The Birthday Present

I know, I know, I'm a little overdue for a new post. Yes, my birthday was in April. Whatever. Sorry. Anyway, on my birthday (well, actually, it was the day after my birthday, but there were scheduling complications) the lovely and talented Ms. Geranium presented me with a round trip ticket to Denver. I looked at it and thought, why would she be giving me a ticket to Denver? The only reason I could think of was to visit our old friend, Bill. It just so happens that Bill is also one of the most respected paragliding instructors in the region. I've always wanted to learn how to paraglide, and the birthday present included paragliding lessons! Ms. Geranium had planned the whole thing, got my mother, siblings, and even our oldest daughter to chip in to help pay for the trip, and, on top of that, what with all the people involved, she still managed to keep it a secret until my birthday (well, actually, as I mentioned before, the day after my birthday.)




Wednesday, the day I left, the weather was pretty nasty. Even at 36,000 feet I could see clouds that were higher than we were, and the plane was bouncing around like, well, like something that is bouncing around quite a bit. We eventually got beyond the nasty weather (somewhere over Nebraska, I think), the sky cleared up and, aside from seeing another plane scream past us in the other direction at a distance from our plane that seemed to me to be closer than was intended, the flight was pretty uneventful.

Bill picked me up at the airport, we stopped at a park in Boulder and ate our Fraboni sandwiches. (Fraboni's is an Italian Delicatessen in Madison that makes the best sandwiches. Bill, as a former Madisonian, stipulated that the price of my paragliding lessons would include, among other things, such as signed CDs from the various bands in which I play, sandwiches from Fraboni's, so I picked some up before going to the Madison airport. I was feeling nice, so I also bought him a bottle of Fraboni's secret sub sauce.)

Me with a partially eaten Fraboni's #1 in hand.
Photo by Bill

We did a quick paraglider transplant from his car to the car of his other student (unbeknownst to me at the time, the reason for the transplant was that he needed to make room for all the gear with which we were going to fill his car) and headed to Bill's cabin in Coal Creek Canyon. Bill checked the weather forecast on his computer, which, apparently, he had been watching throughout the preceding few days, and decided that it was not looking good for paragliding on the Front Range, which meant... Road Trip! We were leaving in the morning for the Western Slope on the other side of the mountains, 275 miles from his house. Whilst getting some of my stuff out of his car, I saw some sort of creature running around in the dark. I tried to get a photo of it and went back inside.

"Hey, Bill! There's some kind of critter running around outside. It looked like kind of like a fox, but I can't imagine a fox hanging around your house."



Bill informed me that there were two or three foxes in the area that frequently came around looking for raw chicken. You might wonder why they would expect to find raw chicken at Bill's house? Hmm...

While Bill was feeding raw chicken to the foxes, I had the opportunity to get a few more pictures.




The next day, we packed Bill's car full of camping and paragliding gear and headed to the other side of the mountains. We took our time getting there, making a few stops along the way.

Bill in front of his house.

We drove past this house, made famous in the movie Sleeper.

Stopped at Loveland Pass. (Click on the photo to embiggen it so you can read the orange sign.) Climbed up those stairs in the background so we could get above 12,000 feet.



At 12,000 feet, even those few steps took the wind out of me.

Heading down the other side of the Continental Divide, the rocks changed color. Something to do with cutting through different layers. You might even think it made a case for tectonic shift. Nah! God just made it all that way 6,000 years ago to confuse the scientists.



Stopped to take a bike ride in Glenwood Canyon along the Colorado River, sometimes under and sometimes next to I-70.




The water looked a little rough, but Bill decided to take a dip anyway.



Nice t-shirt.



The Book Cliffs. I guess these guys extend all the way into eastern Utah.



Checking out a potential flying site, Bill decides it's too rocky.
Ankle and toe breaking territory.



Here's a big pile of rocks.



Another hazard for the would-be paraglider: cacti! They were all over the place. Pretty, though.



By the time we got to our campsite it was getting dark.



This is what I saw when I woke up the next morning.



Our campsite.

Bill and I spent the next morning scoping out the various flying sites he has used in the area. Actually, Bill did the scoping. I mostly followed him around and took lots of pictures. We met Bill's other student, Amanda, and spent most of that day and the next training on the ground. It was Amanda's birthday, too! Happy birthday, Amanda.

This is Amanda. Hi, Amanda!

Amanda was an excellent camping and flying companion. She was further along then I was in the paragliding certification program, so I was able to watch and learn from her. She seemed to have no fear. She's a very fun and nice young woman. Bill told me he thinks she is going to be an excellent pilot.



This is Amanda's colorful food.



This is Bill sampling some of Amanda's colorful food.



Bill and Amanda climbing in the Big Ol' Cottonwood tree in our campsite. They found some ticks in the tree. They got out of the tree rather quickly. Smart tree.



The Colorado Beer Bottle Bush. Its flowers look enough like beer bottles that yahoos will pollinate it running from bush to bush looking for beer. Or, maybe, beer actually grows on trees.... er.... bushes in Colorado.



The Car Commercial™.
"The 1988 Suzuki Sidekick. It takes you where you need to go. (Standard Equipment: two out of four electric windows actually functional.)"



The horny toad.



The wind sock. Sometimes it was nice to us.



This town ain't big enough for the two of us.



Amanda training on the ground.


Amanda demonstrating takeoff position.



There she goes!



Bill actually got one photo of me all decked out in paragliding gear, waiting for the wind to cooperate.

On the way back to Bill's house we made a stop and hiked up to Hanging Lake, elevation 7,200 feet.

So, I did get to fly, despite the brevity of my trip. It was more fun than a barrel of monkeys. (Why do people say that? Would a barrel of monkeys actually be fun? I sort of doubt it.) Okay, whatever, it was lots of fun. I want to do it again. I still can't believe Ms. Geranium did all that for me. It was a truly inspired birthday gift. Thanks to Ms. Geranium, the rest of my family and Bill! You're the best!

Coming soon: Ed Goes Paragliding, the movie.

Coolest field trip, ever!

Late in February, I had the pleasure of chaperoning a field trip to Pop's Cave near Richland Center, WI, with Sparkly Seacow's 7th grade class. I've been meaning to get to putting these pictures up for some time, but, for some reason, I haven't had energy for blogging, or much else, in recent months.

First we had a 90 minute bus ride. Then it was over the "river"...

... and through the woods.
I got the sense that some of the kids on the trip had never been out of the city before. Several of them seemed a bit scared. Our family has done a lot of camping, hiking and things of that sort, so it was odd to witness the reactions of people that don't have that opportunity.

Down a hole into the cave.

This is a view of the hole as seen from the inside. Since I had to use a flash, most of the pictures won't actually show what it looked like while we were inside. Once we got away from the entrance, it was much darker with the only light coming from our flashlights and headlamps.

One of the walls in the first chamber.

More of the first chamber. Most of the parts of the cave had names, but I don't remember all of them.

A wee bat. We tried not to disturb them, but just imagine a bus-load of middle school kids coming into your bedroom while you're trying to sleep. Poor bats.

Some of the kids taking a rest. That's Sparkly Seacow in the green jacket.


One of the teachers waiting for the mob to pass through a part of the cave called "The Birth Canal." We had a couple of adults go first, then some kids, more adults, more kids, ending with adults.


That's me waiting for the mob to pass through the birth canal. I got to be last. Those helmets sure look dorky, but I would bet that there wasn't a single person who didn't clonk their head in that cave at least a few times.


The tail end of the mob heading for "The Birth Canal."


This is probably my favorite picture of the bunch. I think you know the name of this passage.


Some of the rocks were translucent and would glow if you put a light on them.


Sparkly Seacow crawling through "The Mole Hole." It leads into a small chamber big enough to seat about five people.


One of the other adult volunteers squeezing through a tight space.


What a great trip! It's not often one has the opportunity to see a cave like this. The cave is on private property and it's pretty amazing that the owners of the property allow schools to visit. I hope the kids appreciated it as much as I did.

Wisconsin Film Festival

Ms. Geranium, Sparkly Seacow and I went to see a collection of short films as part of the Wisconsin Film Festival. The films were of varying lengths, but most were under ten minutes. I thought some were very good, some not so good, and some were just weird. We ended up sitting next to Hannah Dallman, the director, writer and producer of one of the films, "Small Comforts." She was there with her young daughter and other family members. I enjoyed her film.

Here's another good one that we saw called "This is Umberto" by Anna Krutzik.

A few more from SXSW

The "Artist Pass" that allowed me to, umm..., wear an "Artist Pass", I guess. I'm not entirely sure that it gave me any special privileges beyond the ability to say I have a pass and you don't.

The only live shot I've seen of us playing at the festival. Photo courtesy of Wendy Lynn Staats of the band Sunspot. Note the Artist Pass on my left leg. Really glad I had that pass.

Here's Jeff and me doing the stupid rock pose with the hired young women, just like you see in Billboard Magazine! They were good sports about posing with us middle-aged rockers.
I would guess they weren't much older than my oldest daughter. Note that the woman in the middle is holding a picture of.... The Motor Primitives! In case you're wondering why everyone is wearing a Broadjam shirt but me, Broadjam is the company that sponsored the stage we played on and they gave us all shirts, but I had worn mine the day before. Besides, I generally don't like being an advertisement while on stage. I guess I'm just funny that way.

Photo by Robin Davies.