A Short Trip Through the Rockies To Castle Rock

Friendly: yes, Expensive: yes, Hard to Park: yes, guess we are in Aspen.

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Not a Smart car but certainly an interesting 4-seater parked down town.

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A bronze skier near their main lift - a tribute to somebody somebody - a neat shot regardless of the details that I have forgotten.

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Aspen Trivia - the biggest single silver nugget ever found came from a mine nearby. It is apparently shown in this wagon in three different pieces.

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Several years ago I visited Aspen for a paragliding competition and I remember the volleyball was big back then. It still appears to be - they had competitions going in all of the parks in town.

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It was sunny but very windy which made it kind of cool at the Continental Divide. We stopped anyway to walk a short ways to the lookout.

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Another Continental Divide portrait.

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Yet another Continental Divide photograph.

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Not sure what this car is but it looked kind of cool with the Continental Divide behind it.

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A photo of a part of one of the Twin Lakes near Twin Lakes, Colorado. I took this to send to my friend Poopy Ornduff in Napa. I needed to prove that he had turned me into a fisherman by virtue of his one day lesson. What a fisherman instructor that boy is.

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Another picture of the Anniversary Couple.

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Glenwood Hot Springs -Glenwood Springs, Colorado

We have arrived at one of my favorite mountain towns for a long day of soak. Carol is on the phone with Megan, I am trying to get a portrait of us in front of the beautiful, historic building.

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The hot pool is at the far end of the picture and is 104 degrees F, the pool at this end is 90 degrees. You can see the diving board and the swim lanes. I tried to swim a mile - 52 widths of the pool but could only accomplish 26. (The salty mineral water is hard on the eyes.)

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We stayed most of the late morning and early afternoon, took a late lunch and came back for the evening. It was a nice, relaxing day at a beautiful place.

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We saw these bears downtown and took a picture to show Panama - we thought she might like them.

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I took a gondola ride after lunch while Carol went back to the pool and got some high shots of the city. We really enjoy this little city in Colorado.

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Arches National Park - Northeast Utah

We stopped at Arches National Park near Moab. It was a great hiking park with very interesting arch formations.

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This is probably the nicest arch in the park - perhaps the longest one in world. One of the sections of it dropped down very close to visitors within the last couple of years. They no longer allow people to go near the arch due to the danger of it falling completely.

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This is the start of the main trail that goes out and feeds other trails. Many of the trails take you onto the actual rock formations. Many sections of the rock trails are very narrow with severe drops if you make a mistake.

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The arches named the "Double O."

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I hiked without Carol unfortunately, due to the narrow rock paths and I came to this section of the trail. I thought it was kind of funny - such a broad and wonderful view of nature with a pink umbrella in one corner of the scene.

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Carol is getting pretty close to the spot where she decided she would take a seat while I hiked the rest of the way. I am actually surprised that there are as few accidents as there are. Many of the people hiking are inexperienced and really do not have rough trail knowledge.

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One of the signs that I ran into along the way.

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This is the end of the trail for me on this particular path. This is the arch that they call the "Double Arch" since there is a much larger one on top of this one.

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A picture of the "Delicate Arch."

Our Las Vegas Visit with Juim and Bryce Canyon National Park

"California Brown" is on this Fall. This picture was taken in between Bakersfield and Las Vegas.

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Windmills abound between Bakersfield and Las Vegas.

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Hot, Hot, Hot!!

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A pretty sunset found as we were approaching the Las Vega area.

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More windmills, Carol took this picture - it has a nice composition I think.

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Las Vegas strip photograph - we enjoy going down at least once to people watch.

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Carol and Jium in one of the casinos.

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I am not sure what this hotel is called but it had a nice symetry.

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Jium grows some green sprouts in one of her dark, cool closets. This batch happens to be one of her larger ones since she used the whole package. She uses these sprouts for stir fry - I can attest to their good taste.

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There are many great walking trails near and in the development that Jium lives in. She took a picture of us as the evening was on its way.

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Jium and Carol on a hike - we can actually see the downtown Vegas sky line from the trail.

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Jium's beautiful back yard.

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The Dale Chihuly work in the Bellagio Hotel lobby.

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Carol on the long hike that we took at the Bryce Canyon.

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A tunnel that we went through on the way to Bryce Canyon.

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I took this picture because both Carol and i thought that the stain on the rock resembled a wild horse. It is much more difficult to see in this picture than it was on the hike.

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Carol caught a picture of this butterfly.

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Check the scale out on this waterfall that we hiked to. The hike was quite warm as there was limited shade but the waterfall area was very cool and moist. The pond water was very cold.

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