Day 3

After departing Corpus Christi it was about a 5 hour drive to Lake Amistad where i decided to stay that evening.  After all the driving I had done in the last 2 days I was beginning to hate being in the car, but it seemed Tess dreaded it even more then I did, as she became more reluctant to even get into the car.  But 5 hours later at about 5 pm we arrived at lake amistad where I began to set up my camp.   After having to watch the dog so closely all the time in San Antonio and on the beach it was a relief to let her off the leash and run around for awhile.  When I finished setting up my tent, I went to pay the $2 dollar fee, but realized I only had $1 on me, and couldn't even scrounge up a dollar in change.   So I went and talked to the camp host, and he was nice enough to let me camp without paying.  

As the sun was going down I decided to cook myself supper, something I had neglected to do the past few meals was to actually eat, so this meal would've tasted good no matter what.  I whipped together a hobo dinner, which I ended up using canned ham in (not too good by the way) and since I forgot tin foil I ended cooking it in a pot.  After all was cooked I enjoyed it and then went to bed.

The next morning I was awoken at 6 am by a hundred squawking ducks making a ruckus on the reservoir.  Annoyed I got up and tried to chase them off, but after making some loud noises, and throwing some rocks blindly in the dark was unsuccessful and went back to bed, ignoring the noise as best I could. 

Later that morning I got up, packed up and drove down to a nicer shore on the reservoir, where I was determined to try and get Tess to swim in the water (partly because she needed a bath).   So, in order to show her the water was alright, I took my shoes off and waded around in the shallows.  As I called her to come to me, all of a sudden she came in at a full sprint, ran through the shallows and jumped over a drop off in to 4 foot deep water.  At this point, she realized she didn't know how to swim and began to panic, struggling to keep her head above the water.  Fortuneatly she still had her leash on and I was able to pull her out.  After that traumatic experience it was difficult to get her to even step in the water at which point I gave up.  Then we walked back to the car where I dried her off and we went on our way back home.  Shortly before we arrived home I stopped at a little county park, where I let Tess off leash for a while to run some energy off and I think this was probably her favorite part of the trip.

Well, thats all for now, hope you enjoyed reading.

Thanksgiving 2009: Part 2

Departing San Antonio, it was about a 2 and a half hour drive down to the coast, but after the long drive the day before it went pretty quick.  With a few pit stops along the way stocking up on food, we arrived at Padre Island National Seashore around 4:30pm.  Initially my plan for this trip was to spend Thursday in San Antonio then then Friday and Saturday on the coast, driving back to Alpine on Sunday, but after arriving at Padre Island though I ended up changing my plans. 

As I pulled up to the entrance station and showed the attendant my park pass, he noticed Tess in the back seat and informed me about how several Coyotes had recently died in the park and about 3 visitors dogs had also died, and that bringing a dog into the park would be putting them at risk, since they didn't know what was killing these other dogs.  Concerned I drove to the visitor center to inquire some more information, where I talked to a few people who thought it might have something to do with the recent red tide (an algae, that when in bloom causes respiratory problems in people and animals and kills a lot of fish) thinking that the dogs must have ate something that had died as a result and washed ashore.  I also talked to another visitor who was there with her dogs and she assured me that if I was really careful to make sure Tessa didn't eat anything she should be alright.  After that I decided to at least stay the night, but was watching Tess like a hawk, since being a puppy she has to put everything she finds in her mouth.  This aspect made what was supposed to be a couple of relaxing days at the beach really stressful and so I decided to leave Saturday afternoon.

But while there we drove down the beach and set up our camp on the edge of the sand dunes about 150 feet from the ocean.

From there we were able to see a beautiful Sunset, a rainbow and a sunrise.  After spending the evening walking on the beach, watching Tess chase birds, it was time to settle in the tent.   However while reading before sleep, I noticed that sand kept blowing in under the rain fly and through the screen creating a sand drift in my tent.  So I spent the next hour or so remedying that problem, first I found a few logs I could use to close the gap between the ground and bottom edge of the rain fly once I had that in place I had to pile sand around it to further seal the gap.  However in the meantime more sand had blown into tent so I then need to take it all apart, take everything out of the tent, unstake the tent, and then shake out all of the sand, Followed by putting everything back together.  But when I was finished I had a sand proof barrier in place and slept pretty good that night.

The following morning after a simple pop tart breakfast I just relaxed and enjoyed the sun and beach.  I tried to go swimming but after wading up to waist in water something slimmy brushed my foot and after seeing a bunch of jelly fish I chickened out.  Then about noon I packed everything up and we headed to Lake Amistad National Recreation area near Del Rio, TX to finish out the weekend.

Thanksgiving 2009!

Since I live so far from home, I was not able to make it there this thanksgiving, so I decided instead to tour Texas a little.  First on the itinerary was San Antonio, I had heard a lot about this city including how nice the river walk is, as well as how there is a ton of crime.  Well, the first aspect turned out to be true, and I was fortunate enough to not experience the second aspect, although I can still imagine it to be true.

So here are the details...

Thursday Morning I woke up later then I had planned thanks to the stupid local radio station that went off air, leaving my radio alarm high and dry, but I was thankful for the extra sleep anyways.  So that morning I packed everything up and departed a little late then planned, but it didn't really matter anyway.  After a long and boring 5 hour drive, with very few stops along the way, I arrived in San Antonio and checked into the hotel.  After settling into my room, I knew that Tessa was quick needing some exercise after the long drive and I was also, so I decided that we would go and check out the river walk.   Unfortunately though my hotel was in the outer suburbs of the city and so we had to get back into the car and drive downtown.  When we got there we really lucky to find a parking spot on the street for free, and were able to go on foot from there.  After a short walk we were at the river walk and found it to be pretty sweet.  Basically just a river that winds through the city and has sidewalks on either side with all sorts of different shops along it.  Although I can't say I'm one for shopping, I did find the area rather picturesque.

As cool as the river walk was, Tess was not prepared for it.  This being her first time in a city all the sights and sounds overwhelmed her a little bit, not to mention all the people, with whom she had to try and meet everyone of.  After a harrowing hour or so of walking around, I decided she had had enough and we got back in the car to head back to the hotel where I put Tess up in her crate, and I went out for a Thanksgiving feast.  Unfortunately it being Thanksgiving very few resteraunts were open, and I eventually settled on Denny's where I was able to get a dinner plate consisting of sliced turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy and corn; everything you would expect a thanksgiving feast to consist of... and it was alright for Denny's.

The following morning after a usually crappy continental breakfast and checking out, I needed to run a few errands that I couldn't do in the small town of Alpine, including going to a bank, and getting my oil changed (in less then 30 min).   After that we headed back towards downtown, where this time we weren't so lucky in finding parking and ended paying to park in a garage where I left Tess in the car while I went exploring.  First off I went to the Alamo, which was kind of boring, it's really just an old building with a bunch of tourists.

After that I went and walked around the river walk some more and that really was about all I saw there.  I have to say San Antonio is a really nice city if it weren't for the homeless, I saw more homeless people there than I ever have in a city before.   Really it was hard to walk a single block without seeing at least half a dozen.

From there we were on the road again, this time with our sights on the ocean, Corpus Christi, well actually Padre Island National Seashore.

Stay tuned to read more...

Oh and all the photos from my trip can be viewed at my Picassa page linked here

Puppy Update

Well it's official, I've given her a name: Tessa or Tess for short.

She has been an amazing dog so far, being only 14 weeks old, she is pretty much already house trained and crate trained.  But she is a puppy, and therefore when she's not in her crate needs to be watched constantly.  Which was only reinforced in my mind when Thursday morning, while I was taking a quick shower she decided it would be fun to chew through the power cord for my computer.  Fortunately I was able to splice the cord back together with some electrical tape and was able to save myself the $80 of buying a new charger. 

I'm also struggling getting her to go on walks, which sounds weird for a dog, but whenever I get her down the driveway and onto the sidewalk she'll stop and start pulling back toward the house.  After doing some research this is apparently a phase that a lot of dogs experience and has to do with them being frightened of the world.  But I can't wait for this phase to end, because walks are a great way to tire her out so she's not so hyper. 

I have to say, while I knew that bringing a puppy home would be a huge change for her, I had no idea how much of a change it would be for me.  It's a lot of work taking care of her, and has been fairly stressful transition for myself, but now that its been a few days things are getting better.

Days 3 & 4 of CO trip

Sorry for the delay in finishing this trip details, New dog is quite a handful and keeping me busy.

Most of Day 3's climbing of Maroon Peak can be read here


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...After getting back into Aspen we stopped once again at the most affordable place in town, McDonalds, grabbed a quick bite to eat and then I began my trek home. After going over Independence pass again I bid farewell to Matt, Chris and Andy and the Dogs, then turned south. Initially my plan for that evening was to camp in the National Forest someplace outside Villa Grove, CO. As I was nearing that area I realized I would still be able to make a lot of progress driving some more that afternoon, shortening the amount of driving I would have to do the following day. So I kept going not really sure where I was going to sleep that night, part of me was really tempted to break down in stay in a hotel in Alamosa, but again as I arrived there I wanted to shorten the following days drive some more and kept going. Finally I came to the conclusion that I would try and find some national forest in Northern New Mexico to camp in, but when I finally got into New Mexico the sun had gone down, making finding a good camping spot rather difficult. After turning down several forest roads without any success, I was half tempted to just drive through the night, but as I kept going I was getting really tired, so finally I found one more forest road and turned down it, after a few minutes of driving around on this road, I managed to find a reasonable spot to set up my tent. As I got out of the car to investigate this site further, I suddenly heard voices in the distance, or at least I thought I had. After a few minutes of sitting and listening, followed by looking around more with the flashlight, I decided my mind was just playing tricks on me and went about setting up my tent. Regardless of my conclusion I was still uneasy about camping here, and it took a while for me to fall asleep.

Day 4
Once I managed to fall asleep, I slept really well, only to be woken by the wind sometime before sunrise.  Now that I was awake again, the fear of the unknown about what was around this area began to run through my head and I decided it was useless at this point to continue trying to sleep.   So I got up and began packing up my tent and getting ready for the day in the dark, never to see the area in the daylight.  Back on the road I Continued my trek, this time with a purpose of getting home, there would be no more recreational stops along this trip, just straight driving, and several hours later I arrived.

Day 2

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When I woke up in the next morning, after a semi restless night of trying to keep warm, it was a chilling 27 degrees and it turned out that all the few other people in the camp area had left shortly after the sun went down.  So, first thing was breakfast, which required the filtering of some more water, which is not a fun activity in freezing water.  Once I had the water the next task was getting the stove going, after fumbling around with it with numb hands, I got it going and started heating the water to make oatmeal.  After I devoured that, I had to take down my camp, pack up the car and head out.

Once I got back into Santa Fe I found the temps to be much nicer at the lower elevations, and wanting to see a little more of Santa Fe, I decided to see if there was an REI store in town, so that I could maybe purchase some last minute unessential items.  However, after driving around for a while I found no REI store and decided to continue on my way to Colorado.

Back on the highway headed north I bide my time listening to the radio, enjoying the scenery, but was mostly just bored.  It really is no fun to sit in a car by yourself for hours on end.  But when I finally crossed the state line the excitement began to build, suddenly the mountains were much taller and covered in a thin layer of freshly fallen snow probably from the same storm that at the time was plaguing the plains states and giving Matt, Chris and Andy a headache as they made their way westward.  At this point I was running way behind schedule since I didn't leave Santa Fe near as early as I had planned, but after checking in the other guys and hearing the slow progress they were making it turned out not to really matter.

My next destination after getting into Colorado was to visit the great sand dunes national park.  Turns out half this trip was about visiting sand dunes.  These sand dunes are very unique though, they're formed when streams and rivers in the San Juan Mountains in western CO grind the rocks into sand.  This sand is then carried by the wind across the San Luis Valley to the east where the winds hit the Sangre de Cristo mountains on the other side, depositing all the sand in one place.  This makes for some remarkable views, where standing at the base of the sand dunes the perspective makes the dunes look almost as tall as the mountains.

After driving up to the base of the dunes, I was really tempted to climb the tallest dune, but not know exactly how much time I had before I was to meet the other guys in Aspen, I decided against it and just ended up hiking around on some of the smaller dunes, but someday I'll be back to reach the highest dune.  After being there a fairly short while it didn't take long before I had sand filling my shoes and  pockets and decided to get out of the blowing sand and back to the car.  I would later find sand haunting me the rest of the trip.  Back in the car I drove through the rest of the park, and then hit the road and this time was Aspen bound. 

A few hours later as I was nearing Aspen, I decided to pull over on the side of the highway and wait for the other guys to arrive.  Having been to Aspen once before and knowing what Colorado ski towns are like, I knew that without having a place to stay and not knowing anyone there it would be very difficult to find any public place to park and wait, thus the decision to wait outside of town.  While I waited I read some, but it seemed like an eternity and  I quickly got restless.  After making a few attempts to call Matt without him answering, I figured he was some where near independence pass where cell service cuts out (the high mountain passing leading from aspen to Arkansas river valley on the other side)  So tired of sitting and waiting I drove down into town and followed some signs to "public parking" hoping to find a public place I could wait, turns out though public parking isn't free.  So I parked next to a park and waited there briefly until a few locals started looking suspiciously at me and then ended up driving around town, awaiting Matt, Andy and Chris' arrival.

When they finally arrived we met on the side of a road, and discussed options for places to eat, using my GPS we decided on a place that sounded awesome "The Kickin' Chicken Pizza Kitchen"  but as we drove to it, we were unable to find it and had to settle for McDonalds.

Once we were done eating we made our way to the Trailhead to camp...  read the rest of the day and most of the next here

Exciting News

I know I promised to finish posting the rest of the Colorado trip, and in due time I will, but first...

Well, after a year of going back and forth on getting a dog I finally did it...

She is a brown lab mixed with something to be determined (possibly German Shepard) and is 3.5 months old.

I have yet to name her, the name the humane society gave her is Katie but I plan to change that once I figure out what (any suggestions let me know)

I'm told she is close to being housebroken, and as of day 1 there have been no accidents, we'll see what the night brings though.

and she is a very gentle and submissive dog.

I'm really excited to finally have a dog again, but also a little nervous about the responsibility (not to mention the financial portion), so hopefully this all works out and she'll be the dog I've been dreaming of.

10/19/09 - Pic of the Day

From Pic of the Day

Day 1 of CO trip

I was so excited to post the trip report about the climb on North Maroon Peak that I left out everything about the rest of the trip, so following this post will be the other days of the trip, Enjoy...


Day 1


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Having to work on Friday, I devised a scheme to get me CO bound a little quicker.  For work we had set up two forest inventory plots in north Hudspeth CO here in Texas, one for Thursday and one for Friday, with the intent of me following Charles (my resource specialist) up in my personal vehicle and departing for CO after finishing the plot.  Well it turned out the first plot we visited on Thursday was non-forested and thus took us all of 20 minutes to look at (including the hike).  So with a bunch of time left to fill the day we drove to the other plot, which was close to the highway, this one too turned out to be non-forest also.  Well, with no plot set up for Friday, I was free to make my way to CO.

So I packed up my car Thursday night and after a good night sleep, woke up and departed early at 7am .  Knowing that my counterparts (Matt, Chris, and Andy) would only be leaving sometime that evening I had a good deal of time to kill in the drive.  So I decided to do a little sight-seeing along the way, with the first destination being White Sands National Monument in New Mexico.  After a long drive which included, driving on the wrong side of the road in Van Horn (guess I was still a little tired), navigating through El Paso (which is a city best avoided) and a surprise Border Patrol Checkpoint (just outside of White Sands which was close to 100 miles from the nearest border crossing) I finally made it.  And it was well worth, White Sands if nothing else is definitely something worth seeing.  As you make your way from the highway the landscape changes from typical chihuahuan desert to a fairly barren landscape with gray colored sand to sand so white you would think it was snow.  And while I can say White Sands is a sight to behold, other then that there isn't a whole lot to do in the park.  Having only 3 hiking trails in which one was 5 miles, too long for the amount of time I had to spend there, and the other two being less then a half mile;  and although it is a popular place to go sledding, not having a sled and unwilling to buy a sled at the visitor center, I spent very little time here; merely driving through climbing a dune and snapping some photos and I was again on my way.

Back on the Highway I had a long, boring drive ahead.  Heading North on US 54 through central New Mexico is no treat.  Surrounded by nothing but desert for miles in either direction for most of the way on a road that has a speed limit of 55, which is way to low for what this road is, I pushed on counting each turn I made as nothing but progress towards a greater destination.  As I approached the outskirts of Santa Fe on US 285, traffic began to increase and I counted this as sign that I was soon approaching my destination for the evening.

Prior to leaving on this journey I looked up several camping spots outside of Santa Fe that I could stay at for a night, and now that I was in Santa Fe I soon realized I had no idea how to get to them.  Fortunately I have a GPS and once I found a place to pull over I was able to look at it and eventually find the road that I needed to be on to get there.  As I drove through Santa Fe I began to fall in love with the town.  It is unlike any city I have ever been in before, there are very few main roads going through it, and it consists mostly of side streets, and all of the houses are adobes creating a feel unfamiliar to a city.  All this and it's relation to a national forest and places to recreate make Santa Fe seem like it would be an excellent place to live.  Eventually I made it into the national forest and was met with a pleasant scenic drive up a winding valley into the mountains where the Aspen were unfortunately past their peak color, nevertheless it was a quick reminder to me that fall actually exists outside of Texas, and then I finally arrived at the camping area I had in mind.

As I approached I saw that there were a lot of cars in the parking lot and my heart sunk as I quickly assumed that all these people were here to camp.  But as I got out and inspected the situation I soon found that all of the campsites but 3 were open, while the rest of the people were using the nearby hiking trails, and I would eventually find out why so few people were camping.  The day before I left Alpine the temps. were in the upper 80's so here I was relieved to find the temps a refreshing mid 40's, but it wouldn't stay that way for long.

Well after inspecting all of the available sites I decided I did not want to camp next to the highway, and choose a campsite a little further back from the parking area and thus had to make several trips carrying all of my gear from the car.  So, once I had everything I needed from the car, I began to set up my tent and settle in, but before I could make myself supper I had to filter some water from a nearby gentle stream, which only added to the experience.  Once I had all the water I needed I made the standard backpacking meal consisting of a fine prepackaged lipton meal that I spruced up by combining with a can of chicken, I topped it all off with dessert consisting of a brownie I had made some time before I left, but was all the more amazing in that situation.  Then I got comfortable in my tent, and read a little before drifting off to sleep. Well as cold as it was when I arrived as I slept it got much colder through the night, no wonder no else wanted to camp here

Pic of the Day

In addition to bringing you all posts about my recent adventures, I also had this idea I like to call pic of the day.  With this I plan on trying to post a picture every day (although I can't guarantee it will be every day, it may very well be every few days, or less) that I took, showing something cool I saw.  And since I travel a lot for my job here with the TX forest service, I thought it would be interesting for people to see some of the cool things I see on a daily basis.  Also, I thought it would be cool if using google maps I could link the photo to a map showing approximately where the photo was taken.

You'll be able to access my Pic of the Day through my picasa page, which is linked below and on the list of links on the lower right side of the page

So with that I give you the first pic of the day...

Pic of the Day - 10/15/09

North Maroon Peak

So to really kick this site off right, here's the trip report from last weekends attempt on North Maroon Peak.

After getting into Aspen relatively late Saturday night and meeting up with the rest of the party (Matt, Chris, Andy and 2 Dogs), we drove up to the trail head to camp for the evening.  After a little confusion about fees and where to camp we set up in the parking lot, and began preparing for the trek in the morning by getting all of our gear together.   Once we were all settled in our tents, due to the anticipation of what is hoping to be an awesome summit the following day, and after drifting in and out of sleep the alarms finally went off and we were up at 5:00.  Despite little sleep, we were all so excited no one was tired and thus we immediately went about packing up camp, grabbing only what could be considered the finest of breakfasts (cosmic brownies) and making some last minute preparations, we were off. 

Initially following the trail in the dark was pretty simple, but it didn't take long before we came to a bridge and realized we had missed a turn on the trail.  This would unfortunately turn out to be a recurring theme for the day.  After a little backtracking we were again going the right way and starting to gain some elevation.

After about 2 miles and a decent amount of elevation gain, Andy, as agreed upon took the dogs back down to the car to await our return.   Shortly thereafter we again missed another split in the trail and ended up going about a half mile out of the way.  But after some more back tracking we were once again on the right path again, but at this point things began to get tricky and fun.  Since this part of the trail had not been used since the last snow and was increasingly difficult to follow, however we had photos of the trail (courtesy of 14ers.com) that allowed us, after once again a short detour in the wrong, to manageably stay headed in the correct direction. 

After crossing a minor boulder field near 11,000 ft we turned and headed up a steep section, gaining about 500 ft of elevation over 400 ft of travel, only to be met at the top of this section with a 10 ft tall rock wall that requires a few class 3 moves, but was made more difficult to get over due to the snow.

From there we continued up through a boulder field, which was particularly difficult to hike through because the snow made walking difficult and made it even harder to find solid rocks to step on.  But we continued on, taking turns in the lead.

Shortly thereafter at about 11,400 feet we took a break and got something to eat and drink, and then continued hiking into a more level and easy stretch.  By this time, however; it was beginning to get a little later in the afternoon then we were comfortable with, and the added stress the snow was adding to this venture (not to mention Matt's recent bout with swine flu, slowing him down, ha) we came to a conclusion that we were not going to be able to reach the summit this time.  So we turned around and hiked back to the trucks. 

As we approached the lakes below maroon peak, we realized that the area which was peaceful and deserted at 5:30 that morning was now swarming with people out for day hikes (I can only imagine how bad it is in the summer).  But regardless we were enjoying ourselves and nothing could detract from the beauty of the place.  Shortly after snapping a few post card photos of the peaks we were on our way back to Aspen.

Live & Play: an Introduction

Hello all,

Today marks the beginning of my documentation of my adventures in life.  From now on I will hopefully be able to keep you all updated with the great adventures in my life, but that's not all, I will also try to, from time to time, add posts about interesting things that happen while going about life.

Also, you can view photos from my latest adventures, through the picasa links on the right side of this page.

Well I hope you all enjoy, and feel free to leave comments about things