Just a few botanica shots from our recent trip into the San Juans...
Red wax lips lichen
Lichen spore tubes
Bonsai shelf garden
Western Salsify seedhead
Grass tussock
Star gentian, same family as crazy gentian
Monday, September 13, 2010
Mountain Botanica
Photos: Trina
Just a few botanica shots from our recent trip into the San Juans...
Red wax lips lichen
Lichen spore tubes
Bonsai shelf garden
Western Salsify seedhead
Grass tussock
Star gentian, same family as crazy gentian
Just a few botanica shots from our recent trip into the San Juans...
Red wax lips lichen
Lichen spore tubes
Bonsai shelf garden
Western Salsify seedhead
Grass tussock
Star gentian, same family as crazy gentian
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Cabomba in Colorado
Story: Trina
Photos: Greg
Please drop your jaws (just jaws; not drawers) because we've made an important botanical discovery. Inadvertently, perhaps. Cluelessly, perhaps, but still important.
Wikepedia tells us that Cabomba is a water plant native to Central and South America (Amazon region), found also in Cuba, Florida, and the eastern and west coast United States.
My personal botanical consultant tells me that Cabomba has not previously been documented in the wild in Colorado. Alas, it's not the discovery of a brand new species never before known to humankind, which means I don't get to name it Trinaana Trinaii. It's more likely just the first documented sighting (that we know of, and we're not looking too hard for evidence to the contrary) of what must surely be a (very lovely) new noxious invasive come to help the tamarisk choke the native plants from our waterways.
How did it get here? It's commonly used as an aquarium plant; maybe someone dumped their dirty fish tank out in a mountain stream. Maybe a guerilla gardener did a cabomba bombing.
We saw this Cabomba in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado. If any of our 9,462 readers have seen it anywhere else it's not officially known to exist, we'd love to hear about it!
Another strange and wonderful flower we saw on the same trip, which we're pretty sure is in the Gentian family, although its petals are unusually long and fringed. If it is a Gentian, it's not a common one...
Photos: Greg
Please drop your jaws (just jaws; not drawers) because we've made an important botanical discovery. Inadvertently, perhaps. Cluelessly, perhaps, but still important.
Wikepedia tells us that Cabomba is a water plant native to Central and South America (Amazon region), found also in Cuba, Florida, and the eastern and west coast United States.
My personal botanical consultant tells me that Cabomba has not previously been documented in the wild in Colorado. Alas, it's not the discovery of a brand new species never before known to humankind, which means I don't get to name it Trinaana Trinaii. It's more likely just the first documented sighting (that we know of, and we're not looking too hard for evidence to the contrary) of what must surely be a (very lovely) new noxious invasive come to help the tamarisk choke the native plants from our waterways.
How did it get here? It's commonly used as an aquarium plant; maybe someone dumped their dirty fish tank out in a mountain stream. Maybe a guerilla gardener did a cabomba bombing.
We saw this Cabomba in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado. If any of our 9,462 readers have seen it anywhere else it's not officially known to exist, we'd love to hear about it!
Another strange and wonderful flower we saw on the same trip, which we're pretty sure is in the Gentian family, although its petals are unusually long and fringed. If it is a Gentian, it's not a common one...
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
The Garbage Parade
Story and photos: Trina
It's just past lunch time. The sun no longer makes it all the way down into the bottom of the narrow granite gorge where the tiny town bustles with tourist traffic.
P.J., one of the town's 300 year-round residents, rumbles up the street in his garbage truck. His brown speckled coon hound sits proudly beside him on the bench seat where a girlfriend might otherwise perch - immediately at PJ's right elbow. As the garbage truck approaches the five-block stretch of downtown, two smiling labs, one black and one yellow, emerge from the shadows, dropping whatever mayoral business they were attending to previously in order to greet PJ.
Clearing the street of traffic, the canine escorts take their places, either in front of the truck or flanking both sides of it, and proudly, slowly, they lead the garbage truck up the main drag. They trot along, smiling with obvious knowledge that they aren't in a parade, they are the parade. They are the Friday afternoon garbage parade.
In this manner, they lead PJ slowly up Main Street, coming back around to the back of the truck at each stop to stand sentinel while P.J. dismounts, grabs a can, swings the contents into the back of the truck, and moves on to the next stop.
At one point, PJ barks a sharp "Hey!" at a tourist who fails to yield the right of way to the escort dogs. Other than that, the ritual is trouble-free. At the end of the street, after PJ's last stop, the two labs put their paws up onto the back deck of the truck, waiting for PJ to lift them up onto a ledge inside the back of the garbage truck where they will ride as PJ pulls out of town and heads on to the next neighborhood on his route.
It's just past lunch time. The sun no longer makes it all the way down into the bottom of the narrow granite gorge where the tiny town bustles with tourist traffic.
P.J., one of the town's 300 year-round residents, rumbles up the street in his garbage truck. His brown speckled coon hound sits proudly beside him on the bench seat where a girlfriend might otherwise perch - immediately at PJ's right elbow. As the garbage truck approaches the five-block stretch of downtown, two smiling labs, one black and one yellow, emerge from the shadows, dropping whatever mayoral business they were attending to previously in order to greet PJ.
Clearing the street of traffic, the canine escorts take their places, either in front of the truck or flanking both sides of it, and proudly, slowly, they lead the garbage truck up the main drag. They trot along, smiling with obvious knowledge that they aren't in a parade, they are the parade. They are the Friday afternoon garbage parade.
In this manner, they lead PJ slowly up Main Street, coming back around to the back of the truck at each stop to stand sentinel while P.J. dismounts, grabs a can, swings the contents into the back of the truck, and moves on to the next stop.
At one point, PJ barks a sharp "Hey!" at a tourist who fails to yield the right of way to the escort dogs. Other than that, the ritual is trouble-free. At the end of the street, after PJ's last stop, the two labs put their paws up onto the back deck of the truck, waiting for PJ to lift them up onto a ledge inside the back of the garbage truck where they will ride as PJ pulls out of town and heads on to the next neighborhood on his route.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Toward Another Ride
Somewhere along the path our blog has taken you may have gotten the impression that we like to spend time outside riding our bikes on rough trails with our little dogs chasing along behind. This is true. However, since one of those rough trails got the best of me three weeks ago, there has been a sudden lack of that kind of story and the photos that go with it. Please allow me to reach into the archive and drag out this small tale of adventure.
August 18, 2008
This was my first stab at the lightweight version of bikepacking. Very little equipment on a capable full-suspension bike. Some maps, some open country, and not much of a plan.
Landon drove us out of town in the evening and we spent the night under the moon by his truck. My new untried lightweight sleeping bag was chilly in the night but adequate. A good thing to know before heading out on my own.
Sunday we rode a loop together on rough trails, which gave him opportunity to fly through the air in a couple spots. I rode closer to the ground, as usual. It was a good ride on a bright day in summer. Enough to satisfy, but only the beginning of my ride.
He dropped me off on the side of the highway with my bike and the small parcel of gear strapped to it. I rode down a side road and turned off the pavement and onto the rocky jeep road that would let me ride upward from dusty pinyon and juniper desert to the cooler elevations on the plateau above. The hot afternoon sun beat down on me as I ground away at the gears and the slope. Very soon I had to give up and fall asleep in the shade of a scraggly tree.
When I woke, ravens were circling and it was already getting cooler. I continued my way upward, pedaling steadily on dirt and rock. Hours went by, the sun dropped westward. I was pushing my bike along sandy doubletrack in the afterglow of sunset when the sky to the east started to glow. Soon I was pushing my bike through sand under the light of the bright moon. And soon I'd had enough for one day. I cooked some food, threw the sleeping bag down, a bush and my pack for a pillow, distant coyotes sounded like solitude, and no switch to turn off the moon. I shivered with the night's chill but warmed in the solitude.
Morning burned bright right off the horizon. There was a black widow spider under my pillow. Breakfast and a short ride dropped me into a canyon where a clear stream poured past tall pine trees that reached upward toward the brick-colored cliffs. A cluster of cottonwood trees waved broad leaves at the sky over a grassy meadow where I lingered. Then I continued onward and upward through open sagebrush country. Sulphur butterflies scattered like confetti where I splashed across a stream. My path followed dirt road and rougher road and road that had degraded and almost disappeared. My path crossed the paths of small creatures that I had time to stop and observe.
I reached a high point along the gently sloping ridge of the plateau. Here the forest grew thicker, dark pines shot through with the white bark of aspen trees. I wandered near the high rim then turned off onto singletrack (At last!) that plunged into the forest and into a steep valley. The trail was blocked with toppled trees that spoke to me saying, there is no one here and probably no one will come here anytime soon. I flowed with the curves of the trail but rode like I was alone.
The forest began to shy away from the center of the valley leaving meadows of knuckle-brushing flowers and brittle late summer grasses to chase me along the edge of the stream that grew from springs that leapt from the valley walls. The water and I poured downward as the day began to turn gold. The trail led me to a gravel road that crackled under my tires as I pushed into an evening breeze, into canyons, onto a highway and homeward, riding into a molten horizon at the end of the day, at the end of a long ride, and toward the beginning of another.
August 18, 2008
This was my first stab at the lightweight version of bikepacking. Very little equipment on a capable full-suspension bike. Some maps, some open country, and not much of a plan.
Landon drove us out of town in the evening and we spent the night under the moon by his truck. My new untried lightweight sleeping bag was chilly in the night but adequate. A good thing to know before heading out on my own.
Sunday we rode a loop together on rough trails, which gave him opportunity to fly through the air in a couple spots. I rode closer to the ground, as usual. It was a good ride on a bright day in summer. Enough to satisfy, but only the beginning of my ride.
He dropped me off on the side of the highway with my bike and the small parcel of gear strapped to it. I rode down a side road and turned off the pavement and onto the rocky jeep road that would let me ride upward from dusty pinyon and juniper desert to the cooler elevations on the plateau above. The hot afternoon sun beat down on me as I ground away at the gears and the slope. Very soon I had to give up and fall asleep in the shade of a scraggly tree.
When I woke, ravens were circling and it was already getting cooler. I continued my way upward, pedaling steadily on dirt and rock. Hours went by, the sun dropped westward. I was pushing my bike along sandy doubletrack in the afterglow of sunset when the sky to the east started to glow. Soon I was pushing my bike through sand under the light of the bright moon. And soon I'd had enough for one day. I cooked some food, threw the sleeping bag down, a bush and my pack for a pillow, distant coyotes sounded like solitude, and no switch to turn off the moon. I shivered with the night's chill but warmed in the solitude.
Morning burned bright right off the horizon. There was a black widow spider under my pillow. Breakfast and a short ride dropped me into a canyon where a clear stream poured past tall pine trees that reached upward toward the brick-colored cliffs. A cluster of cottonwood trees waved broad leaves at the sky over a grassy meadow where I lingered. Then I continued onward and upward through open sagebrush country. Sulphur butterflies scattered like confetti where I splashed across a stream. My path followed dirt road and rougher road and road that had degraded and almost disappeared. My path crossed the paths of small creatures that I had time to stop and observe.
I reached a high point along the gently sloping ridge of the plateau. Here the forest grew thicker, dark pines shot through with the white bark of aspen trees. I wandered near the high rim then turned off onto singletrack (At last!) that plunged into the forest and into a steep valley. The trail was blocked with toppled trees that spoke to me saying, there is no one here and probably no one will come here anytime soon. I flowed with the curves of the trail but rode like I was alone.
The forest began to shy away from the center of the valley leaving meadows of knuckle-brushing flowers and brittle late summer grasses to chase me along the edge of the stream that grew from springs that leapt from the valley walls. The water and I poured downward as the day began to turn gold. The trail led me to a gravel road that crackled under my tires as I pushed into an evening breeze, into canyons, onto a highway and homeward, riding into a molten horizon at the end of the day, at the end of a long ride, and toward the beginning of another.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)