Fourth of July

Little behind on here and trying to catch up. I hope everyone had a good Fourth of July and stayed safe. I stood on a hill overlooking Colorado Springs and got to watch fireworks around the city. Here are a couple for you to enjoy.

Night of Fun

So, what did you do for fun tonight? I went and stood on a cliff and watched the light show that Mother Nature provided. We had a storm pass to the north of town tonight along a small mountain range with multiple lightning strikes for a good while. It's funny all the people that were out there watching and enjoying the show. Sunsets are popular around here and throw in an early evening light show and they will come. Here's just a couple of what I caught tonight. Enjoy!

Self Portrait Gone Awry

Playing around with my Canon G6 camera today. I like the flip out screen. Figured I'd do a quick self portrait with my dog Chester for the fun of it. Chester didn't quite get the concept of what a self portrait is as you can see here. I finally did get a half way decent picture but I don't think pet portraiture is my calling!

Lovell Gulch Wildflower Hike

Went on a good hike this morning. I recently joined a hiking group on meetup.com called Awesome Hikes and Adventures in Colorado Springs. This was one of their many hikes they do. We went specifically to look at the wildflowers. The time of day probably wasn't the best since it was later in the morning to early afternoon that we were out there but I still got some good pictures out of it. I'll post one favorite on here but the rest of them will be on my website under the Personal tab.

I was really excited about this butterfly picture. I've tried to get pictures of them before and basically struck out. Unless you get them early in the morning they are very active. This guy landed right in front of me when I was getting ready to take a picture of the flower he landed on. I got this one with my trusty Canon G6 point and shoot. It does really nice macros.

Disaster at 7000 feet

Went for a hike last night to view the full moon. This is a Blue Moon because we have two full ones this month. My dog Chester got to go along also since the trail we were on, Section 16, is an off leash trail. For the most part it was a nice uneventful night. The group I was in stopped for a little while on an overlook to admire the city lights. That's when it started to rain. Now this wasn't a really hard rain and it wasn't lightening but I had made the mistake of throwing a pair of jeans on instead of a good quick drying pair of hiking pants. That was my first mistake this tragic night.

A little cold and uncomfortable, I decided to call it a night along with about half of the group. The other half decided to push on since the rain had let up by this time. This became the second mistake I made on this fateful night. Heading down in the dark of night I made the third and final mistake that would prove my undoing. Chester was not on his leash. It was sitting comfortably in my backpack doing nothing to prevent the upcoming horror.

Going down was mostly uneventful with the occasional stumble on hidden rocks. The group was in good cheer and having fun calling out "rock" or "step" to each other to keep people from busting their butts! I could see we were getting close when disaster struck! I noticed a funny smell on the air and others started commenting on it also. It started to get worse and worse when I noticed it became exponentially worse every time Chester ran by me on the trail.

Chester had been sprayed by a skunk! If you have never smelled skunk before, consider yourself lucky. It's a horrible stench that lingers forever. Poor Chester had been hit in the face and had to be suffering for it. The worst part was we were on the opposite side of the town with a long car ride ahead for me and the now very stinky Chocolate Lab who had streams of drool dripping down the sides of his mouth. A long and miserable ride ensued with all the windows down and the heater blasting since it had turned into a chilly night. My eyes were watering and stinging by the time we arrived at the house.

Tossing Chester into the back yard I went inside, stripped and threw my clothes into the garage. I could smell skunk all around me. Searching online I found the ingredients for a concoction that was supposed to get rid of the stink now permeating from the back yard. Putting on clean clothes, I rushed to the store and bought, Peroxide, baking soda, and Dawn dish washing detergent. This mixture was poured all over Chester and worked in as best as possible. Someone had mentioned that Sprite helped so Chester got to stand on my back porch foaming and sizzling like a steak on the grill. Seems he doesn't like the tingle he gets between his toes from these concoctions and would stand there and try to lift his back feet out of the gooey bubbling mess now all over the back porch.

This wasn't enough so another trip to Wal Mart ensued, after I showered and washed my hair about six times with shampoo and hand soap. The lady I asked about Skunk Off in the pet aisle mentioned that she wondered what that bad smell was when I told her what had happened. I didn't smell so good apparently! This second trip to the store also included the rental of a steam cleaner, not for Chester, though that's tempting, but to try and get the smell of skunk out of my carpet and out of my car. Hopefully the smell will go away, sometime soon.

Stormy Days

It's amazing how much rain we've had lately. My grass and weeds are actually green this year. It makes riding the motorcycle a little hard to do because the bad weather always rolls in late in the afternoon. Normally about the time I get off work. They predicted 1/2 to 3/4 hail today but I didn't see any. Probably hit on the north end of town. They usually seem to get it worse up there. I left work a little early though to be on the safe side and try to beat the weather home. Looked nasty but I made it in one piece. Here's a sample of what we had today.

Artist's Date today

I'm still trying to work through the book The Artist's Way and do the exercises contained within it. One I mentioned earlier was the Artist's Date. This is a weekly exercise where you take yourself out somewhere by yourself and do something enjoyable that you might not normally do. Today I went to the La Creperie in Downtown Colorado Springs and ordered a salad. It's a little French Bistro right across from the swimming fountain named Uncle Wilbur.

How is this different you ask? Well, I don't normally eat $16.00 salads but this was very good. It had a large chicken breast covered in pecans. The dressing was a sweet honey mustard. As you can see the tomatoes were ripe and everything was fresh. I thought about having some wine with it but since I was on my motorcycle I decided to pass on that. All in all a very relaxing outing. I hope your day went as well.