Garden of the Gods - Part II

These are incredible formations from the top of a small ridge within the paved portion of the park.

It's pretty amazing that these rocks are holding each other up and that the erosion of these rocks formed in this particular fashion.

I think the other thing to emphasize is the size of these rocks and I think the tree gives a pretty good perspective.  This particular formation is probably 40 or 60 feet high.

My wonderful wife.

Me, climbing on a portion of the rocks that my wife was too afraid to go.

My wife again.

This formation is called Siamese Twins.  I don't believe there's any explanation necessary.

Miranda and I had about 20 minutes where we just sat, in the warm sun on the rocks right by this formation.  We had gotten to the park so early, we literally had a large portion of the park to ourselves.  This was one of the best moments of the trip.  We enjoyed the scenery all to ourselves, a really special moment.

Miranda and me.

I think a lot of photographers take this sort of picture where the hole in one of the Siamese Twin tower frames the mountain in the background.  As an aside, the mountain in the back ground is Pike's Peak, which we visited the next day.

This is called the Balancing Rock and as far back as the early 1800's this rock has been photographed.  At one time, this one guy claimed he owned the rock, but eventually the city of Colorado Springs purchased it from him.

When we started up a path from the Balancing Rock we happened upon a deer.

Miranda and myself near the Balancing Rock.

Hiking in the wide-open range.

Heading back towards the main area.

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Garden of the Gods - Part I

We started off our trip on Sunday in the great city of Colorado Springs. Early on Monday morning around 7 a.m. at the Garden of the Gods we began in the main parking area and started walking around the paved area. The most breathtaking rock formations are within this paved area, but Miranda and I decided to get off the beaten path a little bit and took a couple of trails.

Some of what I type will eventually be edited once I have the time to go back and research what trails we were on and where we went.

The park was dedicated to the City of Colorado Springs in 1909 and people have been coming to this park for a long time.


This is me before we start our trek. I know, I look pretty dang good.


This is my beautiful wife.


This is the view from the main parking lot.


Rock formation.

Texas to Colorado

We are currently at the Super 8 Motel in Buena Vista, CO. Obviously, this motel has high speed wireless internet and right now I'm sitting in my underwear making my first post. The trip to Colorado started very late, we didn't get to leave Terrell until 6:00 on Saturday evening, nevertheless, things went well.

The sunset from a Love's truck stop in Wichita Falls, TX.

We arrived in Amarillo at 1:00 in the morning and decided that we had enough, driving for the day. By the way, for those of you counting, we made it from Terrell to Amarillo in 7 hours. Pretty good for the Puppy Dog Blue.

Sunrise from the Red Roof Inn, Amarillo, TX.

Somewhere in New Mexico. I had the opportunity to let my wife drive for a while and despite the fact that her driving makes me nervous, she drove.

We're now about 10 miles into the great state of Colorado. This is a breathtaking view of some mountain ranges just inside the state line.

This is all I can tempt you with for now. I hope everyone is doing well. I've taken some amazing pictures (no because I'm taking amazing pictures, but because the scenery is breathtaking).

I will post some pictures on Flickr to tease those of you who can't wait.

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Hitting The Road

Miranda and I are checking out for a week for a long overdue vacation.  As I mentioned before, we're hitting the road, me and my wife, lots of good times.  I am bringing the computer and if any of the rooms have internet access then you may see some posts from the road, but I make no promises.  There will be a lot of pictures so be ready.

Think of us often and keep us in your thoughts. 

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Game 6 - Mavs v. Heat

Where do I begin? I guess the first thing is to thank Blue, serious mad props to my boy Blue. Blue's firm offered him tickets to Game 6 on Tuesday. He called me on Monday morning asked me if I wanted to go and without hesitation I said yes. He would fly in on Tuesday afternoon and leave early on Wednesday morning. I would also like to state that I never imagined that I would be able to attend a championship series of any kind. I never really thought that this was something that I would ever be able to pull off, off. Nevertheless, it was happening and I was so excited. Below is Blue and myself.

After driving around downtown and as most people know, my sense of direction is horrible. I had an idea of where we needed to be, but no idea how to get there. Besides all of this, I think we arrived at the AAC at 5:30 and we decided to go to the Old No. 7 Club and grab a couple of drinks. Essentially, the Old No. 7 is a bar with good looking girls paid to be good looking and over-priced drinks. Blah. Despite all of this, this allowed Blue and I the opportunity to relax and catch up a little bit, until Sue from Midland decided to join Blue while I was grabbing a beer. Sue is an older married woman who was with her husband and to put it nicely was a little over the top with her niceness. We ditched Sue and headed upstairs to our seats once 6:30 rolled around.

Here's Blue looking for a picture of his sweetie so that I could check her out, out.

Below is a picture of Mike Breen and Hubie Brown, about 1 1/2 hour before tip-off.

This is Donald Carter, the man who brought the Mavs to town. Cuban purchased the entire front row Stackhouse jerseys. Carter was also there at least 1 1/2 hour before tip-off.

So the tickets Blue got were from a client of his and they were in the Platinum level. For those of you who don't know, this is where all the rich and beautiful people sit. This is a picture of the Platinum Club, which is essentially 6 or 7 bars and a number of different restaurants on the Platinum level. Other that T-Storm's seats, which were right by the Marvs' dancers, this was the most primo spot in the arena.

This is a snapshot of Cobra-Snake, Corby Davidson from the Hardline. They were at the Old No. 7 Club.

This was right before tip-off, I cannot tell you, despite the lackluster crowd, the level of excitement for this game. I've never felt anything like this before. This picture really doesn't express how close we were to the action. We were 5 rows up on the Platinum level and the action seemed so much closer than appears.



Dirk warming up.

This is the part where they move these stupid looking trophies out onto the floor. I've always thought that the coolest way for these players to enter would be from the hallway, coming out of the darkness onto the floor. Not by some stupid plastic looking trophy.

This is right before tip-off and Dirk continues to shoot. Even when Humble Billy is announcing the other team, he continues to shoot and Adrian Griffin rebounds for him. He's constantly shooting, it's like he can't get enough of it, like he's trying to perfect whatever it is he's working on, on.

Tip-off.

Dirk shooting free-throws.

I remember never feeling comfortable the entire 1st period despite the fact that we seemed to out-play the Heat. There was one point during the second quarter with about 7 minutes left where Dwyane Wade left the game and surprise surprise, the Mavs went on a nice little run. I cant' remember what the score was, but I remember that the Mavs had a nice little cushion. Wade checks back into the game with about 4 minutes left in the half and he essentially leads the Heat to a one point lead at the half.

For whatever reason, I knew that at this point in the game (below) the game was over. We could just never get over their lead.

This was the score as time ran out on the Mav's season. I can't explain why I was drawn to take this picture of a half-naked Josh Howard, but I did. I love him.

This was the scene after the game. Most of the Mavs players congratulated the Heat players, but I couldn't bear to watch David Stern give away the trophy. I really thought that this was the Mavs' year and I really thought that we were better than the Heat. I've been disappointed almost all day, but I really don't have anything to complain about. I attended an NBA Finals game and it was an incredible experience. The seats were awesome the crowd was really electric, and I cannot tell you how there seemed to be approximately 20,000 fans all wanting the Mavs to simply squeak by one more game so that we could end the season the way it was meant to end.

Please read Hetty's fine work here. A really good article about former NBA ref Mike Mathis. I thought that this was really interesting in light of all the things that have gone on in these playoffs. I wish he would have told us where he heard the interview, however, I have to assume that it was The Ticket.

Once again, I want to thank Blue, it was an incredible experience. I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

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2006 Vacation - Colorado

Miranda and I finally decided on our annual vacation and we've decided to go to Colorado and the Colorado Springs area. You can view our map of places we'd like to go here. It is my hope that I can blog and post from the road (free interenet access and breakfast are a must with any hotel that we stay at, at). It will be like you're along with us for the trip. If anyone has any suggestions then we'd love to hear them. Also, you can see pictures of the places that we'd like to go (posted by other people) on the right, under the "43 Places" heading.

Road Trip - Shrevport

On a complete whim, Chris and Greg called and asked me if I wanted to go to Shrevport with them. I initially declined, but then thought that these types of moments slip by me all of the time, i.e. not participating. So we hoped in the car and took off.

Hetty behind the wheel. By the way Chris found some gum stuck on his seat, and I would be happy to email that picture to Chris, but I'm having trouble posting it. Also, when I downloaded photos this morning, the two photos of Greg got deleted, but you can see his hand and watch on Chris's seat.

Me.

Beautiful East Texas.

The River.

The long and short of the trip: it was a really good time, we got back at 9:30-ish. Chris won and Greg and I lost, but we gained so much in fellowship, we all came out winners.

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