Yesterday I decided to play hooky from work and go for a drive… My year old Nissan only has about 2000 miles on it, and with gas being “cheap” at $3.99 a gallon right now it seemed like a good idea.

Up front, I have to say that road trips would be immeasurably more entertaining without all of the people.

The route I took was roughly 350 miles:

1. Parker Rd. south to C-470
2. C-470 around to I-70
3. I-70 west to Avon
4. Avon to Eagle-Vail for lunch
5. Eagle-Vail to Leadville via US-24
6. Leadville to I-70 via US-91
7. I-70 east to C-470
8. C-470 to Parker Rd.
9. Parker Rd. back to the house

I left at about 9am, and got back at about 5pm; eight hours. Of this about three hours was creeping along C-470, a six-lane super highway, because of the bumper-to-bumper traffic…

Once I got up I-70 a ways, past Idaho Springs, things got much better because there’s a lot less people up there. Sure, there’s still slow moving RVs and even slower moving semis to contend with. But with the dramatic reduction in people it’s not so bad.

My car did far better than I assumed it would. See, the Kicks is a ‘city car’ – it’s designed for stop and go traffic in dense urban centers with narrow roads and tight parking… Accordingly it’s got like a hundred horsepower, a CVT transmission, and a 0-60 time of about 10 seconds.

If you turn the A/C on, the 0-60 time rises to an impressive 15-ish seconds, which is slow enough to get you killed merging onto the 75mph highways we have around here.

The tradeoff for this lackadaisical performance is the thing gets an average of 33MPG in town, and will push close to 50MPG on the highway. Just try to never be in a hurry because the car has zero hustle.

Anyway, given this I assumed taking the Kicks up into the realm of 6% grades for 5-10 miles at a shot would be, at best, comical… But the car did pretty good! Once it’s up to speed, the infinite gearing of the CVT can keep the car at 60-65 at pretty much any angle.

I did worry a bit on the long hill out of Georgetown to the Eisenhower Tunnel, because the engine in the car stayed at 4000RPM for a good ten minutes. But it seems no worse for it.

Eventually I pulled off I-70 just west of Vail and took US-6 into Avon… I drove by where the Pawnshop used to be, some of my favorite hangouts around town that are long gone, and drove past the old house on Deer Blvd… The house is really run down; few people take care of things anymore.

Satisfied with the sight-seeing, and the fact it was approaching noon, I wandered back down US-6 to where Paddy O’Days used to be… Used to – it’s now the Route 6 Cafe. The Route 6 Cafe used to be a mile east on US-6, and was a breakfast / brunch place with really good food that I ate at fairly often – so I decided to try out the new incarnation in the building that used to be my favorite burger joint…

It was weird to sit in my usual booth in the back corner of the bar section (near the bathrooms), with the old booths, bar, and stuff on the walls – but not be at Paddy’s.

The pizza side of the place is now a half dozen pool tables, but overall the vibe is the same – which is good.

I got the patty-melt to check if things were still of a quality to drag people up here for lunch, and yeah – they still make an amazing burger.

On they way out I got a chance to talk to Ollie, the owner, for a couple of minutes. Apparently the head cook is still the same guy from my years in the valley, which explains the continuation of quality.

Having been fed, watered, and relieved, I headed west on US-24 though Minturn and past Redcliff…

I stopped at a few of my favorite places to sit and read a good book. One of which is a big flat boulder south of the Gilman mine a bit and across the valley from a huge series of waterfalls…

It’s hard to see the falls because they are about two miles away – but see that big pine tree in the foreground? Just to the right of its top you can see the silvery line of water.

Photos simply can’t do scenes like this justice, because there’s no sense of depth. For example, those power poles on the left are about two hundred yards away. But if you look really close on the right side you can see more power poles, and those are probably a mile away.

I sat here and watched the storm roll in as the temperature dropped from 65 to about 50 degrees, and then drove down from Tennessee Pass under leaden skies. By the time I hit Leadville it was raining, and by the time I made it to the Climax mine, it was a biblical downpour.

The rain continued to fall in buckets all the way back down I-70 until I reached the Denver side of Floyd Hill where, as usual, the rain shut off like someone turning a valve, and it went from 65 to about 100 degrees.

Denver is literally cursed.

Listening to "Dropping Anchor" by Jimmie's Chicken Shack

A quick video walkthrough of my latest sim build; Selentia.

This is my personal hidey-hole in Second Life. My roommate owns the sim next door, and I themed that one as well to make it contiguous.

Listening to "Heartbeat" by The Midnight

My neighborhood has both a regular trash service and a recycling service, each with a different can.

I generate so little trash that I don’t really participate… I mean, by each Wednesday morning I have about a quarter-can of refuse to put out, and if I split it all out I’d have two eighth-cans.

My neighbors though? They need 3-4 cans and usually have a mound of other stuff sitting next to them that won’t fit in the smaller recycling can – usually a pile of Amazon cardboard and random packing material from other delivery services… Pet food delivery, meal delivery, clothing delivery, grocery delivery; it makes one wonder if they ever leave the house.

Anyway, the problem is they like to put out the trash Tuesday afternoon because the trash trucks come at around 10am – and that’s just too damn early. And, invariably, on Tuesday night a good breeze will blow though and evenly distribute the recycling all over the neighborhood…

So, the neighbors get to feel good because they’re “recycling” and saving the planet! Meanwhile their “recycling” is filling up the little woodland area in front of my house.

The icing on this cake of disappointment is one of these neighbors is a loud and proud “Eco Warrior” who will go on and on and on (and on) about global warming and how horrible humanity is… Meanwhile her trash is everywhere, she drives an urban assault vehicle big enough to require its own zip-code, and runs her A/C 24/7 – rain or shine.

It makes me wonder if this is common, and if it is just how much attention I should be giving these people.

Listening to "Chasing Yesterday" by FM-84

Yesterday I posted about the Pink Floyd show I saw in 1994, which was notable as being the last Pink Floyd tour ever.

A few years prior to this I got to see the Yes “Union” tour… It was May 9th, 1991 at the now long-gone McNichols Sports Arena in Denver, and was the first and last time all of the 70’s and 80’s band members were on the same stage.

I had just gotten back from I-CON in Long Island and had a few spare dollars in my pocket, so I took advantage of the situation and went to a show. My ex had hooked up with a couple of guys across town while I was at I-CON and she wasn’t around for the show, so I saw this one solo.

All in all the show was amazing and I’m glad I got the opportunity to see the whole band in one place. I got to see Yes again for the “Fly From Here” tour in 2012, but the lineup did not include Jon Anderson… So while the show was really, really good, it wasn’t quite the same. 🙂

Listening to "Lift Me Up" by Yes

It is June 18th, 1994, just after sunset…

I’m standing in a throng of 69,788 people on the field of Mile High Stadium; the scent of pot thickly fills the air. Ahead of us at one end of the stadium is a massive stage, above it hovers an equally massive circle of lights suspended by a huge arch, and all around the upper reaches of the stadium are huge sets of speakers…

“Astronomy Domine” begins to echo through the stadium, the lights on the stage come up to reveal the band, and the crowd goes nuts…

It’s the Denver leg of the Pink Floyd “Division Bell” tour… The last tour Pink Floyd would ever perform.

I saw this show with Michi from the BBS, and it was pretty amazing… All told it was about two and a half hours of standing, though I didn’t really notice – to me it all seemed to be over far too quickly.

The most memorable bit for me was the second encore song, “Run Like Hell” as the intro guitar riff flowed around the stadium from the speakers surrounding the audience. The whole show was in “surround sound”, but Run Like Hell really put it to use.

It was a helluva show; I’m glad I got to see it.

Listening to "High Hopes" by Pink Floyd