Thanks to a helpful coincidence in work travel, I was able to make a trip to Pagosa Springs, Colorado to see my parents for a few days. While planning my stay, I decided I also wanted to add some solo backpacking to my visit. My first plan was to hike the Lime Mesa trail to Emerald Lake in the Weminuche Wilderness, but while the stretch from the trailhead to the overlook is well documented, I had trouble finding information about the trail down to the lake itself. With the overlook portion sitting well above tree line, I realized I did not want to be caught there during one of Colorado’s infamous afternoon monsoons – especially given the lightning danger. I would be taking on a lot of risk if I couldn’t make the supposedly tricky descent down the unmaintained trail to the lake before lunchtime.
Thankfully, I had a good last-minute recommendation from my mother and one of her friends to switch my plan to Quartz Lake in the South San Juan Wilderness instead. The trail to the lake is well documented, and it had just as much scenic promise as the original plan. Even though I had never been to the lake, I had previously hiked a portion of the trail as a day hike – a plus because I knew what I was getting myself into. After some quick map reading, Google Earthing, and GPS checking, I locked in my plan and set out the following morning.
My wife’s family has a long history of visiting Disney World, and I’ve now been more times than I can count. Disney’s Animal Kingdom is a special treat for zoo lovers for both the number of amazing animals and the quality of their enclosures. The gorillas occupy a vast hilly area with lots of room to move and separate areas for the male bachelors and the females. One of those enclosures opens up to a windowed area where it’s possible to see them up close, sometimes really close.
I mentioned when I posted my previous photo of this same pedestrian bridge that I had two other versions I would share in the future. Here’s version #2 (I’ll post #3 sometime in the future as well). It’s rare that I can’t decide between different versions of my photos – usually one is “right” and the others aren’t. With this photo, I’ve found things I like in each of the three.
Visiting Scotland in 2012, I loved the combination of old and new. I especially liked this view of Inverness Castle, shrouded in scaffolding, rising above the modern buildings with their shops and apartments below. In the foreground, the incredible Young Street Bridge radiates bright pink energy that welcomes you to an Inverness that is probably very different today than in 1836 when the castle was last rebuilt (or 1057 when it was first built).
The weather had been wild on our drive to Vermont. Thick angry clouds loomed in the sky while incredible rainfall pounded the car and flooded the surrounding fields. The Mad River was rising over its banks, and the highway patrol had closed VT-100 between Hancock and Granville because of high water. With no cell service, we had to use my Garmin GPS to plot an alternate route through the green mountains on back roads. We were incredibly tired by the time we arrived in Waitsfield, but then the weather started to clear and a little bit of sunlight peaked out in the gloom.
