Our son-in-law knows a lot about bedbugs.
When he travels, he always takes the headboard off the bed in his hotel room off the wall as that is a likely place to find them.
The company he works for now has a new tool to locate hard-to-find bed bugs — Max, the bedbug dog.
Our son-in-law does make an appearance — of sorts — in the video on the right.
The hand with the bedbug on it near the end of the clip? That’s his hand.
The star of the clip is, of course, Max.
Got bedbugs?
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Ouray, Colorado — September 10, 2009
We didn’t go very far this day. After walking around town a bit and having a coffee and snack at Artisan Cafe and bakery, we headed up into the mountains on Camp Bird Road. Unfortunately, it was too cool for our picnic along Sneffels Creek to sit for too long without a fire and a light rain started not long after we finished eating.
(click on any of the following photos to view a larger image.)
The entire present-day economy of Ouray is based on tourism. Ouray bills itself as the “Switzerland of America” because of its setting at the narrow head of a valley, enclosed on three and a half sides by steep mountains.*
Many of the buildings have interesting 19th century decorative enhancements, such as the weather vane above.
Even though still technically summer, the aspens in the high country were already showing signs of color.
We didn’t need to find a picnic table, but it was too cool at 10,700 feet to stay long, especially when raindrops began to fall.
The city population was 813 at the 2000 US census.*
Like most towns in the Colorado mountains, Ouray was originally a mining town. However the evidence does not dominate the town. The largest and most famous mine is the Camp Bird Mine, the second largest gold mine in Colorado, established by Thomas Walsh in 1896.*
While Camp Bird Road is generally passable for small sport utility vehicles, there are some places that are fairly rough and, a couple, like the rock overhang above, that can be down right unnerving for some people.
I still have a lot to learn about my camera, but was able to get a decent time lapse shot of Sneffels Creek without a tripod.
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image and information from September 10, 2009
This post is being simultaneously published
on Exit78 and Haw Creek Out ‘n About
* from Wikipedia
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September 9, 2009
We’ve gone past the Black Canyon of the Gunnison several times. The first time we really stopped, though, was after it became Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, having originally been established as a national monument. This time we visited most of the easily accessible parts of the park.
From Wikipedia:
Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park is a United States National Park located in western Colorado, and managed by the National Park Service. There are two entrances to the park; the more-developed south rim entrance is located 15 miles (24 km) east of Montrose, while the north rim entrance is located 11 miles (18 km) south of Crawford and is closed in the winter. The park contains 12 miles (19 km) of the 48-mile (77 km) long canyon of the Gunnison river. The national park itself contains the deepest and most dramatic section of the canyon, but the canyon continues upstream into the Curecanti National Recreation Area and downstream into the Gunnison Gorge National Conservation Area.
Photos:
(click on any of the following photos to view a larger image.)
Black Canyon visitor center
The area was established as a U.S. National Monument on March 2, 1933 and made into a National Park on October 21, 1999.
Gunnison River
In the canyon
Kayakers run the river at their own risk. The Gunnison River through the National Park has claimed the lives of even the most experienced, respected kayakers. The river’s hydraulics can make self-rescue or rescue by others impossible.
Most visitors view the canyon from the south, where there are numerous overlooks, as well as a campground and trails.
a canyon overlook
Over the black canyon
The rapids within the national park are considered Class V and some sections are unrunnable. This is a very technical paddle and includes numerous long, difficult and dangerous portages. Poison ivy is nearly impossible to avoid, and can be found growing 5 feet tall along the river.
Eastern Portal - road into canyon
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image and information from September 9, 2009
This post is being simultaneously published
on Exit78 and Haw Creek Out ‘n About
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Arrival at Rocky Mountain National Park, August 31, 2009
Rocky Mountain National Park - Eastern slopes - September 1, 2009
I’ve added photos from our September visit to Rocky Mountain National Park to two new photo galleries to my Haw Creek Galleries. Because of the number of photos I took on the trip, I’ll be dividing them up in to galleries by location and, under that, by date.
The first gallery is Arrival – August 31, 2009 and has ten photos.
The second is from September 1 and is primarily from the eastern slopes of Rocky Mountain National Park, with 48 photos. We wanted to take a couple of days to acclimatize at lower elevations before went up over 10,000 feet above sea level.
I’m working on the next gallery and will be posting more from other days of our September trip. I also have galleries to work on from trips in May 2009, September 2008, August and September 2007, June 2007, and January 2007, as well as older trips from before I retired.
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September 8, 2009
We’ve visited Silverton several times over the years. Our first visit was 1986, arriving with the kids by a late 1800s era train. The Durango & Silverton Narrow Guage Railroad is a trip worth taking once in your life and we’ve done it twice.
One of thing I wanted to do on this visit was to get some pictures of one of the trains as it comes out of the mountains. I had taken photos of it before, but it was with a film camera that had developed a light leak — which we didn’t find out until after the images were developed, weeks later.
We got to the spot I wanted to take the pictures from early — and, then, a light rain started. Though we had picnic supplies with us, we decided to get out of the rain and go get a burger.
While I didn’t get the shots I wanted, I did get quite a few good images of two different trains.
Another place we’ve been to several times is Animas Forks, an old ghost town several miles from Silverton on a mountain road. The further you go on the road, the worse it gets. Though we’ve gone a lot further on these roads in the past, our little SUV isn’t built to take anything much worse than the road to Animas Forks. The roads are popular for four-wheel-drive, ATV (all terrain vehicle) and dirt bike enthusiasts.
Photos:
(click on any of the following photos to view a larger image.)
Silverton RV Park
Silverton
Aerial trams transported more than ore.
Animas Forks
Animas River
Boarding house
..
.
On the way to Silverton
Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad
Aerial ore tram
Goldeneye
Animas Forks
Boarding house
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image and information from September 8, 2009
This post is being simultaneously published
on Exit78 and Haw Creek Out ‘n About
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Travel Day — September 7, 2009
We had intended to travel a relatively short distance on Labor Day and camp in the mountains south of Glenwood Springs. A few days before, though, we changed our minds and decided that we wanted to travel a little further and camp near Ouray, Colorado.
Ouray is one of our favorites. A small mountain town, it has escaped most of the commercialization that many Colorado towns have experienced, yet tourism has helped keep it from withering away as has happened to many other old Colorado mining towns. Ouray is situated in a small valley and is surrounded closely by high mountains.
Our trip for the day took us along the foothills through Boulder, but west of Denver, to I70, then across the state to US 50 South out of Grand Junction and then US 550 to Ouray.
I took a few photos at stops along the way, but, unfortunately, I wasn’t paying attention to the camera settings and they didn’t turn out. Karen took a few pictures as we were moving down the road and I’ve included three of them below.
Photos:
(click on any of the following photos to view a larger image.)
Along I70 east of Grand Junction
Approaching the San Juan Mountains
Rocky Mountain National Park
House and yard atop a barren hill
.
Ouray, Colorado
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image and information from September 7, 2009
This post is being simultaneously published
on Exit78 and Haw Creek Out ‘n About
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Ten days ago, I had finally had it.
I had been created a photo gallery from the images of our first day in Rocky Mountain National Park. Unfortunately, I was having more difficulties than normal in getting the gallery uploaded to the server.
I had also been having more and more little problems with my computer — nothing serious that kept me from using it, just a bunch of little things that I either found a work-around on or just gave up on.
The computer was working and doing just about everything I needed, but it was 3 years old, and it was time for a change.
A drastic change.
No, I didn’t go out and buy a new computer, though that was a consideration.
Instead, I reset the computer back to the original software configuration. I’ve taken more drastic measures — such as reformatting the hard drive or buying a new one — to resolve problems with previous computers. This was bad enough, since I had to reload the programs I wanted and install all of the updates. That’s still not completely done.
I’ve also also figured out my problem with uploading material to the server. I’m in the process of downloading all of my material from the server and will be changing the way that I publish new stuff to the website. (The problem was in Microsoft FrontPage extensions, which I won’t be using any more.)
With working odd hours and dealing with all this, posting material from our September trip was interrupted. I will be posting more from the trip, hopefully in the next day or so.
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Devil’s Den State Park, Arkansas
6-21-2008
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Devil’s Den State Park photo gallery
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Busy…, wet…, behind — and more photos!
October 30, 2009
I really have intended to work my way through the photos from our September trip. However, I have managed to find other activities to keep me from that goal. I do, however, have a new photo gallery for Day 3 of Rocky Mountain National Park.
Check out Day 3 of Rocky Mountain National Park and my other Haw Creek photo galleries.
Work, of course, takes a huge chunk of time and my time is shifted since the simulator is primarily available for the students in the evening. While I was planning for the contract to be over at the end of 2009, there is a distinct possibility that I will be there until the second week of March.
Karen has a new notebook computer. I spent the better part of a day installing all of her old programs and transferring files. The notebook runs on Windows 7.
I’m going to also be moving from XP to Windows 7. After restoring my laptop to near original configuration, there are still times where I am waiting an excessive time for processes to finish. My new laptop is on order and will be assembled and shipped next week.
Early this year, I rediscovered a love for reading. I used to read three or more novels a week on a regular basis. After many years of only a few books a year, I’m now reading at least a couple of books a week.
This has been the wettest year of all the years we have lived in Arkansas. Much of the state is well over 20″ over the normal rainfall amounts for the year to date. This is already about the 12th or 13th wettest year on record for Little Rock. From what I understand, the wettest year on record was in the 1880s, and there was a little more than ten inches more than what Little Rock has already so far this year — and there is still two more months of 2009 to go.
I’m going to be concentrating on posting the rest of the material from our September trip and building photo galleries. I’ll post on other topics as I have the time and the inclination.
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