  There are no signs in the neighborhood.  He is not at the Humane Society.  The owls are back.  The fox and coyotes are still around.  There has been no food or litter-box activity in about a week.

Yes, I know the life expectancy for barn cats is shorter than most cats, but it makes me sad to have lost a second cat in less than a year to the food chain.

So, for now, we will be using mouse traps in the barn.

Fiber Arts Friday: A Quick Baby Hat

I whipped up a baby hat on Saturday. 

Seriously, I started and finished on the same day.  I think that's a first for me.

It's small.  It's cute.  It's soft.  I guess I'm getting excited for that nephew to show up.

Please head over to Wisdom Begins in Wonder, because it's Fiber Arts Friday.  :-)

Alpacamundo's Big Thompson

Today, our cria watch came to an end.

For the second time, we were home and completely missed the birth.

I had just finished a conference call and got up to look out at the girls corral and saw a small, very dark alpaca walking around.

I yelled to Hubba that we had a cria and that I thought it was black.

He and the dog went out to the corral, while I told my coworkers I would not make the next conference call.  I changed into grubby clothes, grabbed the camera and a couple of towels to join them outside.

The cria was up, dry, walking around and interested in nursing.  We made sure the milk was coming out, dipped the umbilical cord in betadyne and weighed the cria, then searched for body parts to find out we had a boy.

Alpacamundo's Big Thompson is the son of Enchanted Sky's Kocoa Moon and BRCR's Peruvian Ricochet.  Which makes him part of both the Augusto and Caligula lines.

We have big plans for Big Thompson.