Super rough day today weather wise. It started raining at 7 and then finally turned to snow around lunch time. Of course, I don't have windows in my classroom so by the time school was out it was all gone and pretty dry but still cloudy. I haven't ridden since Crusted Butt so I decided to get out. I took a trail that starts right behind the high school. There's gotta be close to a dozen trails that branch off it so I took one I haven't seen before. I got lost. I ended up following some game trails and popped out on a fire road just outside of town. One of coolest rides I've had in a while.

This giant hole was big enough for me to stand in.

Remnants of the snow.

The higher country got some good snow and the Peak looks amazing.

Last night I was supposed to head up to Rocky Mt. Natl. Park and do a night hike in up to a high alpine lake and meet up with some buddies for the weekend but I was too tired. I'm bummed to miss it. There would have been plenty of laughs, olives soaked in gin, trout, and bugling elk. Instead I'm gonna help clean the house and then I get to look at Heather's Jeep and see how ugly 2 needed repairs are gonna be.

Her check engine light's been on for a few weeks. When I scanned the computer it came back as a minor evaporative leak. This is part of the emissions system on the Jeep and it contains about a mile of 3/8" plastic line. Usually a small crack develops in a line and it sets off the computer. So I have to trace it down and replace it. It's like finding the head of a needle in a field of hay stacks. The bigger issue is that it's leaking enough oil now to leave a very small puddle in the driveway. If you know me then you know exactly how I feel about leaks of any kind. The Jeep 4 liter leaks no matter what you do to it so I've lived with it for a while now. They generally start to leak from the back of the rocker cover and then it runs down and presents itself like a rear main leak. Or....the rear main leaks. On a lot of motors you'd have to drop the trans to get to that seal but on this one you just need to pull the oil pan, the crank brace, and the rear main bearing cap and then hope the stars are aligned right to get the old seal half that's up in the motor out without nicking the crank. I did this job 3 times on my 96 before I got it right. I HATE THIS JOB. It's always easier on a lifted rig but on hers I'm gonna have to take off tons of stuff to wrestle the pan out. I swore I'd never do this messy job again. I'll know tonight if I lucked out and it's the rocker cover gasket but I already know what's wrong. Nothing beats laying under a motor with no oil pan on and having oil drop on your face, glasses, hair.......bald head.......for 6 hours.

What a week

This was Homecoming week at our school. It's great for most of the students but mine usually don't do well unstructured things. Each day was a different theme and a different fight. I dealt with full face masks, too many hats to count, costumes that had nothing to do with the days theme, body paint, etc. Each day topped the last. To make matters worse, I came home Thursday and found that Bodhi had chewed big chunks off his industrial strength Kong and then had thrown up in his kennel. There were bits of Kong everywhere. We went outside and he pooped which was a good sign. Then he puked more. I thought (but couldn't tell) that there was a bit of a pinkish hue to the vomit and then I started to worry again. I fed him a cup of food to see what would happen. He kept it down. He drank some water through the night. Then at 9 he threw up again and it was quite bloody but it was just liquid. Then I was worried. His stomach wasn't hard like it would be from a blockage and, although he didn't appear to be his normal cheery self, he wasn't laying on his side like you'd expect from a blockage. At this point there wasn't much that could be done. Vets might do an x-ray to see if they could determine a blockage but the blood could have also been from a 101 other things. Even though I was worried, I made the decision to stay up through the night and watch him and his belly. I sat with him on the couch and finished surfing the net all the way to it's end at 2 in the morning. I think I finally nodded off a bit sometime about 4:30 but the lights were all on. He didn't get sick at all. I checked on him throughout the day and things were ok. I think he's back to his normal self now. Bodhi has cost me more at the vet than I think every dog I've had combined. I was a zombi at work on Friday and only made it through one episode of Season 5 The Wire before I crashed out.

Heather and I took a little drive today over towards Breckenridge. We walked around and did the tourist thing. We had lunch at Empire Burger. When it was time to head home I decided to follow the TDR route up and over Boreas Pass, down into Como and then on into Hartsel. It was a fun day. I'll share more pics later but now.....I got some episodes of the The Wire to watch.

This is right at the summit of the pass.

More terrible views.

Old fueling tank for the railroad that used to run over this pass.

Views back towards Breck from a little ways up Boreas.

Downtown Breck.

Spotted

Saw this lovely Leggy today that had a nice drop and sharp wheels. Wait a minute..........what's that sticker say? He's part of the revolution. We're taking over.

I've always had a thing for knives. When Heather and I first started dating maybe 7 years ago, she wanted to buy me a knife but she didn't wanna buy me one I wouldn't like. So we went shopping one day and I found this one from Gerber. While looking at it in the store, I got a nasty little cut on my finger from the serrated portion of the blade. We laughed when we noticed the blood drops on the glass case. She bought it. The edge was in really bad shape so I worked on it for a while last night and tonight. I just finished up a while ago. While putting it away I cut the base of my thumb open. It's not bad. More funny than anything else.

CB Classic

That's me dead center.