Young's Gulch

Kevin has been giving me a hard time again about my blogging. I mentioned I took a nice picture on a hike last Saturday. His response: "I guess I'll see it in a year." This one is for you, Kevin.

Foliage in Young's Gulch

Our furry pal Sky (Kevin's dog- she was visiting while Kevin and Shirley were in Scotland)

Birthday Bicycle

For my birthday on Monday, Dorinna fixed up my Grandfather's old bike. We think it dates from the 1950s or 1960s. I've been talking about buying a cruiser bike for a few months now, so I can't wait to ride the roads of Fort Collins.

Gaylord Opryland

While at my Nashville conference, we stayed in the Gaylord Opryland hotel. The size of this hotel has to be seen to be believed. Almost 3000 rooms, 6 restaurants, and 5 bars, but that's not the most impressive part. The most impressive is three large.... I'm not sure what to call them-- we called them "biodomes." Huge, air-conditioned, glass-enclosed atriums, filled with stairs, bridges, rivers, waterfalls, buildings, and plants.

44-foot waterfall in the Cascades biodome:
Behind the waterfall:
The Delta biodome came complete with a riverboat cruise (only $9.00)
The Garden Conservatory biodome was my favorite. It was comparatively peaceful, and had a greater percentage of greenery:
Sweeping view of the Garden Conservatory:

More Country in Nashville

On Monday night, we went back to downtown to hear more live music. This night, being a work night, was considerably tamer (e.g. beer instead of whiskey), but if anything we heard even better music. Here are some more "country-related" photos from Nashville.

I bet you didn't know that Charlie Daniels had a museum in Nashville. Bet you didn't care either...


Layla's Hillbilly- We heard an outstanding bluegrass band here on Monday night. At one point a white-bearded old man came in off the street between songs. The band got all agitated-- "It's so-and-so!" they cried (it wasn't a name I recognized). Whatshisname picked up a fiddle and the next song was a fiddle-vs-mandolin duel the likes I've never seen. Then the guy left. The level of talent that just wanders in off the street in this town is downright sickening.
"Western World". We heard a very good western swing band here on Monday- the Western Swingers. It sounded like jazz to me. I liked it enough to buy a cd.
Typical street musician in Music City.

Modern Day Nashville

On Sunday (late), I wandered back to Downtown Nashville. I took some more pictures, and visited the small but excellent Frist Center for the Visual Arts.

Photos from Nashville

Here are some photos from my last Nashville post.

The Ernest Tubb Record Shop. "All Types of Records" led me to believe this was going to be a cool music store that I could browse for hours. You know how regular music stores have signs for the different musical genres: jazz, classical, rock, rap, etc.? There were no signs in this particular store-- let's just say they had both kinds of music: "Country and Western"

Jack's Barbecue. Ribs, pork shoulder, and beef brisket. Good enough to go back on Monday night for a second trip.

B. B. King's Blues Club. Not sure what kind of music was playing that night. It wasn't blues, and it wasn't any good. Far and away the absolute worst music I heard in Nashville.
The scene of "the crime", or at least the scene of the multiple plastic cups, absurdly large, of Maker's Mark. Highly recommended. We saw the country-rock band "Wide Open."

Nashville

Spent last night in a series of progressively dirtier and gritier Nashville honky-tonk bars. Neon signs, cowboy hats and tight jeans, plastic cups of whiskey and continuous live music. Some bluegrass, some rock, some blues, but mostly steel guitar country. I'm not sure if it was the quality of the musicians or the aforementioned plastic cups of whiskey, but it sure sounded good to me.

Real America. Real cool.

Double Trouble

Last summer our twin nieces came to visit us for two weeks. Here are some pictures:

Jessica and Jacqueline on the trolley

Jessica enjoyed the view

Fort Collins Trolley. Fort Collins was the smallest city in the country to have a municipal trolley system.

Jessica enjoys the water feature at Fossil Creek Park

Jacqueline loves to splash

Grilling Adventure

This summer's grilling adventure was to grill a whole Rockfish.

Before

After

WCT, Part 1: Return to Victoria

Back when I first started this blog, Dorinna and I took a trip to Victoria, British Columbia. We fell in love with the city, and it was one of the reasons why we signed up when Kevin approached us with the idea to hike the West Coast Trail.

The West Coast Trail is a 75 km (47 mile) backpacking route along temperate rainforest, sandstone cliffs, waterfalls, caves, sea arches, sea stacks and beaches. Kevin and Shirley were planning to visit Shirley’s family on the island, so Kevin added this hike to the end of that visit, and invited us along.

Dorinna and I started our trip on July 4, when we celebrated our patriotism by flying to Canada. Here are some photos from the flight:

Our first flight was from Denver to Seattle, flying past Mt. Rainier

Puddle-jumper from Seattle to Victoria

The Olympic Peninsula of Washington State

Aerial view of Victoria

When we arrived in Victoria, we discovered our luggage hadn’t. No matter, Horizon Airlines did a fantastic job of setting us up with toiletries for the night. By the time we were awake the next morning, our luggage had already been delivered to our B&B. The counter staff was extremely polite as well.

Still, we were a bit grouchy, and used this as an excuse to rent a Mustang GT. Black. Sacrifices must be made.

We stayed at the Robert Palmer House, a delightful Victorian B&B run by our English friends Ann and Derek. We stayed with them our last time in Victoria, and highly recommend staying here.

After checking in, and catching up on the gossip from our last visit, we headed out to explore the city...