What I Did On My Vacation (Part 2: Pictures)

As promised, some pictures of My Colorado (and a Bit of New Mexico) Vacation.

Here's the Gila cliff dwellings. Or at least, the cliff. Though if you look closely -- try clicking on the picture for a bigger version -- you can see the structures inside the cave. My apologies for not getting any close-up pics.



Here are a couple of cool rock formations in the Garden of the Gods park:





And several pictures from Pike's Peak. Here's the train at the top of the mountain:



A couple of views from the summit (which is less impressive in photographs than it is in person):





And, oh, look, it's me:

In Other News...

I think someone in Colorado gave me a cold. The nose is a bit snotty, and the throat is distinctly sore.

Stupid Coloradans.

What I Did On My Vacation (Part 1: Text)

I am now back from my travels, although still very tired and a bit behind on things, and Mom has been dispatched on her way home. (She wasn't sure whether she was going to be leaving today or tomorrow, but decided she really wanted to start back so she'd have time to rest up and take care of some things before having to go back to work.)

We basically did two trips. The first was a day trip to the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument. Mom picked this out as a spot she wanted to visit because it was a part of New Mexico she hadn't been to yet and she thought it looked interesting. Poor Mom; she got a bit of a shock when she realized just how mountainous and remote it was and just how many miles of very, very twisty mountain roads she was going to have to drive on. (Sorry, Mom! I thought you knew! Oops.) Harrowing as it may have been, though, it was still a gorgeous drive. We saw quite a few mule deer, both on the way out and the way back.

The cliff dwellings are well worth a visit, too. (I'd spent some time in the area back in college, camping and hiking, but never had gotten around to visiting the ruins, so was kind of glad to correct the oversight.) It's the remains of a fairly elaborate structure that was built into a high mountain cave about 700 years ago by a group of a few dozen Mogollon people. They were only there about thirty years, though, before a major drought forced them to relocate. Poor bastards. That must have been a lot of work for a home that turned out not to be permanent after all.

Anyway, that was Monday. Tuesday, we headed off on the second and main part of our trip. Originally this was going to be a much longer and more ambitious vacation. My sister was intending to join us, and we were going to take a full week or a bit longer and drive around Colorado and Utah, and I'm not sure where else. But my sister ended up having less vacation time than she'd expected and bowed out, Mom realized she needed to go somewhere else with someone else the week we'd originally planned on taking, and with one thing and another our road tour of the Southwest's national parks turned into a plan that, basically, consisted of "Well, let's just drive north!"

Now, a comfortable day's drive north from here takes you to Colorado Springs, which features a number of interesting attractions, so that's where we went. (For the fannish types in the audience: I kept my eyes open for off-duty Stargate personnel and/or aliens while we were there, but if there were any about, they were well disguised.) We got into Colorado Springs Tuesday evening, despite the best attempts of a truly apocalyptic rainstorm to kill us just before we got there. (Between that and the Winding Roads of Doom, I'm sure my mother is so glad she volunteered to drive. Heh.) We then found a restaurant featuring what I can quite confidently state must be the most transcendently delicious cornbread in the entire known universe. In fact, it was so good we had to go back the next day and have more of it. Mmmmmm.

Wednesday, we visited The Cave of the Winds. This is a smallish cave system, at least by Carlsbad Caverns standards, but it was interesting and the tour was fun. I never get tired of caves. I just find something wonderfully pleasant about the kind of cool, damp, dark atmosphere you get in caves. (So naturally, I live in the desert.) We then went to the Manitou Cliff Dwellings, which were a bit disappointing in their tourist trappiness after the Gila, but kind of fun to crawl around in. Then we drove around the Garden of the Gods park, which features some amazing rock formations, and had a nice little picnic. After which, unfortunately, Mom was feeling pretty tired, so we called it an early day.

Thursday, we took a ride on a cog train up Pike's Peak, which is a trip well worth making. It's about a three hour round trip, counting an hour's stop at the top of the mountain. Very pleasant ride, with some interesting commentary on the way up about the scenery and the history of the area and of the railroad. We were lucky enough to be sitting in the front row, too, so we got a great view out the front window. And, needless to say, the views from the 14,000-foot summit were spectacular.

And then, since it was still early enough to make the drive and get back here at a semi-reasonable hour, we got on the road again and were back in Socorro by about 10 PM.

I'm not sure whether that quite qualifies as a road trip or not, but it was a nice little mini-vacation. And since I took this weekend off, I'm not actually scheduled to go back into work until next Thursday, which is awesome.

And, yes, there will be pictures, after I bother getting them off my camera.

Off

So, my mother is coming into town sometime tonight, and we're going to spend a few days, I dunno, driving places and doing stuff. Meaning I'll probably mostly be offline for a while. Given my posting frequency of late, I doubt anyone will notice a difference, but if you send me any e-mail, say, in the next week or so and don't get a reply, it doesn't mean I'm ignoring you. Of course, for all you know I may be, but you shouldn't assume anything.

Rubbernecking

On the way home from Rifftrax in Albuquerque the other night, we passed what looked like every cop car in Belen clustered along I-25, but we couldn't see anything going on. One of the people in the car with me said it looked like a train was stopped, though. (Being as supremely unobservant as I am, I never saw it.)

Well, I just thought to check up on on it. Turns out it was the aftermath of this bizarre, but luckily non-fatal accident.

Even Though Albuquerque Is a 9 PM Town

Just got back from seeing Plan Nine from Outer Space with live snarktastic commentary from Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett, formerly of Mystery Science Theater 3000, now of the eerily similar but more internetty RiffTrax. (They were broadcasting from somewhere in Tennessee to theaters across the US, including, amazingly, Albuquerque.)

And it was hi-larious. Actually, I'd forgotten just how hilarious Plan 9 is all by itself; when they start "explaining" the mysterious nature of light rays I cannot help cracking up. And when these guys are on top of their game, they really bring the funny, transforming the merely absurd into the comically sublime. Or something like that... Anyway, it was immense fun.

I also ate a bunch of ribs, and accompanied some friends on geeky shopping trips instead of staying home for a few extra hours and cleaning my house. So, pretty much a good day all around.

See, I'm Still Not Dead. At Least, Not Until The Zombie Apocalypse. But While We Wait For That, Have Some More Random Links.

The "Doctor Who" Theme: Various versions of the Who theme, as found on YouTube. What's really scary is how many of these I have sitting on my iPod. Not to mention how many versions I have on my iPod that aren't here.

Futurama cast members ink new deal with Fox: First it was announced that Futurama would be back on television, and there was much rejoicing. Then it was put about that the voices would probably be recast, and there was much lamentation. Well, good news, everyone! Looks like the original cast is in after all! Whew. That's gonna save me a lot of time in the angry dome.

Inspired by Trek: Cool little blog post about NASA’s first African-American flight director honoring his Trekkish role model, Captain Ben Sisko.

When Zombies Attack!: Mathematical Modeling of an Outbreak of Zombie Infection (PDF): Mathematical predictions of the possible outcomes of a full-scale zombie apocalypse. Alas, the equations are not comforting...

Yes, It's This Again.

Current clothes: Gray sweatpants. A t-shirt from White Sands National Monument, which I'm sure I've described here in the past. White socks. Black sneakers.

Current mood: Not bad. Relaxed and lazy. Kind of hungry.

Current music: I think the last thing I listened to might have been part of The Who: The Ultimate Collection.

Current annoyance: Oh, all the usual things. Various minor physical complaints. The fact that my cats are capable of some very creative destructiveness. Not being able to spend 24 hours a day reading, meaning that I will never, ever catch up.

Current thing: Too lazy to have one right now.

Current desktop picture: This extremely cool picture of an erupting volcano.

Current book: Cat's Cradle: Witch Mark by Andrew Hunt. It's one of the Doctor Who New Adventures, although perhaps we ought to be calling them the Not-So-New Adventures now, as this particular book is from seventeen years and three Doctors ago. It's also very boring, which is a sad thing for a Doctor Who story.

Current song in head: It appears to be the theme song to The Banana Splits, which wormed its way into my brain while I was very young, and now pops up every so often at random just to confuse me.

Current DVD in player: One of the discs from The Avengers complete Emma Peel megaset. I'm currently on the last few episodes of the '66 season, which was the last to be filmed in black & white. And I am enjoying it immensely. Ah, Steed and Peel! Sexy, stylish, playful. Not to mention capable of taking the most brain-breaking weirdnesses in stride and of kicking large quantities of ass while armed only with Steed's umbrella and Emma's lethal bod. Coolest. Crime fighters. Ever.

Current refreshment: Nothing, but I'm really going to need some lunch soon.

Current worry: I refuse to worry about anything today. It's my weekend, and I'm going to spend it being blissfully worry-free.

Current thought: Foooooood. Must have fooooooood.

My Life According to Farscape

This is an entertaining meme, and I was encouraged to post my answers to it here, so...

Using only EPISODE names from ONE SCI FI TV SHOW, cleverly answer these questions.

Are you a male or a female?
PK Tech Girl

Describe yourself:
I, E.T.

How do you feel:
Mental as Anything

Describe where you currently live:
Terra Firma

If you could go anywhere where would you go?
...Different Destinations

Your favorite form of transportation:
Through the Looking Glass

Your best friend is:
Out of Their Minds

What’s the weather like:
Meltdown

Favorite time of day:
Bad Timing

If your life was a TV show, it would be called:
The Way We Weren't

What is life to you:
A Constellation of Doubt

Your fear:
Season of Death

What is the best advice you have to give:
Dream a Little Dream

Thought for the Day:
Crackers Don't Matter

How I would like to die:
What Was Lost: Resurrection

My soul’s present condition:
Losing Time

My motto:
Thank God It's Friday... Again


There. I don't know how clever it was, but it's quite fun to do with Farscape, which has some of the most entertaining titles ever. (I didn't even get to use some of the best ones.) As usual with these things, I refuse to tag anyone. Do it if it amuses you. And, heck, feel free to use non-SF shows if you like.

Stuff

It's been almost a week since I last posted, so before my sister pops in again and asks me if I'm still alive -- assuming she's still alive, and not melted into a puddle of goo in the unfamiliar heat -- I figured I ought to, y'know, post something.

So here are some completely random things about my life at the moment:

1. I was eating leftover pot roast for four days, but it is gone now, and I am sad, because I had not yet grown tired of it. One of those days, I took some of the leftover meat & veggies and baked it into a pre-made pie crust for a yummy meat pie. I can recommend this as an excellent way to vary your leftover pot roast diet.

2. I have been spending far too much time lately playing Plants vs. Zombies. Those of you whose fault this is, you know who you are.

3. I have also been obsessively watching Freaks and Geeks on DVD, which is pretty amazing, since something that puts me back in the mindset of high school seems like pretty much the last thing I'd ever want to watch. But, wow, is that a good show. (The person responsible for this also knows who he is.)

4. I have a ticket to see this next month. Should be fun!

5. Also next month I am doing some kind of road trip with my mother. I'm not even entirely sure where we're going. I think we're maybe going to drive north, then west, and see how many national parks we hit before we have to turn around. Wish me luck!

6. If there was going to be a 6, I've forgotten what it was. (Oh, wait, I just remembered. But it was even more boring than the rest of this stuff, so never mind.)

Culinary Triumph

Ooh, baby. I have pot roast so tender I just dipped it out of the pot with a ladle. Man, I don't know why I don't use my slow cooker more often.

Maybe It Is Possible To Have Too Many Books? Naaaah.

The Great Book Migration, it is finished! Well, there are one or two little things still to do. I've got a small bookcase that's now completely empty, which I think I'm going to fill up with magazines or something... later. But otherwise, everything is now where I want to it be. Yay! I guess that's what happens when, instead of three days of intermittent, leisurely activity, you for some reason opt for one sweaty, day-long marathon session of hammering and dragging and hauling and re-arranging.

I must say, I am quite pleased with the results. I very much like having the non-fiction in the computer room. It just feels like it belongs here. And, as predicted, adding an extra three bookcases allowed me to accommodate everything beautifully.

Here's what my dining room looks like now:



That's just one side of it, of course. There's two more bookcases on the opposite wall: one the same size as these, and another that's a bit wider, but has only three shelves. (I couldn't use a bigger one there, as it would have blocked a light switch and a thermostat control.)

This room now looks much more like a library than it does like a dining room, certainly, but I regard that as a good thing, because a) I think any room can be substantially improved by becoming more library-like, whatever its function. (Well, OK, maybe not the bathroom, but only because the books would get soggy.) And b) I almost never actually dine in there, anyway, so I might as well get some use out of it.

Note the nearly empty bookcase on the right, which was pretty much the entire point of the exercise.

So, I am happy, yes, but also very tired and very achy. My current plan is to spend the next couple of days lying on the sofa reading more books to put on my new shelf space.

Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle...

The great book migration has begun! I've only taken the first few preliminary steps so far, but hopefully I should be all done by Friday.

Wish me luck!

Fashion News

So, we now have our first look at what the 11th Doctor will be wearing. I am... underwhelmed.

That Light In The Sky Is A Place That We've Been.

Now here is an awesome way to mark the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11: taking pictures of the Apollo landing sites from orbit. Check out the Apollo 14 pic, in particular, where you can actually see the trail left by the astronauts' footprints. Wow.

Butterfly Porn

I was greeted with an odd and interesting sight in my front yard this morning when I went out to bring in my garbage bin: a couple of mating butterflies. So of course, being the shameless voyeur that I am, I had to take pictures.




Actually, I took a lot more pictures than that, but I figured there were probably only so many photos of butterfly fucking you guys would want to see. I had lots of opportunity to snap away, though, because butterflies definitely have what you'd call stamina. I went back out again an hour later, and they were still at it. In fact, I was beginning to worry that there might have been some kind of problem and maybe they'd gotten stuck, but, no this paper I found online (warning: PDF) assured me that butterflies can spend up to three hours in the act, and that larger ones take longer than smaller ones. Well, these were certainly the biggest butterflies I've ever seen around here, so I guess they were just being normal.

Anybody know exactly what kind of butterflies these are, by the way? I have an insect identification guide, but I'm not sure I've ever been able to correctly identify a single bug from it. These look a lot like the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail picture, but I think I might be a smidge far west for those.

Happy B-Day To Me!

So. As of today, I am 38. I'm getting to the point now where my age is starting to seem like a totally meaningless number, but I guess maybe in a couple of years I'll feel differently.

Zombies!

Aaargh! Zombies! They're everywhere! It's the freakin' zombie apocalypse, man! I'm going to try to hold them off with my giant metal wrench, but if you don't hear from me by tomorrow, assume I'm already out looking for tasty brains to munch on, and for gods' sakes, don't come looking for me!

(Well, OK, not really. But yesterday my sister told me that this blog was "too boring" lately, so I figured I'd try to spice it up for ya. Zombies are exciting, right?)

Your Regularly Scheduled Memey Thing

Current clothes: White t-shirt from the International Space Hall of Fame in Alamogordo. It has a picture of a space shuttle in front of the Earth and the moon. They are very much not to scale. Short-sleeved blue deinim shirt over that, unbuttoned. Blue jeans. White socks. Black belt. No shoes.

Current mood: Not too bad, actually. I was feeling a little bit groggy and out of it, thanks to my current messed-up sleep schedule, but after a nice lunch I feel a bit perkier.

Current music: Nothing at the moment, really

Current annoyance: Primarily aforementioned messed-up sleep schedule, I suppose. I've been trying to keep 26-hour days in order to rotate myself forward from night shifts to day shifts. This can work very nicely, but when you keep waking up after six hours for some stupid reason, it becomes problematic.

Current thing: Keeping wacky hours.

Current desktop picture: The Jellyfish Nebula.

Current book: The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride by Daniel James Brown. And, man, "harrowing" is right. Books like this can certainly give you a sense of perspective on your own problems. Even on the worst days of my life, at least there was never any cannibalism. Also, I believe I now understand why people in California are crazy. Anybody who would make that journey in a covered wagon is certifiably insane. Presumably this is genetic.

Current song in head: Nothing at the moment, but Brain Radio's been weirdly hyperactive lately. I had "Particle Man" stuck in my head for two days earlier this week.

Current DVD in player: The season 2 finale of The Pretender. I was listening to the commentary track.

Current refreshment: Lemon-ginger tea.

Current worry: That my stupid feet are never going to stop giving me problems. Bah. I'm really going to have to see a podiatrist. Probably very soon.

Current thought: My foot hurts, and it makes me pouty.

Vrooom!

My car is working again! $25 for a new battery cable, and I'm back in business and can cross one major worry/annoyance off my list. Hooray!