The Continuing Story of Bob Travis

Somewhere west of Rye, CO...













We enjoy visitors and it seems we have a lot of friends who come visit us in our various locales. One of the more regular/loyal is Davey who we met quite by accident.

Several years ago while living in Sarasota, FL another friend was coming to visit...we got a call
"We're at the border."
"Good to hear. Did you say 'we'?"
"Yeah, I brought two friends."
"Cool."
And so it turned out that Davey was one of them. While on that trip he spent bits of free time on the computer messaging some chick. Not long after the initial visit, Davey comes to visit once again, with Rachael. They visit us onboard our sailboat, Davey has crewed with us for several days, we've thrown him from a waverunner/tube and given black eye/concussion, and this time he came to visit for a three day week-day weekend. His wife Rachael and son Griffin stayed behind, travel with a 1-year old must be rough. But, we've seen the evolution from the initial awkward IM's to the marriage and birth...and all from thousands of miles away. The great thing about good friends and family is that distance does not matter, a good relationship is good regardless of the miles.

By this point you may be asking yourself "If Davey visits then who the hell is Bob Travis?" This is where the good old-fashioned weirdness comes in. After a good night's sleep sans 1-year old, Davey gets up...
"I feel like a new man."
"Who are you then?" asks Heather
After a brief pause... "I'm Bob Travis."

Hence, our Adventures With boB...palindromes are cool.

Bishop's Castle is one of our favorite places to take company. It is a one man project in the mountains and if you're lucky you'll run into Jim Bishop himself working on some feature of the castle, moat, or such and he'll give you a full blown, full volume rant on some news of interest or politics. I won't direct you to a particular website but if you Google Bishop's Castle you'll find a bevy of conflicting information and some fantastic pictures. Oh, look, here's a couple of them now...












































While in the area we also hiked part of Mt. St. Charles. We had no intention of making it to the peak but hiked for about an hour and made it to probably 10,500' or so and headed back to the vehicle for lunch. It was a gorgeous hike and we'll head back soon and shoot for the peak. It's about a 5-hour hike so we have to plan and prepare well. While in town, we also took Davey & the atv up to Penrose Commons and spent some time buzzing around the trails.

Three days and a few brain cells later, Bob returned home (safe and sound, no injury or seasick...) to his wife and child rested and relaxed and ready to take on a 1-year old who is learning to walk and talk. He'll (they'll) be back. And it will be fun.

Pink and Blue

Rainy Afternoon...









We got into a discussion this weekend with unhappy friends. We got caught in the middle of a "he doesn't/she won't" discussion and it didn't take us long to remember how thankful we are for each other. I guess that's a positive about being around negative people once in a while...it can be a real eye-opener.


Who does what is one of the biggest problems in almost any relationship...the responsibility for chores and such. We both got lucky. We don't really have any of the 'gender-based' chores, "pink and blue" we call them. We both participate in yard work. Heather likes putting things together and helping install/fix things which is great for me. I enjoy running the vacuum and she doesn't complain. Laundry is about 50-50. The only real place that we have "regular chores" is just serendipity, it just happened that way...Heather likes listening to books on tape while she handwashes the dishes and I just got into doing the cat litter at the same time every morning and it became habit. So the only two chores that we really split regularly are for no real prejudice for the chore. And hey, I almost always load/unload the dishwasher so I get some credit...


So after hearing another couple whine and bitch about the shortcomings of the other, we spent our drive home listing the things we liked and appreciated about the other. 45 minutes later we hadn't run out. Life is good.

How Salad Is Really Made

My next attempt at stop motion... a little longer and a little more c omplex with some synched music. I hope you enjoy a little.

Mouse Attack! A Stop Motion Experiment

It's always fun to learn something new. After a couple years of owning our Nikon Coolpix digital camera, we're still finding new things to do with it. Stop motion photography is the latest. Thanks to a very patient cat, it worked out well for a first attempt. I give myself a B.



How I Did It...

The camera was set on the lowest setting so that the memory chip did not fill up. A tripod was used for stability. Each picture was taken x3 and then JPGVIDEO was used to string the pictures into video. You have to tweak the frames per second as well as the duplicate deletion rate. It helps to play around with the codec to find out which gives you the desired effect.

What I Would Change Next Time...

I would like to add music
Make the view switch a little less jumpy
Expand each scene/frame, make them a little tighter together

But all in all I am happy with the first attempt at stop motion video. Thanks again to the very patient cat.

No mice were harmed in the filming...

What's New In Our World

One of our Bullock's Orioles with an identity crisis...










Life continues on and I just don't know where the days go. Summer is just fantastic...warm days and cool nights for sleeping. Although we've been in the 90's on a regular basis, almost every afternoon the black clouds come tearing down from the mountains and with them come a fantastic breeze and occasionally rain. Somewhere to the north of us gets rain on a regular basis but almost daily for us the winds ramp up and the clouds drop the temps from 90's down anywhere from the 60's to the 80's...it is fantastic to feel thirty degrees shaved off in a half an hour. That is when we retire to the front porch after grilling dinner for a little sit down.

Speaking of that...

The front porch is where our 'feeding station' resides. The birds love it and the word is out. Multiple hummingbirds visit the feeder as do the orioles, as can be seen above. The suet feeder is attractive to most everyone else including sparrows, finches, quail, and so on. The quail now have babies, little two inch critters running about. The birds are becoming accustomed to us sitting on the porch and are beginning to visit the feeders regardless of our presence.
Thankfully, we've found that the rattlesnakes are not that bold. While doing some landscaping today, a small (18") rattlesnake came out of the bushes and promptly turned around and went another direction. That was a much appreciated gesture. But it's a good reminder for us to be vigilant.

Farmer's Market

Pueblo holds its Farmer's Market on Thusday from 4:00 pm to 8:00 pm from late June to late August. Along the Arkansas river, vendors set up and we enjoy. The riverwalk is lined with watermelon, tomatoes, squash, corn on the cob...all fresh and local. Other vendors sell homemade jellies and jams, local honey, and some fabulous tamales. There's nothing like heading downtown to the Riverwalk after work and grabbing a few tamales, sitting on a bench and eating one hot and fresh, then shopping for the week's produce. There's not much better.



Historic Arkansas Riverwalk, downtown Pueblo, CO








Technology Plays Hide & Seek

We got a weird kick in the pants from technology... after a long period of resisting valiantly, we gave in and signed up for Facebook. Not long after, we were flooded with people we hadn't been in contact with for ages...one of them being B's old roommate from about 13 years ago. He and his family just so happened to be vacationing about half an hour away and so we got together for a cookout. It was fantastic to catch up and after such a long time of not seeing one another, it was like old times...easy conversation and lots of laughs.

What's Next???

Next week, weather permitting, we plan another trip up into the wilderness. Somewhere east of Salida there is lots of BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land where we can park and hike with no one else, pure wild. I'm sure we'll get lots of photo and video... to be posted soon

For now, I'll leave you with a very short clip of lightning from a storm a few nights ago...