SOCO?

This past week was a southern Colorado week.

On Tuesday I got a call from my work asking if I wanted to go on an investigations/transfer case with Colorado Humane Society (which is a subset of my shelter.) I said sure, because anything is better than the daily grind. This meant meeting earlier than my usual schedule though.

We drove south for threeish hours. The job was to catch 10-15 cats and two dogs from a tiny house. It was not as bad as previous cases, but it was bad. When people hoard animals it's usually not just animals. The tiny house was very cluttered and since there were so many cats, there was feces literally everywhere. The cats were in the box springs, in the dresser drawers, in the kitchen cabinets. There was hair, vomit and feces in each of those places as well. Very unhealthy. However, unlike other cases, these cats were not mean. They were a bit scared and darted around, so they weren't super easy to catch, but they didn't fight back and many of them were caught by hand instead of traps and nets. We ended up with 11. Luckily, we didn't have to transport them back to the shelter in Denver. Instead, we went further south and dropped them off at a small shelter in Trinidad. I got a new experience, a day "off" work and free lunch. Good times

For the Fourth of July weekend we went where we'd vowed never to go in the middle of summer: the sand dunes.

It was awesome.

prickly pear blossom.

Sure, a bit hot in the middle of the day, but fine if we stayed off the sand. There was about an hour of rain both evenings, but nothing terrible. And we saw the distant and rather pitiful fireworks show put on by Alamosa.










It's one of the very few National Parks that allows dogs, so we brought Zorro along. He wasn't thrilled by being forced to ride in the very back because we had four people. The creek that runs by the dunes was very wide for this time of year, so we had some fun playing in the sand there. The sand was too hot for the dog's paws during the day, so when we went there he wore booties. The one time we actually hiked the dunes was around 8am and the temperature was perfect. I also went barefoot and it was amazing how quickly the sand began to heat up around 9am. Zorro seemed to really love dashing through the sand. He kept treating it like snow or water though; as he ran, he'd dip his head as if to scoop up the sand into his mouth. He always stopped before actually doing that though.  It is a favorite place and it had been too long.

poor abused pup. 

my friends and the dog running the dunes.

14er Season!

It has begun. Since we had a wet spring, the snow was pretty piled up in the mountains, but it's finally starting to allow access to the peaks.

On Saturday we climbed Pike's Peak, standard route. It's 13 miles to the top. It was rough, but we did it. Longest 14er hiked yet.

We ended up catching a (not so cheap)  ride down.

For a more thorough trip report click here.

a weekend

I saw my nephew this weekend for the first time in a long time. He’s 15 now, and I cannot really get my head around that. It doesn’t help that he looks about 11, and doesn’t talk a whole lot. But he’s super creative and has been modifying old sawzall blades to make knives.

It’s sad to me that my transition, while being exactly what I needed to move forward with my life, has made many past aspects of my life awkward at best and completely void at the worst.

I appreciate my dad more than I can express. He’s a very genuine person. And genuinely good. He uses my name. And even my pronouns, though he fumbled and backpedaled when given a death stare by my mom.
Both of my parents were very nice and giving and kind to my friends and me. I know that my mom misses me. She is always prompting me to come visit.

And I’m mostly okay with visiting, it’s just that I don’t really enjoy how jarring it is to be misrepresented. I am not ever going to insist that she use my name and pronouns. I am never going to give her ultimatum or anything of the sort. But I am going to be hesitant to spend very much of my valuable time away from work putting myself through such -once again “jarring” is the best word- encounters.

Both of my parents seem to accept Liam as my partner. I have never explicitly told them this is true, but they are not dumb. The invitation is for both of us (despite the insistence of separate rooms.) I do not know what they think of the relationship, or even if they think of it much at all.

Because we have a State Parks pass, we will be visiting that side of the mountains a few times this year, as there are several state parks near them. Hopefully it will continue to be good.

Also this weekend, I visited an old workplace - Glenwood Caverns. I was a tram operator for most of high school and a couple of summers after starting college. It was a fun job. And though it has changed a whole lot in the intervening 8 or so years, it’s still a fun place. I hope my friends had a good time trooping along after my nostalgia.

It was nice to spend some time visiting old places and people that I once knew so well.

Trail Tuesday

This week is a two-for-one since I neglected to post last week.

Last week I decided to check out Sand Creek Regional Greenway, as it's about 15 minutes north of my house. It was a nice trail for the most part, but there was a lot of construction and other hazards that required me to make several detours. It also switches back and forth between gravel and cement, which made it slightly unpleasant to run on. I also got a killer sunburn. I don't think I'll return. Not for awhile anyway. But it was nice to find a new place and I got a pretty great photo.

Today I returned to North Table Mountain. I had the idea of doing a figure eight to stretch the length a bit more, since the longest loop is about 7.5 miles. Well, I was able to successfully stretch it to 12. But it was super hot and not very pleasant. I walked a good 30% of the time. And about 3/4 of the way through I found a creek and sat in the shade with water running over me for about ten minutes.

I need to find some places to run that aren't front range. And/or I need to get up much earlier. ugh.

a nice big root to trip over.

pretty day, just way too hot.

cactus blooms!

and paintbrush.

Fury Road

The latest Mad Max movie is fantastic. Great acting. Great practical effects. Great music. Literal non-stop action. Cool camera and filming techniques. And also not the misogynistic type that most action movies tend to be. It was actually pretty much not a Mad Max film and more of a Furiousa film. Charlize Theron is fantastic.

I wanted to see it anyway, but I wanted to see it way more after reading that some "men's rights advocates" were upset about it. It lived up to their fears and was amazing. There is nothing romantic between the lead characters. There is only give and take equally. Furiousa is strong more than just physically. And Max recognizes this without even having it test it. And the Vuvalini. I don't think I've ever seen badass older women in a movie before.

It still retains the trademark of Mad Max films. It's odd. It doesn't have a whole lot of dialogue and what it does have often doesn't make a whole lot of sense. There's a lot of death and disease and general bleakness. Characters, places and events aren't really explained fully or fleshed out. This leaves a lot to the imagination which is occasionally frustrating, but mostly makes it a bit more realistic.

There is really nothing about the movie I don't love. I need to see it again in 3D.

Trailrun Tuesday (again, finally!)

I had a really nice run today. It was rough for many reasons though. One is that I'm not in shape, so like several before it, it was half hike half run. Another was that it was wet and muddy in a lot of places and that caused some complications. Also it was very humid today. Ew. This was the longest "run" I've ever done and I really started to peter out after mile 8 or so of the 10.

The good news was that it was beautiful, even if the day was cloudy and smoggy. Also, I ran/hiked 10 miles in two and a half hours. Not so bad at all.

I went to someplace new today, Green Mountain aka William F. Hayden Park. I don't know why I've never been, it's actually closer than the ones I generally go to. It's also huge, with many interconnecting trails. There weren't many  people for about 3/4ths of the run. Toward the end, I came upon more trail heads and quite a few people. But there was plenty of room to spread out.

see what I mean about the water on the trail?

You might- might- be able to make out Denver's skyline under the smog.

bumble be doin' his thing. 

pretty, no?

There's a prairie dog yelling at me in this one.

beautiful single track for miles.

this one was result/solution to the muddy trails. It was nice to train barefoot.

of course.

Avengers (Spoilers maybe)

I watched Age of Ultron today. I liked it well enough. Interestingly, I don’t actually like superhero movies all that much and I generally wait until they are on DVD. However, I do watch Agents of SHIELD, so I needed to see the film to tie it all together. Also Joss Whedon is a sort of hero.

Anyhow, I liked the film well enough. It was a fun surprise to see Andy Serkis and Paul Bettany. I really dislike Tony Stark. I really love Natasha Romanov. I also like Clint, but I really dislike the actor, so it’s sort of hard to reconcile that. I really enjoyed his little family twist.

The film and Whedon have been getting some criticism (rightly so) for Stark’s primae noctis line. My theory on that is that it isn’t so much just a cheap rape joke put into the script for fun. It’s Stark. His character is real. I mean, it’s horrible of course, but it’s his character. And it’s also something that comes up in real life. What was upsetting perhaps more than the joke itself, was that no one called him out on it.

That’s what Joss Whedon’s strength is: making real people. These characters aren’t just archetypes, they are more real than any of the other superheroes I’ve seen, including the other Marvel ones with the same characters. They all have weaknesses. And they all have strengths other than the obvious. I think the main reason I love Natasha is that she doesn’t have super powers. She’s just bad ass. And that’s why I like SHIELD as well. Real people. Humanity. And Joss does that so well.

So yeah, no real spoilers I guess, just my thoughts. Now I can go back to watching SHIELD and wishing for a Black Widow movie.

Lucy

I’ve had “Lucy” on my list of movies to watch for some time now. It didn’t do so well with ratings and all, so I decided it was a drinking movie: one I wouldn’t have to pay too much attention to.

I actually liked it. It was strange to be sure. The premise was unreasonable (we actually don’t use only 10% of our brains. We just don’t use it all at once). ScarJo was great of course. As was Morgan Freeman. I really enjoyed the style. Flashing back and all, delving into human evolution. (Seeing the writing/direction credit - Luc Besson - explained it all.)

I do feel that it lacked real impact, though. But the potential was there. She mentions that she feels less human as the human emotions melt away.

I think that that bit should have been the focus. Because- as I’ve stated before- humanity is the real subject of sci/fi. So if I were writing the film, I’d say she learns everything she can. Everything there is. She unlocks it all, but ultimately chooses to remain human, understanding that knowledge and power aren’t the goals of life. It’s the raw, experienced, emotions that make us who we are.

Trail Tuesday

I did a really nice run/hike today as a sort of last hurrah before surgery. I’m sure I’ll do a hike this weekend, but I wanted a nice long run also. It was a new park- White Ranch Open Space Park-  that I recently discovered and it has many diverging trails to choose from. It’s rather steep most of the time, so I didn’t really run up it, mostly just fast hiked. And then I ran all the gradual bits and the flat bits and downhill. I saw maybe half a dozen people the whole time.

obligatory trail selfie...

It was a blast. I cannot wait until I’m healed up enough to go back and explore more.

RMNP fun

I need to post about my adventures more. I always upload the photos to facebook, but I never get to really talk about them. So-

On Saturday we went up to Rocky Mountain National Park. We headed up to Mills Lake, which we did earlier this winter, but went well beyond it, following some ski tracks along the creek. There was a good three foot base of snow, but luckily the trail was (mostly) packed down enough that I didn't need snowshoes. However, by the time we were heading back, the temperatures had risen so much that we were in shirt sleeves and the snow was getting slushy and sticky. It was sort of gross. But it was a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky until early afternoon. I got a sunburn on my neck from the snow reflecting. We even got to glissade down a section. It was a really great day.

up the ski track

a fun glissade

Mills Lake

Mills panorama