The Tyger Chronicles, October 2010
I've long kept you waiting, and I know how everyone has been anticipating this LJ post. So here you go,
So it came to pass this October that cwtyger, the ever wily tiger, ventured into the nearby territory of a certain snow leopard. He'd come to visit friends across a distant land; well, okay, the United States. Being from Canada meant this was a major transition, one which would require acclimatizing. Or so it would seem. Just how different is Canada anyway? I find that Canadians actually speak English, surprise, surprise! Of course, there are those Quebecians, but we'll not include them at this time. That is, only because the Canadians themselves don't. ;)
Yes, CW was in the US of A. What a journey, also. I didn't think he'd make it near my way, but through consistent nagging, I'm good at that (just ask him), and some persistent planning(why can't you get a striped cat to plan anyway?) we managed to work out a time and place. Thus, it was set for October 14th and 15th.
The details were such that I would require time off from work. Having managed to get the date set just in the nick of time so I could put in request for leave at work, I began working toward the goal. Now where I work is not a place which allows much time off. I pretty much work if I'm sick with a cold, flu, or stomach bug. I've only missed half a day for being ill in the last year and a half or two. Having said that, I've also had more colds than I could count on both hands, and perhaps my toes, as well as sinus infections requiring antibiotics on several occasions, not to mention stomach and intestinal bugs. Yipes! So you can tell, my job is pretty unrelenting.
Even still, I worked it out so I could get a couple of days off. Unfortunately, CW would not be able to stay into the weekend. He had plans that prevented this. Since I was getting days off that led into the weekend, Thursday and Friday, it would've meant 4 days, or just about. I had to work Sunday afternoon; tis the life of a newspaper employee... I'm taking far too long to lead into this though. CW had plans with a fox in Utah, and I was fit in by luck and finagling. We managed, and that's what counts.
Working through yet another stomach bug, not too terrible at least, and then a cold that settled in prior to the trip, I was able to get everything done I needed to and leave work Wednesday at 5:20pm. So much for getting out of work early to prepare and leave. You see, I had to be off that evening to Colorado Springs, where I'd check in at the hotel(erm, motel) and then precede to pick up the tyger at the local Greyhound depot. Somehow it worked out that the depot was only a 5 minute drive, at the whee hours of the morning anyway, form the motel.
I managed to get out of town at 7:15pm Central Standard Time. I made it to the hotel, thanks to some guidance from the Garmin, at 11:30pm Mountain Time. That's 12:30am back where I live. Oh but being a genius, I set off shortly after settling into the room, off to pick up CW. After watching the minutes pass, and still no tyger, I realized my error. I'd been relying on the clock in my Jeep! He was set to arrive at 1:25am. Only, it was 12:25am in Colorado. Stupid, stupid! I decided to head back to the room and laze around until he was closer to arriving.
At 1:20am, Colorado Time, I showed up to find the bus had already arrived. But wait, along the way CW called me. A cell phone, in the paws of a tiger? The world may never be the same! So I knew he'd arrived early, and here I'd both arrived very early, and now even though I was still early, I was already late. Is time some sort of unresolvable riddle, or am I just going insane from consistent lack of sleep?
All right, we've gotten to the point where I pulled into the bus stop, but have we found the tyger? No, of course not! It couldn't be that easy, now could it? I was parked in the back where 'customer parking' was written on a sign, denoting I should be there. Ring, ring, goes my phone (Okay, a song about the end of the world was what actually came on), and I discovered CW was out front, waiting for me. I'd somehow missed him. Here we go, back around, a tyger's there, to be found. Yep, I found him in the front as I pulled up to the exit.
We stowed his gear, or luggage if you want, and headed to the hotel...motel, where I intended to collapse. Do tigers sleep at night? No, no they don't. By 3am, Colorado time, we were finally settling for sleep. Someday I'm going to sneak a sleeping pill into his drink. ;)
From here on out I'm going to try to be more concise so as not to bore you all with details. And before you ask if I'm OCD, yes, yes I am. Phineas and Ferb reference, baby. Oh yeah!
Thursday morning came, later morning anyway, and by 10am CW was up and ready to go. He'd let me sleep. I don't think the tiger requires sleep like most people. So he'd been awake for a while. Once roused and dressed and so forth, we headed out to pick up the tyger's bus ticket at the Greyhound depot. Then we went on to what our searches between his laptop and my Garmin said was a nearby pizza place. Il Vicino Wood- Oven Pizza, I think it was. The way the Garmin stated it, you'd never know what it was supposed to be called. LOL Amused, we found the place, but there was no parking anywhere nearby. It was a busy downtown area, so we gave up and went for KFC instead.
From there we headed for Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. Here's where the pictures begin...
When we first arrived, this little guy came up to greet us.
And here we see CW next to the chipmunk. Or is it a ground squirrel? I can't tell the difference, but there is one, however minor.
Now we have CW with a giraffe statue. He said we had to get this for camio, I believe. So here you are.
CW with real giraffes this time.
Here we have a...snow leopard! This pretty girl was up close for us when we arrived. She was such a friendly kitty.
Both CW and the snow leopardess look to see something, but what it was, I do not know.
CW watches the snow leopard girl as she continues to stare at something we can't see.
On our second pass, as we had to make two passes of all the cats, I caught this pic.
And this one.
And one more even. You can't fault me for taking snow leopard pictures. I mean, come on now.
What's this, a lynx? Why yes, yes it is.
And one more.
Here, have a third picture.
Next we have mountain lions, cougars, or pumas. Have your pick of which.
One more of the cougars for good measure. They seem to be interested in something far off as well. Was it feeding time for everyone? I think it's always feeding time when you're a cat. What's that? Perhaps food. Food, where?!
Next, we come to the tigers.
I just didn't get good pictures of the tigers. CW and I had awesome luck with both the tigress and the snow leopardess, but people came up when I was trying to get pics and interrupted with their loud, vexing human selves. Cats shy away from loud, annoying...people. Here CW is watching the tigress, and she eventually came right up to the glass like the snow leopard did. I was taking video, which was awesome. But this girl walked up behind us chanting, "Crouching tiger...crouching tiger...crouching tiger." The tigress ended up shying away, too many people, and I was ready to kill, as I would rather not have my videos filled with inane ramblings of people I don't know. CW quipped something about "Where's the hidden dragon?", but the girl was clueless. Neither of us could understand how you could know the first half of the reference, enough to use it to the point of irking me, yet not know the second half...
I snapped this one and share it mostly for goldeagleradar
Atop the overlook, you can see CW with Colorado Springs spread out behind him. I'm not referring to him as 'the tyger' right now so as not to cause confusion with actual tigers. ;)
There was this statue of deer, and CW had to ham it up with a pose, but of course. All right, I kept telling him he had to get in some pictures this time around. So I think this one we're both guilty for.
Now for some real deer. That is, some actual, live, free roaming, wild, white tail, genuine Colorado deer were roaming through the zoo. I snapped a lot of pics. Here you go!
Hidden behind the colors of autumn...
We left, and those were the photos I had, but as I said before, I went back on my own Saturday. Here we have a squirrel. Rusty would approve, no doubt.
I believe CW and I completely missed these the day we went, so I had to get a few pics.
After the zoo, the Garmin led us to Panda's Express. Except it was now rush hour, and eventually we happened upon what had really clogged up the highway. There was an accident. So 45 minutes later, and 7 miles traveled, we found ourselves at a mall... "You have arrived." said the Garmin. We decided to see if the blasted thing meant there was a Panda's Express in the food court. So we set out to the mall. It was pretty fun really, an unexpected detour as it were. Eventually, after my being thoroughly impressed by the mall itself and CW finding some games to buy at a Gamestop, we headed back to the motel with food to go. It was not the best Chinese I've ever had, but still enjoyable. Chains are like that. You never know what you're going to get from one place to the next. I think CW liked his beef and broccoli though. Is that what he always gets? :P
We watched a few episodes of "The Whole Truth" he wanted to share with me before leaving to see a movie that night. It turned out to be a sort of 'dollar' theater where movies that have been out a while show, but we got to see something CW wanted to share with me. "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" is actually a lot better than I thought, very different, and amusing overall. I'm glad I had the experience. Admission was actually $1.50 a piece, but come on, that's cheap to see a movie.
That night we watched another episode of "The Whole Truth", at least I think we did, and in time, 3am again, got ourselves to bed. Day one down. I was looking forward to day two.
CW was up with my 10am wake-up call again. How does he do that? Leaving the motel, we were intent on trying our luck at the pizza place again. This time, we came down the street, against the Garmin's advice but common sense prevailed, and someone was pulling out of a parking spot just in time for us. We lucked out. CW paid the meter. Blasted parking meters anyway. Il Vicino Wood-Oven Pizza is quite good, and not over-priced considering it's a downtown eatery with character. It's certainly not a Pizza Hut, that's for sure.
With pizza in our bellies, we continued on our way. On today's agenda was Pike's Peak. I was interested in visiting some mountains, and the nearby(I'm not sure how near, actually) Renaissance Faire was closed for the season, Cave of the Winds interested the tyger, but he decided we'd go the mountain route so we'd both be happy. I wouldn't have minded the cave though. It's been over 20 years since I was there my first and only time.
This is concise, btw, for those of you wondering. I'm trying here. To the mountain!
They had a prescribed burn going on that day, but the sky was still clear, the sun shining brightly, the temperature comfortable, and the smell of wood smoke just added to the atmosphere. Occasionally we could see the smoke wafting up from the fire, but it was relatively mild. The drive was a lot of fun, with a stop at a gift shop along the way, pouncing through snow for me, and playing the Croc Adventure game CW bought at the Gamestop the Previous Day for CW.
Atop the mountain, there's another gift shop, this one much larger, and lots of scenic views to enjoy. CW pounced around on the rocks here, and I took photos. I wish I'd had a few more of myself taken, or that we'd actually thought to get one of the two of us. This is the second time I've seen him, and yet we've never gotten a photo of us both together!
And so here are the pics of Pike's Peak:
A closeup of CW atop Pike's Peak.
CW gazes out over the world, as it seems you can see the whole world from atop the mountain.
Of course, he had to see how much bounding over the rocky, mountain terrain he could manage, with thin air at 14k+ feet elevation.
I promised alpinewolfdog, I believe, that I'd post this. I'm saying this is a raven, though I do admit to having trouble telling the difference between ravens and crows.
CW managed to snap a pic of me, but I fear this is the only one from the entire trip. Oops. Well, he did tend to forget to bring his digi cam everywhere we went, and while I had mine, that meant I was the one taking all the pictures, and thus not in them.
I stopped at the mid-way gift shop so CW could look around the second time around, and while there ended up purchasing fudge. Cookies and cream and chocolate with nuts. I'd forget I had this and not eat any until after the tyger had departed. He never got to taste any, drat it all.
Down the mountain and to the Garden of the Gods we went. I stopped to figure out directions at a big visitor's center/gift shop. CW remained in the Jeep to see if he could save another animal in the Croc Hunter game.
I think my direction getting skills are flawed. Our journey through the Garden of the Gods was fun, but I got us lost at one point, completely out of the Garden, and into a residential neighborhood. I'm still not sure how I can get so turned around. We managed to get back to the correct road and meander back toward the main entrance/exit.
The pictures of the Garden of the Gods:
Most of the pictures are taken using my DV camcorder, which was not made for stills. This one of CW at Garden of the Gods shows just how terrible it is. The others aren't much better.
The lighting was wrong here, so it was hard to manipulate the photo so you could even see CW, but the background of the rock formations comes out well enough that you can at least tell where we were.
Just showing the rock formations that give the area its name.
One more. I wonder who named the place anyway.
I'd wanted to show CW some of the awesome stuff they had at the gift shop I'd gone into, but by the time we got there they were closed. Finding food was next on our list, and then we'd go back to the motel to get him packed up and ready to go to the bus station. We'd discovered something much to our amusement, also. The KFC we'd eaten at the previous day was just a block away from our motel. How we missed that before, we weren't sure. So this time we walked. It was easy and quick, and we hadn't much time at this point. CW had me watching the premier of "Burn Notice" as we ate and he then got his stuff together. Unfortunately, the episode was longer than an hour, some extended deal, and we ran out of time. So I didn't get to see it to conclusion. His bus was set to leave at 7:40pm, Colorado time. According to the web when he ordered the ticket, it was 8:25, I believe, but reality contradicted that. We'd discovered this the day before when he picked up his ticket. It's a good thing we found out early so we could be there on time.
I took him to the bus station, he went through the ritual of mass transit fun(yeah, really awesome), got his baggage tag(correction duly noted, tyger), headed out and stood in line, with me at his side until he had to board. Of course, that took no time at all, and he was on the bus. It all happened so fast, too fast really. It was a whirlwind visit, but I won't forget it. I suppose anyone who's actually read this far can tell that, eh?
I watched his bus depart, and teary-eyed went back to the motel alone. It's not easy to go back to being alone after having a friend around. I live in a small, rural, Texas town. I haven't any true friends here. I have people I work with, people I know, but no one I can really be myself around. So it was refreshing to be me for a while.
It was too late for me to head home that night, a 5 1/2 hour drive if I didn't stop. Besides, with all the road construction strewn along my route, it'd take at least an hour more. I decided to go see "Guardians of Ga'Hoole" at the theater CW and I had seen "The Chipmunks" a few years before when he was visiting. It was near the motel so not that hard to get to, and I did have the Garmin to lead me. I liked the movie, but it's always better to have someone to share these things with. Still, who doesn't love awesome owl goodness?
I stayed up entirely too late that night and repeated my sleep deprivation ways. Checkout time was 11am so I was up and gone before I wanted to be. I decided to go back to the zoo on my own, since I was there, and I just love seeing the big cats, and the Mexican wolves.
Then on my way home, I took a scenic detour for the heck of it. Fall colours were in full display, and it was awesome being up in the mountains.
Pics taken on the way home:
There's this rock formation in Colorado known as Stonewall. It's rather interesting, and the fall colors add to the beauty.
This is the actual, official formation, though it runs over quite a large area, intermittent, just appearing piece by piece. I call them all part of Stonewall, but that might not be correct. Ah well.
While on the same scenic route, I pulled off the road to take a picture of this serene, autumn scene. Again, my DV camcorder took awful pics and near ruined this one completely. Of the 4-5 I took of this, this is the best, if that says anything.
That's about it, I'm afraid to say. I arrived home just before 11pm that night, Central time. The scenic detour had delayed me, and then a detour due to road construction on the interstate in Trinidad got me rather turned around as darkness was falling, and I'm terrible at navigation when there's good lighting. ;) I do not enjoy detours in the dark that route you through residential areas. What the hey?
I hope everyone's enjoyed the recounting of CW and my adventure in Colorado. Now back to your regularly scheduled LJ perusal.
So it came to pass this October that cwtyger, the ever wily tiger, ventured into the nearby territory of a certain snow leopard. He'd come to visit friends across a distant land; well, okay, the United States. Being from Canada meant this was a major transition, one which would require acclimatizing. Or so it would seem. Just how different is Canada anyway? I find that Canadians actually speak English, surprise, surprise! Of course, there are those Quebecians, but we'll not include them at this time. That is, only because the Canadians themselves don't. ;)
Yes, CW was in the US of A. What a journey, also. I didn't think he'd make it near my way, but through consistent nagging, I'm good at that (just ask him), and some persistent planning(why can't you get a striped cat to plan anyway?) we managed to work out a time and place. Thus, it was set for October 14th and 15th.
The details were such that I would require time off from work. Having managed to get the date set just in the nick of time so I could put in request for leave at work, I began working toward the goal. Now where I work is not a place which allows much time off. I pretty much work if I'm sick with a cold, flu, or stomach bug. I've only missed half a day for being ill in the last year and a half or two. Having said that, I've also had more colds than I could count on both hands, and perhaps my toes, as well as sinus infections requiring antibiotics on several occasions, not to mention stomach and intestinal bugs. Yipes! So you can tell, my job is pretty unrelenting.
Even still, I worked it out so I could get a couple of days off. Unfortunately, CW would not be able to stay into the weekend. He had plans that prevented this. Since I was getting days off that led into the weekend, Thursday and Friday, it would've meant 4 days, or just about. I had to work Sunday afternoon; tis the life of a newspaper employee... I'm taking far too long to lead into this though. CW had plans with a fox in Utah, and I was fit in by luck and finagling. We managed, and that's what counts.
Working through yet another stomach bug, not too terrible at least, and then a cold that settled in prior to the trip, I was able to get everything done I needed to and leave work Wednesday at 5:20pm. So much for getting out of work early to prepare and leave. You see, I had to be off that evening to Colorado Springs, where I'd check in at the hotel(erm, motel) and then precede to pick up the tyger at the local Greyhound depot. Somehow it worked out that the depot was only a 5 minute drive, at the whee hours of the morning anyway, form the motel.
I managed to get out of town at 7:15pm Central Standard Time. I made it to the hotel, thanks to some guidance from the Garmin, at 11:30pm Mountain Time. That's 12:30am back where I live. Oh but being a genius, I set off shortly after settling into the room, off to pick up CW. After watching the minutes pass, and still no tyger, I realized my error. I'd been relying on the clock in my Jeep! He was set to arrive at 1:25am. Only, it was 12:25am in Colorado. Stupid, stupid! I decided to head back to the room and laze around until he was closer to arriving.
At 1:20am, Colorado Time, I showed up to find the bus had already arrived. But wait, along the way CW called me. A cell phone, in the paws of a tiger? The world may never be the same! So I knew he'd arrived early, and here I'd both arrived very early, and now even though I was still early, I was already late. Is time some sort of unresolvable riddle, or am I just going insane from consistent lack of sleep?
All right, we've gotten to the point where I pulled into the bus stop, but have we found the tyger? No, of course not! It couldn't be that easy, now could it? I was parked in the back where 'customer parking' was written on a sign, denoting I should be there. Ring, ring, goes my phone (Okay, a song about the end of the world was what actually came on), and I discovered CW was out front, waiting for me. I'd somehow missed him. Here we go, back around, a tyger's there, to be found. Yep, I found him in the front as I pulled up to the exit.
We stowed his gear, or luggage if you want, and headed to the hotel...motel, where I intended to collapse. Do tigers sleep at night? No, no they don't. By 3am, Colorado time, we were finally settling for sleep. Someday I'm going to sneak a sleeping pill into his drink. ;)
From here on out I'm going to try to be more concise so as not to bore you all with details. And before you ask if I'm OCD, yes, yes I am. Phineas and Ferb reference, baby. Oh yeah!
Thursday morning came, later morning anyway, and by 10am CW was up and ready to go. He'd let me sleep. I don't think the tiger requires sleep like most people. So he'd been awake for a while. Once roused and dressed and so forth, we headed out to pick up the tyger's bus ticket at the Greyhound depot. Then we went on to what our searches between his laptop and my Garmin said was a nearby pizza place. Il Vicino Wood- Oven Pizza, I think it was. The way the Garmin stated it, you'd never know what it was supposed to be called. LOL Amused, we found the place, but there was no parking anywhere nearby. It was a busy downtown area, so we gave up and went for KFC instead.
From there we headed for Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. Here's where the pictures begin...
When we first arrived, this little guy came up to greet us.
And here we see CW next to the chipmunk. Or is it a ground squirrel? I can't tell the difference, but there is one, however minor.
Now we have CW with a giraffe statue. He said we had to get this for camio, I believe. So here you are.
CW with real giraffes this time.
Here we have a...snow leopard! This pretty girl was up close for us when we arrived. She was such a friendly kitty.
Both CW and the snow leopardess look to see something, but what it was, I do not know.
CW watches the snow leopard girl as she continues to stare at something we can't see.
On our second pass, as we had to make two passes of all the cats, I caught this pic.
And this one.
And one more even. You can't fault me for taking snow leopard pictures. I mean, come on now.
What's this, a lynx? Why yes, yes it is.
And one more.
Here, have a third picture.
Next we have mountain lions, cougars, or pumas. Have your pick of which.
One more of the cougars for good measure. They seem to be interested in something far off as well. Was it feeding time for everyone? I think it's always feeding time when you're a cat. What's that? Perhaps food. Food, where?!
Next, we come to the tigers.
I just didn't get good pictures of the tigers. CW and I had awesome luck with both the tigress and the snow leopardess, but people came up when I was trying to get pics and interrupted with their loud, vexing human selves. Cats shy away from loud, annoying...people. Here CW is watching the tigress, and she eventually came right up to the glass like the snow leopard did. I was taking video, which was awesome. But this girl walked up behind us chanting, "Crouching tiger...crouching tiger...crouching tiger." The tigress ended up shying away, too many people, and I was ready to kill, as I would rather not have my videos filled with inane ramblings of people I don't know. CW quipped something about "Where's the hidden dragon?", but the girl was clueless. Neither of us could understand how you could know the first half of the reference, enough to use it to the point of irking me, yet not know the second half...
I snapped this one and share it mostly for goldeagleradar
Atop the overlook, you can see CW with Colorado Springs spread out behind him. I'm not referring to him as 'the tyger' right now so as not to cause confusion with actual tigers. ;)
There was this statue of deer, and CW had to ham it up with a pose, but of course. All right, I kept telling him he had to get in some pictures this time around. So I think this one we're both guilty for.
Now for some real deer. That is, some actual, live, free roaming, wild, white tail, genuine Colorado deer were roaming through the zoo. I snapped a lot of pics. Here you go!
Hidden behind the colors of autumn...
We left, and those were the photos I had, but as I said before, I went back on my own Saturday. Here we have a squirrel. Rusty would approve, no doubt.
I believe CW and I completely missed these the day we went, so I had to get a few pics.
After the zoo, the Garmin led us to Panda's Express. Except it was now rush hour, and eventually we happened upon what had really clogged up the highway. There was an accident. So 45 minutes later, and 7 miles traveled, we found ourselves at a mall... "You have arrived." said the Garmin. We decided to see if the blasted thing meant there was a Panda's Express in the food court. So we set out to the mall. It was pretty fun really, an unexpected detour as it were. Eventually, after my being thoroughly impressed by the mall itself and CW finding some games to buy at a Gamestop, we headed back to the motel with food to go. It was not the best Chinese I've ever had, but still enjoyable. Chains are like that. You never know what you're going to get from one place to the next. I think CW liked his beef and broccoli though. Is that what he always gets? :P
We watched a few episodes of "The Whole Truth" he wanted to share with me before leaving to see a movie that night. It turned out to be a sort of 'dollar' theater where movies that have been out a while show, but we got to see something CW wanted to share with me. "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" is actually a lot better than I thought, very different, and amusing overall. I'm glad I had the experience. Admission was actually $1.50 a piece, but come on, that's cheap to see a movie.
That night we watched another episode of "The Whole Truth", at least I think we did, and in time, 3am again, got ourselves to bed. Day one down. I was looking forward to day two.
CW was up with my 10am wake-up call again. How does he do that? Leaving the motel, we were intent on trying our luck at the pizza place again. This time, we came down the street, against the Garmin's advice but common sense prevailed, and someone was pulling out of a parking spot just in time for us. We lucked out. CW paid the meter. Blasted parking meters anyway. Il Vicino Wood-Oven Pizza is quite good, and not over-priced considering it's a downtown eatery with character. It's certainly not a Pizza Hut, that's for sure.
With pizza in our bellies, we continued on our way. On today's agenda was Pike's Peak. I was interested in visiting some mountains, and the nearby(I'm not sure how near, actually) Renaissance Faire was closed for the season, Cave of the Winds interested the tyger, but he decided we'd go the mountain route so we'd both be happy. I wouldn't have minded the cave though. It's been over 20 years since I was there my first and only time.
This is concise, btw, for those of you wondering. I'm trying here. To the mountain!
They had a prescribed burn going on that day, but the sky was still clear, the sun shining brightly, the temperature comfortable, and the smell of wood smoke just added to the atmosphere. Occasionally we could see the smoke wafting up from the fire, but it was relatively mild. The drive was a lot of fun, with a stop at a gift shop along the way, pouncing through snow for me, and playing the Croc Adventure game CW bought at the Gamestop the Previous Day for CW.
Atop the mountain, there's another gift shop, this one much larger, and lots of scenic views to enjoy. CW pounced around on the rocks here, and I took photos. I wish I'd had a few more of myself taken, or that we'd actually thought to get one of the two of us. This is the second time I've seen him, and yet we've never gotten a photo of us both together!
And so here are the pics of Pike's Peak:
A closeup of CW atop Pike's Peak.
CW gazes out over the world, as it seems you can see the whole world from atop the mountain.
Of course, he had to see how much bounding over the rocky, mountain terrain he could manage, with thin air at 14k+ feet elevation.
I promised alpinewolfdog, I believe, that I'd post this. I'm saying this is a raven, though I do admit to having trouble telling the difference between ravens and crows.
CW managed to snap a pic of me, but I fear this is the only one from the entire trip. Oops. Well, he did tend to forget to bring his digi cam everywhere we went, and while I had mine, that meant I was the one taking all the pictures, and thus not in them.
I stopped at the mid-way gift shop so CW could look around the second time around, and while there ended up purchasing fudge. Cookies and cream and chocolate with nuts. I'd forget I had this and not eat any until after the tyger had departed. He never got to taste any, drat it all.
Down the mountain and to the Garden of the Gods we went. I stopped to figure out directions at a big visitor's center/gift shop. CW remained in the Jeep to see if he could save another animal in the Croc Hunter game.
I think my direction getting skills are flawed. Our journey through the Garden of the Gods was fun, but I got us lost at one point, completely out of the Garden, and into a residential neighborhood. I'm still not sure how I can get so turned around. We managed to get back to the correct road and meander back toward the main entrance/exit.
The pictures of the Garden of the Gods:
Most of the pictures are taken using my DV camcorder, which was not made for stills. This one of CW at Garden of the Gods shows just how terrible it is. The others aren't much better.
The lighting was wrong here, so it was hard to manipulate the photo so you could even see CW, but the background of the rock formations comes out well enough that you can at least tell where we were.
Just showing the rock formations that give the area its name.
One more. I wonder who named the place anyway.
I'd wanted to show CW some of the awesome stuff they had at the gift shop I'd gone into, but by the time we got there they were closed. Finding food was next on our list, and then we'd go back to the motel to get him packed up and ready to go to the bus station. We'd discovered something much to our amusement, also. The KFC we'd eaten at the previous day was just a block away from our motel. How we missed that before, we weren't sure. So this time we walked. It was easy and quick, and we hadn't much time at this point. CW had me watching the premier of "Burn Notice" as we ate and he then got his stuff together. Unfortunately, the episode was longer than an hour, some extended deal, and we ran out of time. So I didn't get to see it to conclusion. His bus was set to leave at 7:40pm, Colorado time. According to the web when he ordered the ticket, it was 8:25, I believe, but reality contradicted that. We'd discovered this the day before when he picked up his ticket. It's a good thing we found out early so we could be there on time.
I took him to the bus station, he went through the ritual of mass transit fun(yeah, really awesome), got his baggage tag(correction duly noted, tyger), headed out and stood in line, with me at his side until he had to board. Of course, that took no time at all, and he was on the bus. It all happened so fast, too fast really. It was a whirlwind visit, but I won't forget it. I suppose anyone who's actually read this far can tell that, eh?
I watched his bus depart, and teary-eyed went back to the motel alone. It's not easy to go back to being alone after having a friend around. I live in a small, rural, Texas town. I haven't any true friends here. I have people I work with, people I know, but no one I can really be myself around. So it was refreshing to be me for a while.
It was too late for me to head home that night, a 5 1/2 hour drive if I didn't stop. Besides, with all the road construction strewn along my route, it'd take at least an hour more. I decided to go see "Guardians of Ga'Hoole" at the theater CW and I had seen "The Chipmunks" a few years before when he was visiting. It was near the motel so not that hard to get to, and I did have the Garmin to lead me. I liked the movie, but it's always better to have someone to share these things with. Still, who doesn't love awesome owl goodness?
I stayed up entirely too late that night and repeated my sleep deprivation ways. Checkout time was 11am so I was up and gone before I wanted to be. I decided to go back to the zoo on my own, since I was there, and I just love seeing the big cats, and the Mexican wolves.
Then on my way home, I took a scenic detour for the heck of it. Fall colours were in full display, and it was awesome being up in the mountains.
Pics taken on the way home:
There's this rock formation in Colorado known as Stonewall. It's rather interesting, and the fall colors add to the beauty.
This is the actual, official formation, though it runs over quite a large area, intermittent, just appearing piece by piece. I call them all part of Stonewall, but that might not be correct. Ah well.
While on the same scenic route, I pulled off the road to take a picture of this serene, autumn scene. Again, my DV camcorder took awful pics and near ruined this one completely. Of the 4-5 I took of this, this is the best, if that says anything.
That's about it, I'm afraid to say. I arrived home just before 11pm that night, Central time. The scenic detour had delayed me, and then a detour due to road construction on the interstate in Trinidad got me rather turned around as darkness was falling, and I'm terrible at navigation when there's good lighting. ;) I do not enjoy detours in the dark that route you through residential areas. What the hey?
I hope everyone's enjoyed the recounting of CW and my adventure in Colorado. Now back to your regularly scheduled LJ perusal.