Grand Falls March 2008

At almost 200ft high, Grand Falls on the Little Colorado comes alive this time of year. Bob "Killer" Palin and I decided to head up to Flagstaff and attempt to photograph them before the snow melt is finished. There are no real signs to get there and you have to hunt pretty hard to find them out on the rez. We weren't all alone but the number was like 10 people. A far cry from the masses of tourists like you would have seen at Niagara Falls or some other place of this scale.


Looks like a big Chocolate milk fountain

Notice the rock on the right side? It is bigger then my house

The Trooper for scale


It was in a word WORTHY


This is about 100 yards upstream. See what I mean by being sort of hidden?


The Griswald mobile on a Whoop-de-do


I love this beast and check out the new shocks!
























This great photo taken by Bob asks "Where to wander next I wonder?"

Kaisr

Snow Bum!!

Having been under the weather for most of the month of January and February, I really needed a few days away from the house. Stills disease is funny because you actually don't look sick but you body aches all the time. By week 5 I needed out but no way could I go on my own. As usual, my great group of friends came to my rescue and a plan was in place to get me from my house to Colorado. Jamie and Leslie would drive over from Coronado and we would take the Mr. G with me as a passenger up. Then, we would just hang out for a few days together and enjoy the snow. Matt and Bob would be there from Utah along with Larry the ring leader with the always amazing Louise to fill out the crew. No better group could have been assembled to make me laugh.

The plan was to meet up with some friends in Beaver Creek, where Whip and Louise had a line on a great condo. Because of scheduling, we decided to rent a house instead in Breckenridge. Whip has been toying with the idea of getting a shop there for years and knows the area well.

I managed to get us a great house on the hills above town.


The house was at 10600 ft and the snow was deep. Getting up to the house required 4WD! but we knew Whip and Louise were there since they had the keys.



The Icicles were magical


This Canyon Jay was a real character. We had set out some bread in the snow once we saw a few flying about. This one had no fear


Belly Landing!!!!


My main partner in crime.


Trying to blend in with the natives


Why some people shouldn’t ski


As usual the Mr. G handled the ride up and back flawlessly


This brings new meaning to the phrase “Cold Feet”

So what happens when you get a bunch of knuckleheads together who all love to ride motorcycles fast , give them a kids snow saucer, and toss in a really steep mountain road with an altitude of 10,000ft? MAYHEM!!! The only thing that saved us was there wasn't a 2nd one for us to race each other on.




It’s ok he’s a paramedic!

The call me the snow plow!


It was destined to end this way


Especially in 20ft of snow!!!

On the way home we were treated to hours of views like this one. Colorado is just too worthy for words


Even the ordinary is beautiful up there


This guy caught our attention but by the time we got out and took his picture he was about 500 yards away and never looked back. Bummer because he was a good looking bobcat.


Trust me I will be back to this area. It is just too amazing

Kaisr

A Ride in the Desert

So I bailed on heading to Big Bend with the fellas this weekend mostly because I wasn't feeling 100% and the winds in the forecast were more then I wanted to risk. While I missed seeing friends in Texas, I decided to make the best of it today and rode the GT to Tucson to meet up with my pal Tanya who I spent the week in Europe with last fall. Since she was my Pillion last time I was on a GT, it seemed fitting that she would should be back on the back this run.


She forgot how much fun it was to put on a helmet again.


We left her house and headed out to Saguaro National Monument to get some more of the wildflowers. Tanya is an great on the bike because she "isn't there" when I am riding which is the best.


I gave her the little Nikon and told her to help snap some of the shots of the desert.


This may be the best picture ever of my right shoulder. The woman is a natural!


We decided that she would stay on the other side of the lens for a while.


The picture above this one was taken when Tanya was about 500 yards away up the hill. She did not run up there because I was cornering a little more aggressively on the GT. She just wanted to take a short run is all. After I talked her down, we proceeded at a relatively safe pace through the rest of the day


These flowers are just really cool









I just never get tired of the desert. It really is an amazing place


From there we rolled into the university district of Tucson for lunch. The town famous since the old west days is really now a major university town with some Aerospace and the Aircraft Bone yard being the other claim to fame there (that will be another ride tale later this spring).


We stopped to have lunch here at Gentle Ben's. I went to college in Tucson and the day brought back a flood of memories. One of them is that to this day, car alarms do not make me flinch. The parking lot next to the house I lived in was on the final approach to Davis Monthan Air force base and with a few squadrons of A-10's always flying back in the 80's car alarms would go off constantly.


So it was great to see that the more things changed the more they stayed the same. About 5 of these monsters flew over setting off several alarms


Tanya made friends with this little guy as we were leaving.


She still doesn't like that D-Ring but we had a hoot of a day.


Where to next I wonder?

Kaisr

I Have Arrived.

Ah yes, my life has found a spot to share with all of you. Over the past few years, I have set off on a few adventures that were worth sharing. A surprising number of you have sent me requests to have these tales in one spot. Surprising me, since this means you are actually reading my thoughts as well as looking at my pictures. So this is will be my attempt to start to chronicle these journeys into my universe in one place. I hope that you, like many other folks

So over the next few weeks I will be getting the adventures of 2008 up and perhaps adding a few of the "classics" up as well.

Thanks for reading and I look forward to the feedback.

Tom