Terry Goes To Bimmerfest

Always wanted to visit that crater.

Impressive in person?

Great pics, as usual!

Super pics.

Keep them comming...although we may not all comment, we look forward to your updates!

Yes, Northern Arizona University was holding commencement on Friday and Saturday. One of my very good friends graduated on Friday so we went up to witness it.

You should have called me, we have two houses up there... no fleabag motels!

Today was another easy day, driving up to Colorado Springs from Albuquerque. I took a few pictures today, mostly "art" shots of clouds, etc. Here's a few samples. The first one is in New Mexico, the rest are in Colorado. In the last picture, that isn't a meteor - it is a jet contrail.

Great Pictures Terry, also very nice meeting you at Bimmerfest! Have a safe trip!!

Mike

great pics, your trip makes the 900 miles each way I had to drive to get there seem brief!

Today we have a bunch of railroad pictures. I drove from Colorado Springs to Vail, stopping at Georgetown and Silver Plume. There is (was?) a scenic narrow-gauge (3 feet instead of the normal 4 foot 8.5 inch spacing between rails) steam railroad there. Unfortunately, it is one of those situations where the equipment and tours are handled by one company, with the historical society owning the land and tracks. They seem to be having a pissing match, with the result that the operator is taking their equipment and leaving. [Side note - the operator wanted the historical society to maintain their tracks, and the historical society wanted the operator to take over maintenance. I walked a couple miles of the track and noticed many loose spikes and several out-of-gauge conditions.]

Anyway, this is a loop track (it crosses over itself at different elevations) and the bridge's official name is the Devil's Gate High Bridge, though it is more commonly known as the Georgetown Loop. It was built in 1883 and was an engineering marvel in its day. It was torn down and sold for scrap in 1939. The current bridge and tracks date from 1984 when it was reconstructed as a tourist attraction.

Since it is closed, I got a chance to wander around the property with no-one else present. Here are the pictures:











This is one of the anchors for the first bridge, dating from 1883. While walking in the woods I found a number of traces of the first bridge, including dressed stone blocks that formed the piers for the bridge (the new bridge uses poured concrete piers):





The next two shots are from Guanella Pass, the main road back in mining days. It is nearly two thousand feet above I-70 (which is at 8800 feet at this point). The second shot looks down on Georgetown:











Above, I said that the tour operator is taking their trains and going elsewhere. This is the ramp they build for removing the equipment - the individual engines and cars are rolled up this ramp and onto flatbed trailers. Given the weight of some of the engines, I expect a good deal of nervous finger-crossing is in order.



Tuesday I start my drive following the route of the 2003 Colorado Grand. Internet access is iffy along the route, so you may not see an update from me for a few days.

Well, it looks like the rest of Colorado is a write-off. As many of you know, I had planned to retrace the path of the 2003 Colorado Grand classic car rally. That event happened in September, long after the snow season. With a report of early snowmelt here, I had hoped that I'd be able to accomplish this. But it isn't going to happen. Today started out nice, but by the time I got to Rabbit Ears Pass near Steamboat Springs, storm clouds had moved in. I made it down from the pass (9400 feet, give or take) before the rain started, but on the way out of Steamboat Springs toward Aspen, it had started raining and the temperature had dropped from 63 to 32 (and this was down at 6500 feet or so). The clouds were coming down to road level making visibility pretty much nil. The Grand runs mainly on back roads that don't get much maintenance, so even rain is a problem (I encountered one mudslide). Given that I have RE750 (summer only) tires on the car, driving in snow is out of the question, and there's over a foot on some parts of the subsequent route.

Given these conditions, I'm going to give up, and hopefully re-visit the route at some future, warmer, date.

I'm off to Amanda's tomorrow. I'll post again along the way to Amanda's if I have Internet service (Colorado to Illinois is pretty spotty, though).

Here are a few pictures from today. The first is the Marriott in Vail where I stayed, and where the Grand departed from. The next is a rock formation about 30 miles into the route, before the weather turned ugly. The rest are random shots I snapped when the rain paused.

Those are pretty ominous clouds

F/A-18E/F Super Hornets..... Awesome man!

yeah.so that was awhile ago. still.

Are we there yet? This thread has been pretty quiet for awhile. What happened to Terry? Or is he just, um, busy at Amanda's?

Originally Posted by Spectre

Are we there yet? This thread has been pretty quiet for awhile. What happened to Terry? Or is he just, um, busy at Amanda's?

I'm at Amanda's. She's got med school finals (her last ones are today, actually) so things have been pretty hectic.

Originally Posted by Terry Kennedy

I'm at Amanda's. She's got med school finals (her last ones are today, actually) so things have been pretty hectic.

Yeah, after one of my med school finals, I went outside the bar so my stomach could get a little "hectic". Unfortunately, the emesis trajetory was in the path of a really potent exhaust vent. The result was the entire flank of someone's white 7-series was painted "hectic".

So, is your S.O. done with med school? Where'd she match?

Originally Posted by uter

So, is your S.O. done with med school? Where'd she match?

No, this is her 3rd year of what was originally a combined 9-year MD/PhD plan, but which has changed to a MD-only one. So she's actually just finishing up first year courses.

Originally Posted by uter

Unfortunately, the emesis trajetory was in the path of a really potent exhaust vent. The result was the entire flank of someone's white 7-series was painted "hectic".

Such a vivid description.