thoughts escaping my mind
9th August.
Garden of the Gods was pretty neat. These massive and yet marvelously thin rock that jut out in the middle of nowhere, pushed up by tectonic action and then weathered down.
Here’s a panorama shot from the visitor centre.
Continue reading ‘Colorado Springs: Garden of the Gods, Pike’s Peak and Manitou Springs’
Picking, up from where I left off last:
8th August.
Wheat growing.
Okay, I’m skipping ahead many, many days, because it’s clear I won’t catch up till I’m home, till today. Maui. The last island before returning to Honolulu and reaching the end of the holidays.
A very quick summary.
Visited Haleakala National Park. Haleakala is a dormant volcano.
Haleakala National Park
Haleakala National Park
I suppose I should add dates to these entries, since they are all so being blogged about so late.
So, 7th August…. We make our way from Kansas City to Colorado Springs. Only the drive is 9.5 hours, so we decide to split it halfway at Hays, KS.
Because of the flooding of the Missouri that closed I-29, we had to take a rather indirect way to Kansas City, but it didn’t turn out to be much longer than taking the I-29 all the way, apparently.
We ate at Jack Stack Barbecue which was very good. We had beef ribs, lamb ribs, crown ribs. All were moist, had a good bite, not all stringy and falling apart.
Beef and lamb ribs from Jack Stack
Saw some interesting old towns in Colorado along the I-76 when we took the scenic route out.
Train sighting
This year seems to be a year of flight delays.
I got a hunk of beef from MMMeat – I don’t actually know how many ‘M’s are in that name. It cost me about $40+. From that piece, I got 4 slices of 1″ steak, and a hunk that I roasted. Two meals.
I don’t believe that it has taken me more than 2 years to do this again. Now I can’t wait to repeat my success.
If there’s Leo’s Song, of course, there’ll be one for my Sumo.
The two are really night and day. As I often say (apparently, I like to repeat myself) one is like an Express Stream dog, the other is in Normal Stream with a future in beauty school.
But although Sumo is faster, he gets too excited, too eager, too fast and that makes him rash and behave aggressively.
I did want to record this last week, but over enthusiastically cut nails and equally over enthusiastic strumming gave me a blister on the edge of my finger.
So here I go again, embarrassing myself with an off-key rendition of Sumo’s Song.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
The chords are G, D (with a high D), C, D
Guess who I found in my ukulele case after I recorded Leo's Song?
This is a song that I thought up after looking into the blank eyes of Leo, who, after 6 months of training, still isn’t paper trained.
It took me 6 weeks to teach Leo how to shake hands. Now that Leo knows how to shake hands, when I command “down”, he offers his paw.
I did this song in GarageBand, starting by laying down the drum track, then played out the bass track on the computer keyboard.
Then I played the ukulele, sang the song and added the barks.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
The chords are F, C5? (CGCG), Am, G
