Since I’ve been messing around with my photos as of late and actually posted to the site, I hopped out of lazy mode and decided to post the pictures I took while visiting the Rocky Mountain National Park last March. And, with the pics, I have to also and tell my story.

A business trip took me to Comcast in Denver. Business only lasted a couple of days; I took the remainder of the week/weekend to adventure around some of the parks in Colorado. I got everything done, work-wise, by Thursday. I went a few places outside Denver — Colorado Springs & The Rocky Mountain National Park to name a few of the big ones.

I got up Friday at 4:30 in the morning and hit the road towards the Rocky Mountain National Park. I had planned on entering the park near the entrance in Estes, Colorado at sunrise; from there I was going to drive to a trail head at Bear Lake and hike a mile or so into the mountains to Emerald Lake. All went as planned. I made it to the park just as the sun was rising. It was so early, the entrance wasn’t even manned by rangers yet, so I saved my $30 entrance fee. I drove a few miles into the park… There were Elk feeding. It was beautiful. After a half hour of driving, I finally made it to the Bear Lake trail.

On the trail, I hit ~11,000 feet at the highest point and hiked about 3 miles round-trip around the Rockies before all was said and done. I’ll remember to take snow shoes if and when I ever go to the Rockies in winter next time! I knew I should have, but I wasn’t going to buy a pair for this one trip. I followed the “path,” if you could call it that. You couldn’t see any clear sign of a trail. Best I could do was stay on the hard-pack. Being there in the morning and it being 30 degrees was more important than I thought as the day went on, but I’ll get to that later… I hiked for an hour or so, found a rock, and sat to catch my breath. Being alone in the vast silence, staring at the Continental Divide, was quite the experience. It was one of those Thoreau, “I went into the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life…” kind of moments.

After resting, I continued on. I knew I had to be getting close to Dream Lake, the second lake in on the trail. I finally saw people — a couple. They looked at me, said “Hi.” and then looked at my flat, rubber bottomed, casual dress boots sans snow shoes. It was at that point I knew they took me for some amateur nut-case likely to be a casualty of the Rockies. Everyone (and I only saw about 5 people) had snow shoes — everyone! The couple said I could never make it to the “lakes” in the shoes I had on. So, after they left and I lost sight of them, I showed them what will really was when I met back up with them about 20 mins. later — at the furthest lake on the trail, Emerald Lake. The wife told me her husband said there was no way they’d see me again in the shoes I was wearing. I hung out with them, had a granola bar, and talked with them for 20 mins. or so. Nice people… They lived in Estes right outside the park — retired there. They took off after a while; I hung out and took some pictures. I had made it to where I wanted to, and as the clouds rolled in and killed any good picture taking, I decided to head back to the car.

Coming back down the mountain was a lot easier than climbing it. I skied on my boots most of the way, making sure to stay on the parts of the trail I knew had been pretty packed down by traffic already. I was literally downhill skiing in my street boots! That is, until I found myself “off the trail” and started “post holing” (legs just gone) up to my groin in around 10 foot snow… I thought I might be stuck, but I calmed myself and pulled the army crawl about 30 yards back to hard pack (after I finally was able to find it) or I’d a been stuck in the snow for the rest of the day — I told you it being morning and 30 degrees was important. It was. At this point, it wasn’t 30 anymore — it was in the mid-40′s now. As the temperature rose, the snow softened. As the day went on the snow got softer and softer. It was good I started at around 6AM (everything was ice at that point — which was still pretty difficult in the shoes I was in… I used about twice the energy it would have taken vs. having snow shoes). Anyhow, I was off the snow/trail by 11:30-12. Any later in the day and I wouldn’t have been able to make even a 1/4 mile on the trail without sinking each leg into the snow with every step. I’m glad no one came trucking by while I was sunk to the waist in snow, looking like someone cut my legs off… I would have had to pull the Jedi mind trick, “Nothing to see here. Just chillin’. . . (literally). Please move on.”

So… long story, yeah… Pictures are here. The pictures pretty much follow the story, chronologically.

Nothing beats not working, like really not working, heading North to escape the deadly heat of Savannah in the summer, and heading out to hopefully catch some walleye on Lake Erie — even though it was pretty much the end of walleye “season.” The day started early for me — 7:30. Now, that’s not normally early, but when the night before, you were hanging out, drinking, until 3 o’clock in the morning, it’s pretty damn early — trust me! The day slowly turned from utter agony into excitement once I got my bearings and the hang-over started to wear off. By the time my buddy Chris and I reached Lake Erie I was almost back to 100%. Almost. I was amped to get out on the water and start the “fishing tournament.” We got lucky with the weather… Erie was as flat as a pancake. The weather was an overcast, 72 degrees. The 89% humidity was a little annoying, but compared to Savannah, I was in heaven. We zoomed out 2 miles on a glass-like Erie (which doesn’t happen often) and started fishing. The “Erie pancake” didn’t last long though and before we knew it the lake started throwing 3-5 footers at us. My boy Chris would laugh every time a 5 foot valley came heading towards the back of the boat, ready to swamp us. Good stuff! No problems though… Fishing was on! We beat the boat and our bodies up zooming from place to place, but managed a great day of fishing out on the Great Lakes. We finished the day with four walleye and a small mouth (that saved itself by cutting the line on the prop) — and we didn’t even get injured or stranded 4 miles out when the engine decided to die on us. We beat the odds and the fish! We got some pictures of the day… Now, I just need to get out on the rivers and do some more fishing in Savannah; that is, when the heat decides to drop below 106 degrees, but that’s a whole other story that I’ll write about if and when I get the time…

The year was 1996. Location — 3 miles off Harbour Island in the Bahamas. It was a clear day, the sun was shining, the seas were calm, we had a boat, some beer, all the dive gear you could want, and the hangover from the night before was wearing off just fine… A couple of young, adventurous mugs were ready for some drama on the high seas. We persuaded a local Bahamian, Kenny, with a bottle of rum to help us navigate to a shipwreck located not far off the Devil’s Backbone, a huge reef that runs the length of the island.

The ship was The Cienfuegos. On February 5, 1895, The Cienfuegos, an American steamship went aground on the “Backbone.” Thanks to the native Eleutherians, not one passenger or crew member lost their lives. The Cienfuegos did, however. Down she went. Flashing forward a hundred years to 1996, here we were, ready to pillage. A couple of dive masters told us on shore that they’d give us $500 if we could rip off one of her port windows, so we packed the tools before leaving port. We were bound and determined to take something from that wreck — anything. (Yeah, you’re probably not supposed to do this kind of stuff, but it’s the Bahamas; the laws are interpreted loosely if you know what I mean.)

I’d write more of the day and the ensuing adventure, but I finally took the video footage we shot that day, put on my best film maker hat, and made it into something that speaks well enough for itself. I’ll let it do the work for me.

So, in all its Technicolor glory, here it is…

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

(It runs about 21 minutes; so, if you get bored, the good stuff happens around the 15 minute mark.)