The Perfect Cure for a Cold Winter's Night

From the label: Originally brewed in England for the Russian royal family, this stout had to be bold enough to withstand the long Baltic crossing and rich enough to please the Czar.

Read more about Imperial Stout.

The World's Biggest Swiss Army Knife

"This is not exactly going to win any awards for lightest, smallest, or most efficient tools with which to going backpacking. It is however, getting a lot of attention and is the best platform for showcasing our product capabilities," said Dennis Piretra, Director of Marketing for Wenger NA. "The most often asked question is about whether or not we have a pouch for it. Our answer is simple. You don't need a pouch, the knife has a key ring."

Bunny and Llama's Christmas

I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about our "pets" at Christmas.

Llama models her new Peruvian hat, knitted by Dorinna.


Bunny looking dapper in his knitted toque. (Dorinna knitted the scarves for them last year)


All aboard the Mobus Christmas Train!


They had many opportunities to "feel the love" from the twins, which usually involved being tossed around or drooled on.

Christmas in New Jersey

The blizzard changed our plans, and we were only able to visit Dorinna's sister's family in New Jersey.

Dorinna gives driving lessons to Jacqueline and Jessica


Doesn't Aunt Dorinna have the best taste in cheerleader outfits?


Uncle Rich will fix everything


Hats from Aunt Dorinna


Jacqueline making "The Face"


Twins playing

Austria Vacation Log: Day 15, The Enjoyment of Wien

In many ways, yesterday was a low point. I feel like I was overwhelmed with the amount of stuff that I wanted to see in Vienna. On Day 15, I admitted I wouldn’t see half of it – and it was more important to see some of it well.

We got a late start and wandered around the city. Dorinna spent some time in Frey Willie, a high-class jewelry store, while I poked my head into every bookstore in town. We thought to see St. Stephensdom, but they were setting it up for a wedding, and tourism was shutting down in there.

So we meandered our way over to the Kunsthistorishes Museum - one of the most important art museums in the world. We got our audio guides and started to explore. In keeping with my mindset for the day, we didn’t even try to see the whole museum. The German/Dutch/Flemish half was enough. We saw that half in great detail, only flying through the Italian/French section to visit some familiar names. We stopped in mid-visit for a visit to what turned out to be both a delicious and beautiful café. We had great food and a great desert.

After the museum, we went on a quest for a grocery story to buy Nutella for Maria. We failed, but found a few pleasantly uncrowded souvenir shops off the main drag, which allowed us to finish our shopping. We vowed that our next trip will be postcards-only.

The evening adventure started off on the subway. We took the U4 to its end, and then found a bus, and took that what seemed like a very long way up one big hill. We got off at Kahlenberg. After visiting the only dirty restroom in Austria, we climbed up onto a terrace to get a view down to the city below. Grey clouds covered the sky, and it was fairly late. Fairly gloomy actually, and we wondering if we had enough daylight left. We were looking for a trail back down to the city. We found it, but it went on and off a road, and we soon missed one of the turn-offs, and most of our walk was on the Klenberger Strauße, down into the center of Nußdorf. Along the way we passed lots of vineyards- Vienna is the only world capital with vineyards within the city limits. At one point an Austrian car pulled up to ask me for directions. I managed to apologize in German: “Est tut mir Leid. Wir sind amerikanishen Touristen.“

We made it down to the cute little hamlet of Nußdorf, and after a short search, found the Heurige recommended in our guide book. We waited in the long line at the food counter, and ordered too much. We went outside and found a table, and started drinking wine. And drinking more wine. Rain started, and we talked about going inside, but a retractable canopy opened over our heads. It leaked over our table as the drizzle turned into a downpour, but we huddled against the building and stayed dry. I think we had four glasses of wine apiece by the time the rain stopped and we left. Not bad for €8. It wasn’t the best wine, but it went down smooth and after the first glass we liked it well enough.

More from the Blizzard

Here's our street on December 23, three days after the blizzard.



The plow finally came on Christmas Eve, plowing out one lane down the center of the road.

Then, while we were away in New Jersey for the Holidays, we got another 8 inches. As I write this, it is snowing again, with up to 9 inches forecast. If that holds true, these three storms will be the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th biggest storms to hit Fort Collins since we moved here in 1999.

Devil's Freeze

No, it isn't hell frozen over, but it is the Devil's Backbone with snow.














The Devil's Backbone is a Larimer County Open Space in nearby Loveland. After the big snowstorm, we decided to go cross-country skiing. Our original plan was to go to Rocky Mountain National Park, but then realized that we didn't need to drive nearly that far. With record snowfalls, even this local park, better known for rattlesnakes than kick wax, would work.


Dorinna heads out over the foothills














Ah, the snow cover. Well, it turned out that Loveland got at least 6 inches less snow than Fort Collins. Conditions ranged from knee-deep powder to wind-scoured sand.














Hogbacks covered with a delicious icing of snow.

Imagine There's No Snowplows...

... it isn't hard to do.

Fort Collins received 23 inches of snow in the recent blizzard. That doesn't sound like much, but it's among the Top Ten snowstorms in the city's recorded history. The city's snowplow fleet is woefully inadequate to handle this kind of snow. In fact, if the plow makes it to our street (sometime in the next 1-3 days), it will be the second time in seven years.

Our neighbor Gus cleared our sidewalks and driveway with a snow blower, but we dug ourselves a path to the road:














Now the road isn't plowed, but enough big trucks have been down it to flatten it down a bit. With a shovel in the car, we will try to make it out later today with the Subaru Outback.

Drifting on the (covered) back porch:

Thanksgiving Weekend

Taking a year off from insane Thanksgiving air travel, Dorinna and I drove down to Southern Colorado to ski at Wolf Creek. Wolf Creek is known for having the highest snowfall of any Colorado ski area, and especially for good early season snow.

On Thanksgiving day, we had respectable conditions: packed powder on the groomed runs. Wolf Creek has alot of great glades skiing (one entire lift serves nothing but tree trails). Conditions here were variable- where people had skiied it was packed powder. If you went off the tracks you had a mix of fluffy knee deep powder- and hard sun crust- and everything in between. Good practice in the backcountry. The picture below is from the top, but is NOT a ski run- there were no rocks on the ski runs.


Wolf Creek is really in the middle of nowhere. It took almost 7 hours to get there, and after skiing we had to drive another 20 minutes over Wolf Creek Pass to the town of Pagosa Springs. Pagosa is mostly a tourist town at this point, with a small but nice downtown. While I wasn't able to find any turkey, I got by with a steak dinner.

Our early season ski legs weren't in very good shape, so the next day we slept in, went out for lunch, and explored the town. That afternoon we visited the Pagosa Hot Springs. The main spring is a scalding 145 degrees, but a resort manages a set of cooler pools next to the river. Temps in the pools ranged from 92 to 108, although if you count the river the low value drops to 35 or so. And yes, I count the river, as I briefly dunked myself partway in, and then dashed for a hot pool. Ahhhhh... A very relaxing way to spend the afternoon.


Friday night it snowed 4 fresh inches, so Saturday's ski conditions were fantastic! The trails were good, but we spent almost the entire day skiing the trees for the untouched powder. Dorinna skiied her first double black diamond run...


Sunday we packed up and headed for home. The drive was incredibly scenic- back over Wolf Creek Pass, through the San Luis Valley, framed by the Sange de Cristos, through South Park, and back over one final mountain pass to the plains. We made it home in just under 6 hours.

Hot springs in the early morning:

The Kids Found the Candy

I came home from work to see that Bunny and Llama had apparently helped themselves to our leftover Halloween candy. Here's Bunny with his head in a bag formerly filled with Swedish Fish.

Llama trying her best to look innocent.

I think they may have eaten too much, because they didn't seem to be feeling too good afterwards.