A Couple of Nice Sunsets.....

Yep, more Sunset pictures.

It's been quite hot here on the Colorado Front Range this week, leading one to ride when things cool off.

There's also several fires going on around the state, the one that made the news being the 416 Fire in the SW portion of the state.

It's led to more smoke particulate in the air I believe, and while we could do without the fires, one beneficial side effect is more colorful sunsets.

June 13:

 

June 15:

 The cesspool that is Denver doesn't look bad from a distance

Email notifications not working...sort of. (still broken)

Hi Folks

I was notified by SonjaM, one of my faithful readers, that her comments weren't getting published.

I checked the "awaiting moderation" section of blogger and sure enough, hers and other folks' comments were sitting there and I had not received the usual email notifications telling me someone had commented.

So, apparently it's a "known issue" with blogspot.com aka blogger.com and "they're working on it".

In the meantime, the workaround involves me posting a comment and checking the box that says "notify me of followup comments" right after making a post.

Please, lend a hand, make a comment to this posting, so I can see if notifications are sent by blogger.com or not since I will have made the first posting.

thanks!

dom

Uraling to Mount Evans and a Fiery Sunset

A pretty good Saturday of Uraling, in spite of the hordes of cagers on the road today.  Despite a very late start (for me anyways), Fiona and I fought our way through the hordes of cagers to get across the cesspool that is Denver and made it to the foothills unscathed.

Once in the mountains, it was short work to the Bergen Parkway exit and from there to the eastern end of Squaw Pass Road, aka Colorado Highway 103.  Traffic on this road wasn't bad and I discovered it was just as well I was late leaving the house; the road up Mount Evans had been closed to traffic (for some bicycling event I think) until Noon.

I got to the fee station on Colorado 5, near Echo Lake, and cruised right on through just short of 12:00 PM.

Lots of cars to be watched and avoided as required.  Plenty of drivers driving scared of the edge of the road.  Really folks, if you have a fear of heights, don't drive these mountain roads.  Just saying.  There's no guard rails, barely a shoulder to the road at times, and of course, there's the bicyclists....

Just short of the parking lot at the top of Mount Evans, I saw the road choked with cagers waiting for parking spots.  I've been to the top many times, even on Fiona I believe, so I just turned around and headed back down.

 Not much snow left near the road on Mt Evans.

I motored back onto eastbound CO Hwy 103 and did some brief exploration of a couple of forest roads I'd bypassed before.

FR 7941, near mile marker 15, proved to lead to a small area where there were about six or seven guys doing some target shooting.  It's legal in this National Forest, before you ask.  I waved at them, they waved back, everyone happy.

FR 2521, near mile marker 21, actually let me discover a restored CCC gazebo-like structure which protects a water source called Arapahoe Springs.

The rest of the ride home was pretty uneventful, just heavy traffic and muggy conditions once I neared the Denver Metro Cesspool Area.

Back in my home neighborhood, I went to the usual sunset spot and got some pretty good pics of Saturday's sunset.

 Denver Skyline

Uraling to Kit Carson, Colorado

Been boondocking back at the Hugo State Wildlife Area this weekend again.

Got the same nice spot, with good 4G LTE coverage, and no one around most of the time.  This being the weekend, there were two-three instances of fishermen coming up to try their luck in the nearby ponds; but they did not linger long.

Started camping Saturday, and got a nice sunset to enjoy while sitting outside in the warm evening:

Sunday dawned quite nicely, I must say:

After breakfast, I rode the 36 miles or so, in rather windy conditions, to the town of Kit Carson, named after the famous scout/western figure.

Not much to the town, while it used to be quite the railroad hub back in the day, being a transloading point for the southwestern states; time and progress have caused it to become just a small sleepy town with US 287 running through it.

I saw that the local museum was open in what looked to be the old train depot/station.

I will say, not really that much in the way of train stuff.  Lots of stuff about tools, appliances of the day, displays of old time gadgets, furniture, farm tools and such....but not much train stuff.  Still, can't be the entry fee, which is nothing though donations are always welcomed.

Some of the stuff that caught my eye:

 Ghastly looking device, a Dehorner, It was

used to remove the horns from farm animals.

 Crosley Icy Ball

Used to make ice in early refrigerators.

 No, not an instrument of torture,

it's a Nestle Multi-Triumph Permanent Wave

Machine, for women's hair apparently.

  Some cool, if a bit dusty, cameras

You can go inside this caboose, but my interior shots didn't really come out.  You're not missing too much really.

Across the street from the main museum, there's an enclosure with lots of rusting farm ground implements and this quietly rusting away light house composed of miscellaneous parts.

There were a few sheds as well, one containing a bunch of saddles and a wheeled buggy and two old cars:

Another shed contained more tools and old pulley wheels, I liked this old drill press:

The weather was closing in as expected, so I headed on back to avoid getting rained on.  No such thing as warm summer rain here in Colorado.  On the way back, I found they'd named CO Hwy 94:

History of the 94th Infantry Division

The rest of the day would be spend in gusty windy conditions, which caused me to bring in the slideout for several hours.  

Shortly after lunch before the winds really picked up.

The winds are supposed to calm down this evening into the mid teens so that'll be good.  Clear and sunny tomorrow!

Finally, a nice sunset to cap off a nice day of boondocking: