Foliage

The winds are blowing so hard today that the leaves make a clack sound when they hit the window. Our house is shaking. We decided to take a fall foliage tour over to Rico since the leaves may all be blown off by tomorrow.



There was quite a bit of snow on the mountains last night.

We ended up at our usual restaurant in Rico but it was the chef's day off and you could tell by the way the food tasted without even asking where the chef was. Also, I hate it when you ask "what's the 'spicy sauce' on the burger?" and the waitress answers "It's a secret." Secret spelled Russian Dressing. But don't tell anyone. It's a secret.

Buck

And Obama is declaring Saturday National Hunting and Fishing Day, poor buck. Don't get me started. We were this close, it's not a zoom in.

Acrophobia?

Our neighbors told us about a hike they like to take for picnics, so we followed their directions. Maybe we should have remembered that she jogs uphill and he races bicycles.

It was an exciting trail if you like them skinny with cliffs and wide space with nothing to catch you if you roll and big horn sheep scat and slick surfaces, but I ran into some psychological difficulties on the way down. (Notice how I'm leaning even above.)



The butt hike helps when the acrophobia kicks in. My astrological sign is cancer the crab.



This bull mastiff knew better than to hike on such scary trails. "I'm not going!"

This wolfhound pup just joined his athletic family's pack yesterday. His tail was so long he looked like a mountain lion. He was a very mellow pup. He's going back with his new family to Arizona on Thursday. When I see him next he'll be a giant.

Dots!

Cruised the Target aisles last week to see what their Halloween novelties were like this year. All disappointing except for these two boxes of novelty dots: Bat Dots and Ghost Dots.

The bats don't have black wings but they do have an interesting blood orange flavor, not too sweet. I thought the ghost dots were going to glow in the dark, but they don't. Instead they are all the varied flavors of regular dots without the color to tell you what you're about to eat.

The light here is very hazy from the Colorado fires, and it's 80 degrees at 4 pm. weird.

Hope Lake

"Hey, where's Sally?"



"I'm coming, I'm coming."



Hope Lake above treeline, around 12,500 feet. Huff, puff. Our neighbors ride a tandem bicycle over the highest mountain passes. They put up with us today. They're fun and are getting a wolfhound puppy tomorrow.



Trying to hitch a ride back. No luck. Smoke from the California fires tints the skies here.

Lizard Head

There's a famous rock formation around here called Lizard Head. This isn't it. The famous Lizard Head is just a big block on a giant one- for years I thought the head had already fallen off. And then just walking along the Galloping Goose trail I came upon this beauty. Hey there Lizard Head!

We saw "The Hurt Locker" in Telluride last night. Wow, two films in a theatre, two nights in a row, and both directed by women! (Julie and Julia the night before.)

I liked "The Hurt Locker" ever so much better, though I could have done without all the handheld photography. It's a suspense movie set in Iraq. The lead, Jeremy Renner, has a touch of Russell Crowe and a touch of Elvis. wooh!

However, it resulted in nightmares in which I was pleading to exchange Farmville points for a "get out of the army now" pass as we marched over the Colorado mountains to Sawpit.

How's yer Mall?

Talking to an L.A. friend today who owns a theatre in a mall in Riverside. His theatre is bedevilled by gangs, who scratch their gang names in the bathroom mirrors and shove seats loose from the concrete floor.

He said he thinks commercial real estate could be the next financial bomb in the country, said that if a mall is only 15 % vacant it's doing really well, said boutiques, karate parlors and restaurants are going belly up in a hurry.

Have YOU been to a local mall lately? Is your mall looking a little lonesome?

I was puzzling over what would become of empty malls. And all those gang members. Then it came to me, of course. The new prisons! Just what Arnold's been asking for. It's already hard to get into underground parking lots- just fence them off. (Reminder to self: contact Lou Dobbs in morning.) jk

We saw "Julie and Julia" tonight. I was squirming. I am such an intolerant contemporary film viewer. The cuteness was gagging me. Besides, I have tried to cook from that cookbook and it is not easy and sometimes impossible, with ingredients like goose fat and procedures sure to make you ill. Amy whatever is not someone I enjoy listening to, the blogging delights made me mighty uncomfortable, and though Meryl Streep seemed great and reminded me of old relatives, she was also starting to remind me of Bozo the Clown.

Chicken Lady

I didn't think this was a self portrait when I drew it but it has been a while since I've gotten a haircut.

Silverton Again

We took our friends Anne and Danny over the million dollar highway to Silverton on Thursday. We got there just as the steam train was pulling in and the streets were flooded with tourists.



You could hear a lot of different languages on the street, as well as a saloon piano, which is a lovel sound. I guess it's the season when foreign visitors come to see the fall foliage. Quite a few were calling out to their friends in Italian. Danny looks like he stepped out of a foreign film in the picture above.



I cooked fried chicken, trout almondine and lasagna. Jon cooked bison steaks the last night. We had a jolly time.

Pretty Bird

I think this is a female Western Tanager feasting on one of our elderberry bushes. Wish she would bring her boyfriend around, as the male is one of the prettiest US birds.

Table for 4

Some good friends from L.A. are coming to visit this evening, staying till Friday. We're looking forward to it. You never know how the altitude is going to affect folks, so we're not making too many plans.

Not sure if I'll be posting pix or not because some people don't like to have their pictures out on the internet.

I had to enable word "captcha" on the comments because I've been hit by a strange spam movement from Japan, all on the old post about the Rachel Alexandra contest. I'm going to see if this stops them.

Galloping Goose

No, Galloping Goose isn't my new screen name though it might fit. It's the name of a lovely trail laid down on land formerly part of a narrow gauge railroad over the mountains. A strange beast called the Galloping Goose traveled the rails, half car, half train, actually made from old Pierce Arrows. We didn't pass another person on our 2 1/2 hour hike. There were old railroad ties and spikes along the way, and the climb was quite easy because the goose had to do it long ago.

Can you believe those cliffs above me (in the picture below) are actually really popular with rock climbers?



They are entirely vertical. In the picture above the large bag of potato chips sticking out of my orange pack seems to be rock camouflaged? Although the rock in the front looks too much like it's part of my pants and IT'S NOT!



Above seen on an aspen near the trail head. Was Marti McGinnis here?

On the way back we stopped to get milk at the Sawpit store. I was hoping they'd replenished the Haribo gummy roll candy they sometimes sell, so I was hovering by the counter behind the big blonde who turned out to be Daryl Hannah. Like Ralph Lauren last week, she also had tanned and bulging calves, but she was much prettier than Ralph, and quite a bit younger, and more makeup. She was with a tall guy who stood deferentially behind her. My candy was not there.

Snippet of conversation between the babe and the nice counter guy:

He: So how did the meeting go yesterday in Montrose?
She: It was really awful. It's really bad.

(She's been trying to stop resumption of uranium mining in sadsack Nucla, CO. Likely to come with it is a nuclear dump site. Just the thing in a mountain resort community... Unfortunately the county commissioners are one step this side of organized crime and there seems no way to stop them. Good for D.H. to try)

She: The reporter was such a New York type. She was supposed to film it and she didn't even bring a camera. She was totally non mellow.

Got a job for you Sally!

So I haven't had work in a couple of years.

By work I mean where someone calls you up and says, "I'd like you to do this for x amount of $".

I'm not talking about those vulture animation "contests" where they say "hey kids, animate something really funny with original characters to this song about our corporation and you may get a chance to have your own series!"

In other words, trolling for talent by requesting spec work, and if they like it they own all rights because you didn't read the small print. And you get "prize money" in return for animating a series for them.

So I'm excited when I get an email this morning about a music video. I love animating to music, my favorite thing about animation. "Oh goody", I think, and read on.

"Now the kicker about this song is that it is very taboo!! It is about me going to the store to pick up a mentally handicapped hooker.. We fall in love then i train her for the special Olympics.. Now this song has received major press on the net for its crazy humour and I think it would be a perfect job for you.."

I go downstairs to make coffee. Is there anyway this doesn't totally offend me? I mean, I thought "Pretty Woman" was offensive and every other preteen girl in the country adored that movie. I come back upstairs and press the play button.

Offensive? I had no idea how specifically dirty a "song" could be. I played it about 2/3 through and couldn't take any more. It'll probably be a big hit in whatever area of the internet loves "songs" about mentally handicapped hookers.

Ridgway Rodeo

We went to the Ridgway rodeo today and had a full out blast. The bleachers were packed and the rodeo was full of exciting action.

It started with an amazing opening act- a trick roper who snapped a bull whip from his horse that enclosed teenage volunteers from the audience in one tight loop, snapped his whip at his wife who held firecracker like items in her arms so he cut them in two, then jumped his horse onto a big trailer, rode up to a working teeter totter on top, stood on his horse and snapped his whip some more.



I spotted him after the rodeo. He had a Civil War look to him I thought. Weird that they didn't even give him a credit in the 32 page "program" which was all ads, so I'm not sure what his name was. His act was amazing and got the crowd all wound up and yelling, perfect for a rodeo.



But he was happy to pose with Carla and me after the rodeo. I don't know where his wife was. That's the whip over his shoulder. Carla ran a bear off her property the other night by chasing after it and yelling at it. wow. I just wear bears on my clothes.

Hansel? Gretel?

Earlier this week out on our usual route loop hike we stopped suddenly: "What is that?" A tiny gabled cottage in the woods where we always walk-- it seemed like a dream and I wish it had been.

It's a Walmart camouflage tent for archery hunters, so now we have to be careful where we walk and wear as much bright orange as possible. We were so pleased that the elk seem to have vanished, but then this morning we heard a loud elk bugle from a nearby canyon.

Last night I had a dream I was sitting in a field of cornmeal trying to tie my shoe when a low rider drove by. "Mike", I called out, can you help me tie my shoe?" He got out of the car with a whole group of gang members and I actually called out "help" from my sleep and woke up myself, Jon and the dog. And who's Mike?

On our way to the market on Friday we stopped at a Ridgway coffee shop to pick up the free paper, and there was Ralph Lauren sitting at an outside table with a hot drink. He was wearing a navy and white jogging jacket and navy knit shorts, rather nautical. A deep tan, gigantic calves, looked well. He owns a zillion acres outside of Ridgway but word was he was too frail to come here any more. Not true!

some cows

WegWag: Marti McGinnis

One of the most appealing horse people I've encountered on the web is artist Marti McGinnis who painted this wonderful cotton candy pony. .. yes a cotton candy pony!

Her joyful paintings really capture the lyrical goofiness of horses.



All these wonderful paintings are for sale at her Etsy shop. Be sure you read her comments on each picture.



One of her web sites is happy art.. This is her blog. Take a look at her amazing art car and she's painted others.

In addition to all that, she is very involved with horse rescue work and lives in Kentucky. She has a darling miniature horse. She's on twitter as Wegwag and on Facebook too. She's a Pet Society queen. I'm sorry we don't live closer. I'd love to have her as a friend. Cheers Marti! You're amazing!