Soup R Day

Saturday was Superday. The once a year event in the park with a variety of events. Mostly themed around kids and activities for them. Games, music, food, etc. Lots of vendors selling arts & crafts as well as stuff for grownups. There's a big bike race ( I didn't enter) and a car show. Which I did visit. Here's a cross-section of cars at the show.

A number of old, stock antique cars like this old Ford.

There were some Street Rod customs of old cars like this old Studebaker.

A mixture of stock and modified classics like this T-bird.

Always a collection of Corvettes.

Here's a more modern car, considerably modified. A 73 GMC Sprint converted to a 4x4. My first car was a 75 Sprint. Which was the GMC version of an El Camino. Mine was definitely not like this!

Lots of 60s-70s musclecars, like these two Mopars.

And my vote for best car in the show. A 1970 AMC AMX 390 in Big Bad Orange with Shadow Mask paint option (the black part). The AMC musclecars were always my favorites for their style, wild colors, and just because they were just a little different than the cars from the Big 3. Very nice, rare car.

But there's one more part to Superday. The free evening concert! This year - a big name!

Are you ready to rock?

I said, ARE YOU READY TO ROCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's Blue Oyster Cult! I saw BOC once before. In 1982. That was, ummm, twenty seven (27) years ago! Since their heyday was probably the later 70s, well, they aren't exactly the youngest band around. The show was alright, with just a hint of cowbell. I recognized about half of the songs. But they didn't have the big animated Godzilla! Folly of man indeed! Bummer.

Don't Fear The Geezers!

The Wet Way Part Deux

Finally, after too many lousy weather weekends, it was finally looking nice enough (on one day anyway) to go try a hike again. Back to Pole Mountain, where I got rained out last month.

Just an along the path shot. Day started out mostly clear, and warm. But there were a few clouds lurking to the west....

Thanks to one of the wettest spring/summers I can remember here, there are lots of small wildflowers throughout the open areas. Nice to see. Usually its just grass and the scrubby plants.

There's even some nice, larger wildflowers. I don't know what it is, but I like it.

The sight of grass growing inside the remains of a long dead and hollow tree stump is just kind of interesting to me.

Those clouds I mentioned earlier? They got together, had a talk, and decided let's rain a little! So they did. But then they left. Mr. Sun came back. But an hour later, the clouds had regrouped.

This time they brought their friends thunder and lighting. Along with BB sized hail and a little more rain. Sounds bad, but it was actually much less rain than last month.

A big pano of the second band of storms after it passed. It was getting late enough in the day so I headed for home. Besides, the clouds were grouping up for round three behind me. All in all, not a bad day. Only got mildly damp instead of soaked!

Spinning at Curt's

Took a bike ride today to a place I don't go much. Curt Gowdy State Park. It's nice, has nice trails (more for hiking IMHO) a reservoir, camping, etc. It's closer than some of the other places I go, but not real large. And usually kind of busy.

Here's a shot from along the trail. At least the weather cooperated. Lack-of-rain wise. The wind was blowing so hard sometimes it was pushing me off the trail! This view is looking towards Granite reservoir in the distance.

A shot of the serious biker. With his 'ancient' mountain bike. This thing is really punishing me on rough trails. No suspension, low bottom bracket, long crank arms and a semi-skilled, tired rider equals a lot of scraping and bouncing off rocks. This trail has too many of them!

Another along the trail shot. It is pretty good in some places. In others, it's get off and walk. Which I did a LOT of today. Kinda frustrating. The trail is often no more than a foot wide, with too many rocks trying to snag me. And cactus cactus everywhere, right along the edges. I've never seen so much cactus. The little clumpy ones, with the big long spines. Overall, not my favorite kind of riding. Maybe my opinion will change if I ever get a new, full-suspension mountain bike. But the scenery is nice!

The Stone Temple. That's what it's called. A rock feature along the Stone Temple circuit. What a coincidence! That trail is 'intermediate' difficulty. Some of it I'd say. A fair amout should be considered Advanced. I went on several Advanced and Expert trails today also. How? You guessed it - mostly on foot pushing the bike! Not ridable. Not by me. Didn't feel like breaking any bones. Though I managed a few minor wipeouts anyway. Tough ride day.

Hey, did that rock just move???

A nice waterfall just a short way off one of the main trails.

So how'd I do for the day? Somebody must want to know

• Ride time of 2 hrs, 40 minutes. But I was there for close to 6 hours
• Average speed of 5.4 mph. Blistering!
• Distance of 14.7 miles.
• Max speed of 25 mph! There were a few clear downhill areas, apparently!

Nice area, many good views of scenery. But more a hiking destination that a biking one for me. After the pounding on the trail, the wind and the rest I was pretty wiped out by the end of the day.

Common Sense Comedy

Took a trip down to Denver yesterday (in a strong rainstorm) to see the Glenn Beck Common Sense Comedy Tour with some friends. Glenn has a popular radio talk show, a TV show, and several other things. He's one of the best common sense commentator/entertainers out there, I think. And pretty funny too.

The show was downtown in the Ellie Caulkins Opera House. A very nice restored building. We were way up in the top balcony. And I was using my little pocket camera. Which doesn't do dark very well. But it does zoom pretty far. These images are good examples from the show.

From the first half of the show. Talking about where we are all heading.

The start of the second half. A little 'retro' look, back to the 'old days' of the USA.

Wrapping up the 2 hour show. It was very good. Lots of good info, and laughs too. Plus, we ate at a great Indian restaurant before the show. Lots of delicious spicy food. My Chicken Vindaloo was hot but it was gooooood!