Ilanarama!

vacation pictures #8: trail's end

2008-07-02T04:06:41Z

From Escalante we drove back toward Colorado on the Burr Trail, which is the more scenic and slower route. It passes through the dramatic redrock of Long Canyon, where we explored a little side canyon and I photographed some really cool stripey rock; then it descends across the Waterpocket Fold (the south end of Capitol Reef National Park) and joins the north-south Notom-Bullfrog road. We'd taken this road twice before; once we'd gone north to Hanksville and once we'd gone south to the Bullfrog ferry across Lake Powell. This time, armed with a guide to the backways of Utah, we went east, across the Henry Mountains. These granite peaks are weirdly out of place in the sandstone country; volcanic forces uplifted them, and then the sandstone eroded around them. Unfortunately, in 2003 there was a huge fire which absolutely toasted the forests in the Henrys, because otherwise it would have been a lovely and cool oasis in the desert. After routefinding our way across the pass and through the mountains, we headed Coloradoward, stopping at the overlook where Lake Powell backs up into the Colorado River. There were a bazillion places we would have loved to explore, but it was time to go home.

All 111 pictures from the trip (and let me tell you, that's only a fraction of the photos on the hard drive!) are in my Utah/Arizona 2008 set on Flickr.

vacation pictures #7: Escalante River, Utah

2008-07-01T02:25:54Z

To wind down our trip, we revisited the Escalante area. (We were most recently there in the fall with friends: photos | lj post.)

We camped out on Spencer Flat between the towns of Escalante and Boulder, where we saw a fantabulous sunset and alpenglow on the sandstone, then drove to the Escalante River trailhead on Utah 12 near Calf Creek Falls. There we met a BLM ranger, who was Our Kind of person, so we chatted for a while before setting out for the Escalante Natural Bridge, a couple of miles upstream.

Along the way we saw many wildflowers, including the ubiquitous globe mallow, which is really quite pretty, I think. Also, we saw a huge snake - the photo doesn't really hint at the scale: this guy was five feet long, at least, and as thick as my arm - which I looked up when I got home and discovered was a Bull (or Gopher) Snake.

Finally, we got to the Escalante Natural Bridge, which is really incredible; it's a massive stone arch over a side canyon, just set out a little from the alcove of the canyon. Hard to photograph, a remarkable place. We had lunch there and ran into the BLM ranger again; we asked him about petroglyphs and ruins, and he said, oh yeah, just look real careful when you go upcanyon to the skyline arch (another half mile upstream), and also about halfway between here and the trailhead (which we had missed on the way up). Sure enough, we found both sets of ruins he mentioned - and I'm sure there were plenty more that we missed. The teaser photo is of a petroglyph close to the ruin pictured below. Many of the petroglyphs had been defaced by more modern graffiti, and if you look closely on the wall behind the ruin you'll see EEK written above the red migraine-y wavy line.

Then we hiked back downstream, pretty much literally; the trail crossed the river about fifty bazillion times (okay, six) but the cool, calf-deep water felt so nice, and the day had become so hot, that on the way back we abandoned the trail for the stream bed. Between crossings, where nobody could see us, we stripped down and washed off. (At least, we thought we were far enough away from the crossings, but later we noticed we were actually within view of one, so apologies to anyone we flashed :-)

OMG only one more set to go. I may actually get all these posted before our next backpack on the July 4th weekend.

ETA also, I am amused that on Flickr, "naked me" has more views than any of my other photos in this batch. Reminds me of everyone wanting to see my boobies.

vacation pictures #6: Cottonwood Canyon and Bryce Canyon NP, Utah

2008-06-26T16:26:39Z

I figured I'd better get to the rest of our vacation pictures before we went on another vacation :-)

Cottonwood Canyon is about 50 miles of dirt road that connects the Paria-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness and US 89 with Utah 12 between Bryce Canyon NP and Escalante, going north-south along Comb Ridge. It's known as a scenic drive for many reasons, among them Grosvenor Arch:

We left the Coyote Buttes (remember them?) and headed north on the Cottonwood Canyon road to find a place to camp. The next day, we continued to the southern Cottonwood Canyon Narrows trailhead, then bike-shuttled to the northern trailhead, locked our bikes to a tree, and hiked down the narrows. This was an okay slot canyon with some big walls, but the best parts were the two short side-slots that ended in dramatic dead ends.

We then continued north to Bryce Canyon:

We snagged a spot in the North Campground late in the afternoon, then did a little hiking around the rim, looking down into the bowls of eroded rock formations. The next day we hiked the 8-mile Fairyland Loop trail, which took us down into the canyons among the hoodoos. One nifty formation on this trail is the "Tower Bridge," which looks like a side view of a castle tower and drawbridge, or maybe like two Daleks shaking hands. I dunno.

There were also natural bridges and skinny towers and exotic palaces and otherworldly landscapes with otherworldly creatures. Or at least, that's what they looked like to me.

I want to mention one other thing we did while at Bryce, even though I don't have photos. Two evenings a week they have an astronomy program; the auditorium talk was only okay (very pitched to J. Average Tourist who knows nothing about science) but afterward they had four big telescopes set up in the visitor's center parking lot, manned by "Dark Rangers" and retired volunteers who showed us all sorts of interesting things. We saw Saturn and its moons, various galaxies and nebulae, and what to me was the coolest, a double star in which one star was distinctly blue and the other distinctly yellow. (Also, for my fannish friends: we saw the "Stargate Asterism" which was named for the TV show - it's a very unnatural-looking pattern of six stars forming concentric triangles.) The "Dark Rangers" and volunteers were basically a bunch of astronomy geeks who were jazzed about showing the tourists cool stuff, and we ended up getting back to the van at midnight!

Or, straight to Flickr: Cottonwood Canyon photos (5) and Bryce Canyon NP photos (14).

George Carlin memorial haiku

2008-06-23T15:04:09Z

In memoriam:
Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker
Motherfucker, Tits.

another 13.1 down

2008-06-21T23:37:01Z

Well, I finished the half marathon, but I didn't make my goal of breaking 2 hours. Which is probably because 1) I was coming back from an injury that really cut a hole in my training, 2) I tried to stay with three other runners going for 9 minute miles, and I knew it was too fast for me, and I stayed with them for 7 miles, which probably wasn't good strategy as this is the first time I haven't made negative splits, and 3) JEEBUS IT'S HOT. Over 70 at the start, 83 at the (uphill and unshaded) finish. Not sure what my time was exactly, but 2:03-ish, which is worse than my first half some years back. Oh, well.

off to breck

2008-06-16T15:11:58Z

I still have two more sets of photos to sort through, rotate, and upload the good ones to Flickr. Aren't you excited? *crickets* But I won't be able to do so for a bit, as today I'm off to Breckenridge for a work conference-slash-boondoggle. Britt's coming with me, as are our mountain bikes. \o/ Damn, I love living in Colorado.

vacation pictures #5: south coyote buttes

2008-06-12T03:10:42Z

I...I'm going to have to punt, here. Because the South Coyote Buttes are so mind-blowingly magnificent - the colors, the shapes, the sheer abstract artistry - that I really don't have anything to say. I've uploaded thirty pictures to my Flickr site, and you can find them all here. Or do the slideshow thing. There's a sliver of moon over a butte, there's a weird tower with a window in it, there are stripes, there are squiggles, there's a couple pictures of me. Um, yeah. Ogg say: sandstone nifty, make pretty pictures.

vacation pictures #4: Buckskin Gulch

2008-06-12T01:01:07Z

As it was when we were there a few days ago, the Paria Ranger Station was a total zoo with people wanting permits for the North Coyote Buttes ("the Wave") when we showed up at 9. One guy, Lynn, was there for the 8th consecutive day - a record! (You get extra chances if you come consecutive days. Lynn had been on his third day when we came the first time, but wasn't drawn.) Most people are in groups of at least two, but during the drawing, a single woman was chosen, so at the end of the drawing, there was a single space available. The volunteer doing the drawing told us that if any of us were drawn who were with companions, we'd have to choose who got to go. Spontaneously, Britt offered to donate our chance to Lynn, and several people followed suit. The last slot was drawn - and it was ours! So Lynn got to go, finally, and he thanked us profusely. We will have to put off North Coyote Buttes for another day, but I inquired about South Coyote Buttes, and was told that there were 10 slots available - and if fewer than 10 people wanted to go, we'd automatically get a permit for the next day. So we signed up, and got a permit; but that meant we had to find something to do for this day.

Several years ago, Britt and I had done the famous backpack (which also requires permits in advance, now) from the Wire Pass trailhead through Buckskin Gulch, which is an absolutely amazing backpackable slot canyon, to its confluence with Paria Canyon, and then up Paria Canyon back to its trailhead. It's an absolutely magnificent three-day hike. The thing is, most people (including us) do it from the Wire Pass trailhead, which goes through a side canyon (which is also a wonderful slot canyon) rather than from the Buckskin Gulch trailhead. Dayhiking these canyons doesn't require a permit in advance. I figured, since we had our bicycles, we could park at the Buckskin Gulch trailhead, bicycle the four miles to the Wire Pass trailhead, lock our bikes to the rack there, then hike in to the confluence (about a mile and a half), explore Buckskin Gulch downstream a little, then go back upstream and hike out (about five miles) to the Buckskin Gulch trailhead. So that's what we did.

One of the cooler (and possibly scarier) aspects of hiking in this slot canyon was seeing the amazing logjams and driftwood that had accumulated high in the canyon during flash floods.

We also played the "Rorschach game" a lot with pieces of driftwood that looked like creatures, and swirls of sandstone that looked like...I don't know what. You decide.

As we reached the upper end of Buckskin Gulch, the walls became lower and lower, which was actually kind of cool, also. When we emerged into the light, we could see tortured sandstone buttes, swirls of colored rock, that looked a lot like the famous Coyote Buttes that we had to get a permit for - but these were unknown (or lesser-known, anyway), so we didn't have to share them with anyone.

vacation pictures #3: biking Gooseberry Mesa, Utah

2008-06-10T23:08:28Z

After two days in Zion NP (and five days of our road trip) we were desperately in need of a shower. We left the park and drove into Springdale, the town just outside the south entrance, and bought showers at a small outfitter's store that some of the people we'd talked to in the campground had recommended. While I showered, Britt chatted with the guy behind the counter about canyoneering, rock climbing, hiking and biking, and ended up buying a mountain-bike map and getting a recommendation for Gooseberry Mesa. The couple we'd camped next to (the ones with the shiny red Sportsmobile) had mentioned it as a nice place to camp for free on BLM land with a great set of biking trails. So that's where we headed.

It was indeed pretty nifty. We found an out-of-the-way spot to set up the van, and then went exploring on the bikes. The next day, we did two different rides. First we rode the "Windmill Loop," which involved taking a dirt road across the mesa to the north edge, then riding back along the edge on a trail that wound through brush and slickrock and was sometimes literally on the edge. Then, after lunch back at the van, we rode the "Practice loop" trail, which was like a slickrock playground, then followed the jeep road which cuts completely across the mesa to the cliffs at the far west end. (It was a very cool jeep road, alternating slickrock and sand, and one that I was much happier to bike than drive.)

Neither of us are particularly skilled mountain bike riders, so we stuck to the easier trails. This also meant we didn't have to keep our eyes glued on the trail all the time, and could instead look around at all the cool scenery, including the remarkable red and white cliffs that fanned out from the mesa, and the beautiful flowers. (Cactus flower picture especially for jeddy83. Note that there are two different color flowers on the same cactus, and that one of the flowers has a bee in it, enjoying a good nectar wallow.)

(By the way: for those of you not familiar with Flickr, if you click on any of the pictures I posted, you will go to the Flickr page for that photo, from which you can look at other size versions. I uploaded all of these as 1024x768, and it's worth looking at the large version of the stripey cliff picture. And just wait until the next two batches - we got into some incredibly photogenic places.)

After our rides, we headed south, over the mesa on the other side, then east through Fredonia and the national forest just north of the Grand Canyon, and then finally back north along House Rock Road, which lies along the Paria - Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness. We camped about five miles south of the ranger station we'd visited on our third day (yes, we were going in circles), planning to go the next morning and try again for a Coyote Buttes permit. (And we saw jackrabbits at our camp spot. Can you see them?)

vacation pictures #2: Zion National Park, Utah

2008-06-09T03:50:46Z

We arrived at Zion about noon, nervous about the prospect of getting a campsite, but it turned out that not only were there several sites free, one of them was next to two other Sportsmobiles! (Not the greatest photo, but if you're curious about what our van looks like...) It was kind of like the boating days when we hailed anyone with the same make of boat - it gave us an excuse to come over with beers and chitchat.

Britt had been somewhat reluctant to visit because he remembered Zion from an earlier visit long ago as crowded, noisy, and polluted due to all the traffic; I'd never been, so I really wanted to come. Well, it turns out that in 2000 cars were banned from the valley other than propane-fueled shuttle buses. We bicycled up the peaceful canyon and it was magnificent. (Full disclosure: I'm actually biking down in this picture.) That first afternoon we biked the length of the canyon and did two short hikes: the paved path at the head of the canyon (which gives access to the Narrows, which were closed because of high water flow on the Virgin River) and the Emerald Pools hike, which took us to three different waterfalls.

The next day, we biked upcanyon again with all our hiking gear and set out to hike to Observation Point, a more ambitious climb of about 2300 feet in 3.6 miles. (I'd originally wanted to go up Angel's Landing, like all the tourists to, but when I noticed Observation Point was way higher I picked that. Also, I figured there'd be fewer tourists.) The trail began with some serious switchbacks and then entered beautiful Echo Canyon, which is the canyon in the teaser photo above:

Then we broke out over a saddle and hiked up the steep back of a mesa = more switchbacks, sometimes carved into the rock thanks to the hardworking CCC who did so much in the national parks in the 30s. Trees clung to the steep rocky slopes by extending their roots whereever they could find purchase; because of the harsh environment they were all twisted and gnarled.

If you have been paying attention you will have noticed I'm wearing a lot more in the last phot than I was in the one above it. Yep, the weather turned icky on us, although it never really poured down but only sprinkled. Still, when we got to the summit the valley was filled with mist and rain. As we hiked back along the mesa, just before we started our descent, we were rewarded with a sunnier view. (By the way, the famous Angel's Landing is the skinny right-center mesa top in the misty picture.)

We backtracked down the trail most of the way, to where the Hidden Canyon trail branches off about a mile from the trailhead. (If you looked at the "switchback" picture, the Observation Point trail goes to the left, and the smaller trail to the right is the Hidden Canyon one.) Yep, more switchbacks. And also more ledges chiseled out of the rock to serve as trails. Some parts of the trail were narrow enough that chains were bolted to the rock to serve as handrails for nervous tourists; generations of nervous tourists repeatedly grabbing the chains had caused them to rub grooves into the soft sandstone in many places.

After visiting Hidden Canyon, we went down to look at Weeping Rock, too, for a total mileage of something on the order of 10.5 miles and 3000 feet elevation gain. Woo.

In addition to all the pretty macro scenery, there was a lot of very nice micro scenery, as the wildflowers were in bloom in a big way. Here are just a few of the photos we took (prickly pear cactus flowers on the left, Palmer's Penstemon on the right); more can be seen on Flickr by searching our wildflower+zion tags.

Or just see all 21 photos without the blah blah blah on our Flickr page, tag: zion.

vacation pictures #1: Peach Wash, AZ

2008-06-07T02:13:57Z

Our first night was spent at the free campground of Navajo National Monument, although to our disappointment it turned out that they were not yet running tours to the ruins. The next day we drove toward Page AZ, where Britt vaguely remembered a slot canyon - a tributary to Navajo Canyon - that he'd visited a few times in college and wanted to see again. After a few false starts, we finally found the correct jeep road leading off toward the canyons. Which alas had a fence across it courtesy of the power company (it ran under the power lines and was probably intended for tower access, not for hiker access). We parked there and then hiked the mile or so to the OMG scary steep gully access into Peach Wash (lots of big steps down big drops, chimneying, etc.) and then, yay, beautiful slot canyon, where we found Peaches (pictured above) lying in the sand. We were stopped from going downstream by big pools of water (it was cloudy - in fact, it was threatening rain, and the only reason I agreed to go into the canyon was that Britt pointed out the storm was downcanyon rather than upcanyon of us - and the idea of getting soaked wasn't appealing) but upstream we managed to go quite a ways before getting stopped by a muddy plunge pool.

Then we retraced our steps to the exit, which unfortunately had become no less steep during our explorations. We went up and out, started hiking back, and then the heavens cut loose on us and we got very, very wet, or at least our rain gear did, as we pulled it on as soon as we felt the first drops. Got back to the van, got inside, got dry, drank hot chocolate, and then headed to Page to fuel up. We spent the night on BLM land just a little ways up Cottonwood Gulch, near the Paria Ranger Station. Our plan was to see if we could get a walk-in permit for the North Coyote Buttes (the area known as "the Wave," which has been popularized by a German travel programme and is now heavily controlled, i.e., impossible to get into) but alas, no luck (47 people trying for 10 slots) and so we continued on to Zion National Park.

back, more or less

2008-06-04T19:15:49Z

Been gone a while, first to the Colorado State Democratic Convention (you can read my write-up at the Denver Post's PoliticsWest blog here - and haha, four out of our five CD3 delegates were elected from the Western Slope, including one guy from our county) and then off to Utah and Arizona for what was going to be a week but stretched into two because, mmm, Utah and Arizona.

Shakedown cruise of our shiny new-to-us Sportsmobile went A-OK! Even though it's rather painful filling the tank (30-40 gallons * $4.50-$4.90 diesel = ow ow ow) we only had to do it twice during our two weeks out; what a contrast from our old RV which got less than half the mpg and had about half the tankage. Of course gas then (2005, when we sold it) cost about half what diesel does today....

Used 4WD four times, twice on long, nasty jeep roads to and from trailheads, and twice briefly to get out of sand or mud hazards. Mostly camped in pull-outs off BLM or NFS land, but spent 1 night in free campground and 4 nights in definitely not free but still damn primitive NPS campgrounds. Hiked between 4-10 miles every day except for one day when we did a bunch of mountain biking instead; a couple of days we both biked and hiked, either because we were using the bikes to shuttle between trailheads and make a loop, or because we used the bikes to access the trailhead (in Zion, which was YAY). Oh, except for one day in the middle when we totally vegged out. Took about a bazillion pictures which I shall be putting on Flickr and annotating here.

I want to be still on vacation, damn it. I am not sleeping half so well in my own bed as I did under the van's pop-top. I suddenly have all this $%#@! work to do, and my house is a mess of dust and cat hair, and my lawn needs a haircut, and so do I. And there are all these photos that need rotating and uploading and captioning. And I want to write about our awesome trip. So I'm going to (try to) stay away from my friendslist and see if I can manufacture some spare time that way. If you have posted something I should see, point me to it.

in which my job is fun

2008-05-14T20:13:13Z

As some of you know, I am somewhat underemployed - not that I mind. I do end up doing a lot of mindless drudge work that really doesn't need my advanced degrees. On the other hand, sometimes the mindless drudge work is kind of cool.

One of the things I do is publish climate model data to the Earth System Grid, a web interface to a distributed data library. Users need accounts to retrieve the data. I have a list of all of the institutions people have listed on their account information and am going through the list with Google, Wikipedia, and Wikimapia, making a spreadsheet of institution names, URLs, and latitudes and longitudes with which to make a Google Earth KML file that will show all the places our users come from. It's sort of like archaeology, starting with a fragment of pottery (CIHEAM-bari, IRI, PIK) and trying to recreate who, what, and where. Plus, yay for getting paid for playing around the web all day!

spring is sprung, it's time for river running

2008-04-24T15:10:59Z

The problem with having nice friends who invite you on river trips and loan you nifty inflatable kayak thingies is that then you get all covetous and want to spend money and get your own.

That's me on the Dolores river, paddling the Fat Cat, which is kind of like a cross between a kayak and a cataraft. Steve and his girlfriend Sue are on the cataraft in the background, and Britt, who took the picture, is in an inflatable kayak (duckie). Britt and I traded crafts on and off, but I felt a lot more confident in the Fat Cat and used it in all the named (class II and III) rapids. Part of it was because the cat is more stable and the seat's higher, so I could see better, but part of it was because during my first stint in the duckie, the wind was blowing really hard (well, it was blowing most of the trip!) and one astonishingly strong gust overturned the duckie and knocked me into the water. Yep, I took a spill in flatwater - and had no problem with any of the rapids. Clearly, I have a very special talent. Sigh.

The Dolores is a nifty river. The section from Slickrock to Bedrock (yabba-dabba-dooo!) starts out in a fairly open valley which the river paradoxically travels through crosswise; the valley subsided after the river was entrenched. Then it enters a classic desert sandstone canyon which was occupied by pre-Puebloan cultures who left plenty of artwork behind:

Our camp the first night was in the alcove with these pictographs and petroglyphs. Note that we didn't bother with the tent fly, because the sandstone wall would have protected us from any rain.

We stopped from time to time to hike up interesting side canyons. Which was sometimes a little less than comfortable in a wetsuit. Also, it wasn't all that easy to stop wherever we wanted, because the relatively high water level (1300 cfs) washed out many of the eddies, so it was swift water from bank to bank, and the water was often deep right up to the shore. (In fact, we missed one nice side hike because I totally couldn't manage to get my boat up and out quickly enough, and got washed downstream, and the others were nice enough to come follow me...)

(The Dolores is dam-controlled, and normally runs only 50 cfs or so - not enough to boat. Most but not all springs, they release enough water for a few weeks of river-running, but this wet winter means a relatively long boating season with an unusually high water level. We rafted it years ago, when we were living in Boulder and had a raft, and it was probably something between 800-1000 cfs.)

Steve hiking up Bull Canyon:

Sue, Steve, and me at the big alcove drop-off at the upper end of Bull Canyon:

Hee, you can tell that Britt is more interested in the scenery than in the people. We're just there for scale, I think. A couple more river pictures:

I should add that we drove our NEW SPORTSMOBILE YAY out to do this trip (well, it's just a couple hours west of here) and we camped in it the night before we put in - everything seemed to work beautifully. I'm pretty excited about the prospect of more desert trips this spring, and mountain trips this summer.

Except now I want a Fat Cat. (Britt wants just a regular inflatable kayak, like the Aire he was using, which costs maybe a couple hundred $ less - not much difference, really.) Steve got his at the Outdoor Retailer show in Salt Lake, which we went to last year and came back from with all sorts of schwag and pro-deal stuff. So the question is, do we shell out the money for the boats now, so we can play all spring and summer, or do we wait until OR in August and maybe save a thousand bucks between the two of us? Thing is, this is a wet year, and there are a lot of tiny rivers which are not normally runnable that we could do. Like the Escalante, which is very tempting - remember this picture from our hike last year? It's runnable maybe one year in five. And this is it. Steve offered to loan us his boats again - but then reconsidered, because he wants to come with us, and he'd need one of them! Then again, we could just rent inflatable kayaks, which I'd be fine with as long as we did flatwater rivers. Decisions, decisions.

But I think we will go to OR again. I guess I should work on our website so it looks a little more legitimate... :-)

oh hai

2008-04-07T14:35:38Z

Wow, has it been a month? Um, distracted with my other journal? Distracted with politics? Distracted with...ooh, shiny!

Yeah, I'm kind of like that. I still read my flist on this journal, never fear (although pretty much just once a day or every few days).

Today is my wedding anniversary. Britt's been putting up with me for 17 years of official wedded bliss (plus a bit more than a year of living in sin). The man deserves a medal, he does.

Anyway, we are busily tarting up our Sportsmobile and hope to do a shakedown long-weekend cruise to Utah this weekend - that will be a good start to getting back to this journal's usual pictures of outdoorsy stuff.

the next adventure

2008-03-05T16:42:41Z

This weekend we are headed up to Laramie to look at a used Sportsmobile. It's a lot like our old Westfalia Synchro, except, you know, with an actual engine instead of a hamster wheel. Absurdly expensive, too. Um, yay?

Gary Gygax memorial haiku

2008-03-04T20:50:21Z

Saving throw dice fall
but we all, ultimately,
use up our hit points.

you know you live in Colorado when...

2008-02-15T23:41:11Z

...you wake up to a snowstorm, and in the middle of the afternoon go for a run in t-shirt and shorts.

some additional caucus thoughts

2008-02-07T00:07:30Z

The Electoral Vote site (which is syndicated at electoralvote) has some interesting analysis of the Super Tuesday results. In particular, the Votemaster (Andy Tanenbaum) sorted the Democratic popular vote percentages and came up with the interesting tidbit that the most overwhelming majorities for Obama were in caucus states:

Obama did extremely well in caucus states and Clinton did very badly in them. How come? Turnout in caucus states is always low, usually about 10-20% of the electorate. Only highly motivated people bother to show up, especially the Democratic caucuses, which go on for hours and people haveto publicly defend their choice. Obama has a smaller, but extremely active and loyal following, especially among younger voters. These are precisely the people who can swing a caucus state by showing up in droves and working hard to convince the other voters that Obama would make a great President. In primary states, the media, especially TV ads have a much bigger influence.

This was certainly the case at our caucus, where we had a lot of people who had never before come to a caucus, and all but one were Obama supporters. (They were not all young, by any stretch of the imagination.)

One anomaly in the table of percentages is New Mexico, which is listed as a caucus state but split nearly 50-50 between the candidates. Since Durango's only half an hour from the NM state line, we get New Mexico news in our daily newspaper. When I read the coverage of the caucus, I immediately thought: hmm, that sounds more like a primary than a caucus. I did a little Googling and found out that yep, the New Mexico "caucus" is basically a primary. There is no discussion, no open voting. Voters cast ballots at the caucus site and then leave, and they can even cast absentee ballots in advance.

I think Obama's success in caucus states says a lot about his appeal. He inspires people. And I think that's important.

caucus circus

2008-02-06T19:48:53Z

Well, it's over and it was a blast. For those of you who don't know, my husband and I are co-committee-chairs of La Plata County's Precinct 3 (Colorado) for the Democratic Party. We started at the 2004 caucus, at which there were 12 people. At the 2006 caucus, we had 6. Last night, we had 39.

Things started out in total zoo mode, as we had two precincts holding caucuses in the same large room, with a divider between. Problem was that 1) a lot of people showed up even before we did (haha, we thought half an hour early would be FINE) and 2) a lot of people didn't know which precinct they were in. So we whipped out the laptop and brought up the database and sorted the room. Interestingly, several people showed up who were not even remotely in the right precinct; we found out where they needed to go, and sent them there, but I'm angry that they got such incorrect advice from our (Republican, la la la) county clerk.

Also, a tall, twenty-something guy in dreadlocks showed up, and asked if this was the Republican caucus. I thought he was joking, and said, "we're all Democrats here," and he frowned and asked if I knew where the Republican caucus was. (I did - it was across the street.) I'm guessing he was a Ron Paul Libertarian who'd registered as a Republican in order to have a caucus voice, but hey, who knows?

We had media present, and a nonvoting observer. And lots of people we'd never seen before, which was awesome, really. Obama has a very strong organizational presence here (both statewide and regionally) and his supporters turned out in force. The one thing that worries me is: if he doesn't win the nomination, will his supporters work for Clinton? (This was a problem two years ago with the Senate race, in which Mike Miles, a progressive and inspiring candidate, lost the primary to the more centrist Ken Salazar. Many of Miles's supporters lost interest in the race after that, and those of us who were working on get-out-the-vote efforts had a harder time. It was a much closer election than we had hoped.)

We have a lot of older women in our precinct, and Britt had thought that Clinton would make a strong showing, but during our straw poll she only drew 5 votes. We had two uncommitted voters, including myself :-) and 32 for Obama (including Britt). I moved to Obama and the other uncommitted voter moved to Clinton, but the percentages worked out such that all three of our delegates went to Obama. (I'm one of them. Britt wanted to be, also, but he's an alternate, and I screwed things up there by moving that the Senate slate the same as the Presidential slate - that would have given him the chance to go.)

Countywide, Obama cleaned up. I had expected him to win both the county and the state, as he did, but I was stunned at how big his margin was. We called in our results to the county as soon as we had them, and they passed them up to the state, so Colorado's results came out pretty quickly.

The Senate preference poll was a bit of a joke as Mark Udall has been unopposed until just a few weeks ago, and as all we know about his opponent is his name, it was a sweep.

Then we did resolutions, and I was really happy that almost half of the attendees stayed for this part. Our first year, there were all sorts of bizarre resolutions proposed, but this time, it was pretty cool - people came up with ideas and issues that interested them, and talked about what they thought was important, and then I formulated their ideas into a statement of resolution. Then there was a bit more discussion, and then a vote. We had five resolutions, on health care, the Electoral College, the state constitution, the primary/caucus structure, and on affordable housing, and I think they were all compact, easily-understood, and reasonable.

Then, a bunch of us went out to one of the local brewpubs and drank beer and watched CNN reporting the results on the TV over the bar. Woo! Next time, I'm going to suggest we hold the caucus in the bar.

do not taunt happy fun La Niña

2008-02-04T17:19:27Z

I had no idea that my heartfelt letter to the global atmospheric circulation back in November would have such dramatic results.

More photos on my Flickr page. Skiing tomorrow, I think.

House meme

2008-01-21T20:46:06Z

Via zadcat. I've linked a bunch of answers to photos, although many of them are from the remodel so some of the background things have changed (like the front door in the floor photo).
When you walk in your front door, which room do you enter?

Living room.

Do you have a dishwasher?

YES GOD YES.

Is your living room carpeted or does it have hardwood floors?

Heh. When we bought the house, there was carpeting over a much-abused oak floor. The prospect of restoration daunted us, and the rest of the floor was (also abused) soft pine, so we opted to cover everything with a very nice laminate that looks like maple.

Do you keep your kitchen knives on the counter or in a drawer?

In a drawer, in an insert that Britt made specially for the knives.

House, apartment, duplex or trailer?

House

How many bedrooms?

Two

Gas stove or electric?

Gas. It had electric when we bought it, but I much prefer cooking with gas, so as part of the kitchen remodel, we bought a lovely new gas stove.

Do you have a yard?

Yes. It's this big: -->.<-- Front yard east part we landscaped, front yard west part is grass (and occasional bonus bear), back yard is currently raw dirt and rocks covered with snow. Must do landscaping this summer.

What size TV is in the living room?

Don't have one. But maybe that's a cheat of an answer; we have a 42-inch viewscreen we use for watching DVDs and giving slide shows, hidden away on a shelf behind cabinet doors.

Are your plates in the same cupboard as your cups?

Nope.

Is there a coffee maker sitting on your kitchen counter?

There is! Fancy that.

What room is your computer in?

My office.

Are there pictures hanging in your living room?

There are! There is a pair of somewhat abstract African paintings (a person playing a stringed instrument, and a person grinding corn) above one of the couches, a painting of pre-Puebloan pottery in the corner near the bookshelves, and a painting of Mesa Verde above the fireplace.

Are there any themes found in your home?

We tried to stick with the Spanish Eclectic style suggested by the architecture, so there are lots of arches and wrought iron. Southwest and Mission-style art, furniture and colors (sage green, peach, maroon). Rounded corners, white paint, light natural wood.

What kind of laundry detergent do you use?

Arm and Hammer

Do you use dryer sheets?

Yes. Absolutely essential in the winter, here.

Do you have any curtains in your home?

Yes, in the living room - sage green and tan single panels. Oh, and blue panels in the upstairs bedroom. They are all that "tab top" kind, on plain rods. Mostly we have honeycomb shades.

What color is your fridge?

Black.

Is your house clean?

Fairly clean, yeah. I need to vacuum the office and clean the downstairs bathroom.

What room is the most neglected?

Cleanliness-wise? The office, because it's a pain to clean around the furniture and all the junk on my desk, oog.

Are the dishes in your sink/dishwasher clean or dirty?

There are clean dishes in the sink, drying, and there are dirty dishes in the dishwasher.

How long have you lived in your home?

Just under five years.

Where did you live before?

In an apartment around the corner, for six months. Before that we lived on a sailboat. :-)

Do you have one of those fluffy toilet lid covers on your toilet?

No.

Do you have a scale anywhere in your house?

No.

How many mirrors are in your house?

Three - one above each bathroom sink, and a full-length in the downstairs bathroom. Here's the prettiest.

Look up. What do you see?

Holiday cards, little fannish toys, and a braided yarn squid, all sent to me by various people on my friendslist.

Do you have a garage?

Not really. There's a detached garagelet that would be big enough for a Mini-Cooper, maybe, but we converted it into a workshop as soon as we bought the house.

deer in the snow, and a house update

2008-01-19T16:58:57Z

I took these pictures last week but just got around to uploading them to Flickr. Remember the big pile of branches and tree limbs that were left from the big honking snowstorm? Turns out that's a deer buffet. ETA: Hee, they're out there again today!

Nibbling on the branches: the photo's glare-y because I shot through the window, not wanting to startle them.

But then a car came up the street, and that got their attention, so I opened the window for this shot:

Also, an update on the roof situation: while I was at the movies last Saturday with a friend, Britt dragged out the ladder, our ropes, and his sawzall (reciprocating saw) and got most of the tree limbs off the roof. When I came back, I helped with the rest. The biggest and scariest pieces turned out to be not so bad, as Britt tied one end of a rope to the limb and the other to our pickup truck, and I slowly backed up in 4-low and pulled the suckers off. So it took maybe six hours over the weekend, not too bad, and nothing got broken or destroyed. Whew.

(I think in the spring, though, we're going to have the tree guy come out and get rid of the worst offender.)

Bobby Fischer Memorial Haiku

2008-01-19T16:11:27Z

Playing chess with Death
Even the most skilled masters
Have to lose sometime.

Sir Edmund Hillary Memorial Haiku

2008-01-11T18:06:56Z

Some are old, some bold
But few old, bold mountaineers --
There's one fewer now.