Snowshoeing on the Grand Mesa

Well, winter is finally here! We've had 3 storms come thru Western Colorado in the last week, all leaving snow in Fruita. The last storm dumped nearly 6 inches, which is quite a bit for us. Normally Fruita doesn't get more than 2-3" and it melts off by noon. That is the perfect amount of snow in my opinion! With all the white stuff in the valley, we knew there would be a lot in the mountains, so we decided to break out the snow shoes today & head up on the Grand Mesa. The elevation up where we were playing was nearly 11,000 feet & the temps were in the single digits! Though it was a bit chilly, the sun was out and once we got moving we felt fine.
















Daisy was having a blast, she loves being out in the snow. There were quite a few other people out either on showshoes or on cross country skis and it seemed like they all had dogs with them. Daisy had so much fun playing with the other dogs, running thru the powdery snow!






















Catherine seemed to be having just as much fun as Daisy, she really gets a kick out of snowshoeing. Guess that's what happens when you grow up in Sunny SoCal! She also likes the 'workout benefit' of running around in the powder.






























Me, running thru the snow. With deep powder, elevation of near 11k feet and me being out of shape I had a hard time running more than 50 yrds! Sad, huh?

















Catherine seemed to think there was a pretty funny comparison going on here, the ice beard! What, it was cold!

Fall Family picture & a motorcycle ride

Around mid-November Catherine, Daisy & I took a drive to the La Sal Mountains, which is in the range that sits above Moab, UT. I had been up in this area the week before on my motorcycle & thought that it was a simply amazing area & I wanted to show Catherine.

We took our family photo up there, it was pretty hard getting Daisy to sit still for 30 seconds, but after a few tries we got it.














When I was up there on my motorcycle the week before I saw a Lynx, which was a first or me. It was just larger than a house cat, had big, pointy ears, massive paws & a round bobbed tail. It was a pretty amazing sight. That ride was my first 'big' ride on my new KLR, I rode from our place in Fruita to the La Sals by the way of the Onion Creek trail. I quit counting the stream crossings after 15, I think there ended up being near 20, it was pretty fun crossing the stream that many times, I had to try not getting too wet. Riding up the canyon was amazing, there's some neat scenery up there. Eventually I crossed into the La Sal Natl. Forest. While riding thru the forest I thought to myself, 'I have to get back in this area, it's amazing!' Huge pine trees, amazing views, etc! I stopped the bike & walked around the area as the road started to loose elevation.

























I saw some footprints from a massive wild turkey. I couldn't help but wonder where he would be around Thanksgiving, probably doing his best to hide. I rode into Moab for a early dinner, then rode back to Fruita. It ended up being nearly 250 miles round trip, with about 1/3 of it being offroad. I can't wait to do it again!

Halloween

Daisy dressed up for Halloween and gave all the trick or treaters candy. She only made 3 little kids cry. You would think that with her large tongue hanging out of her mouth it wouldn't be that scary.

She tried to get the costume off at first then realized that people gave her more attention with it on.


What a good dog. She didn't get any candy though.


I like to take nose shots of her. I think they are soo cute. She is a well behaved dog and knows like any child that I love to take pictures of her.

New (to us) motorcycle

Well, I found a deal I couldn't pass on... a 1998 Kawasaki KLR650. I have liked these bikes for a long time, they're kind of like riding a 2 wheeled Lay-Z-Boy... big, cushy & comfortable! The neat thing about it is the ability to carry Catherine comfortably, run at highway speeds all day long, travel over on dirt roads, get 300 miles out of the 6 gallon tank, etc. They are one of the ugliest bikes ever built, but they're also one of the most reliable. I wanted something I can take on multi-day adventures with the wife and this is the bike. It's ugly, the paint is faded & has the aerodynamics of a cinder block. I love it!


I need to do some work on it before it's ready for a big roadtrip, but it runs & drives great. We're thinking about taking our first big trip down to Telluride, CO. We'll have to do it soon, before it gets much colder. Of course Catherine is excited about getting to purchase riding boots, a riding jacket & a helmet.

Once it warms up again next year, I'd like to plan some great trips. We've been thinking abouot Yellowstone, Mesa Verde, Zions NP, etc.





The day after I bought the bike, I took it out for a 100 mile test ride. I went up thru the Colorado National Monument & kept going South. The paved road turned to dirt and eventually the dirt road turned into a small trail. I ended up in the high-country surrounded with Aspen and Pine trees, seeing the fall colors as they turned. Here's some pics from that trip.-



























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my dog ate YOUR homework!

Some of you may be asking what is that a picture of? It looks like shredded paper on the floor. Yes, in fact it is shredded paper. One word...DAISY!

My students keep notebooks that they write in everyday that are personal. I brought them home because periodically I check them to make sure that they are in fact writing in them. Some of my students have very personal journals in them that are not shared with anyone but me. So how do tell you students that YOUR dog ate THEIR homework?

Here is yet another angle of the notebooks Daisy nibbled on.

Daisy barfed!

So yesterday Greg and Daisy went for a ride up to one of the local passes to see if the colors were nice. They got out and walked a couple places. Then today I get home from school and Greg proceeds to tell me that Daisy threw up this morning before she got outside. Gross you say? Well it is but it is kinda funny...She threw up a pine cone. Apparently dogs are not suppose to eat pine cones!

The new post

Melissa and the kids came to visit. We had so much fun! I took a couple of days off to hang out with the little ones. Daisy loved having people her own size to play with. In fact when it was nap time and everyone got out their blankeys Daisy wanted one too. She kept trying to take pheonix's so we made her one real quick. Here they are with the blankeys before bedtime.

Willow and Poppy getting ready to hop on the merry-go-round.

Pheonix trying to convince melissa to carry him up the slide (2 minutes earlier he climbed right up them)

So it may a little hard to tell but the fish was born and lived most of its life completely orange. One day when pheonix was "playing with it" a serious accident occured. We found Daisy Duke's pet (she thought she would stay with the whole dukes of hazard theme, lulu) stuck in the filter. Now we aren't sure if it got sucked up or if someone put it in there. Anyway goldfish usually have three flowing parts to their tail, lulu now has one. She has also started turning black. So if anyone is a fish expert please enlighten us. I'm assuming that it is kinda like my hair turned gray after a tramatic event. anyway lulu is swimming fine and Daisy checks on her everyday.