On Tuesday, Maria, Kim, and I drove out to Point Pleasant, PA to go tubing on the Delaware River.  Never having tubed on the Delaware before, we (er, Kim) looked it up online and found Bucks County River Country.  (Warning: worst website of all time.  No, really.  Don’t go to the site.  If you do, by all means, do NOT click on the high-speed/DSL/Cable version.  Otherwise your nightmares will look like this, except that everything on the page will be sliding, spinning, falling, or flying, and there will be awful music blaring without so much as a warning.  Besides this one.)

Website aside, Bucks County River Country is a pretty nice operation.  You park in their parking lot ($5), pay for the tube ride/rental ($18), get on the bus, and they drive you a few miles upriver.  That whole process takes maybe 20 minutes, not counting the time it takes you to put on your sunblock.

You can choose to get off the bus at the 3 mile point, 4.5 mile point, or 6 mile point, which will make your tube trip 2, 3, or 4 hours long, respectively.  We got there relatively late in the day (around 3 PM) so our only options were the 2 and 3 hour trips.  I was thinking that 2 hours in a tube would be plenty of time, mainly because I thought that by 3 or 4 hours I would be starving to death and dehydrated, so we did the 2 hour trip.

Our 3-mile tubing trip actually turned out to only take 90 minutes though, probably because the river was about 2 feet high due to recent rainstorms.  They told us about the water level beforehand, but didn’t mention that it would make the river run significantly faster and therefore make our ride shorter.  In any case, the time went by quickly, and we all wanted to stay longer.

Tubing down the Delaware was tons of fun.  I say that as someone who loves rivers and lakes, though, and thinking about it, it kind of seems like it’d be really boring sitting there in a tube for hours.  But it totally wasn’t, and I can’t wait to do it again.

I had originally planned to get a mesh bag or a small net to stick a bottle of water and some zip-locked snacks into, to tie onto my tube so I wouldn’t die of thirst or starvation during the journey.  But their website says you can’t bring in food or beverages and you can’t take cans or bottles on the river.  So I was bummed about that, and as I said, that was part of the reason I wanted to do the shorter run.  But then when we got there, the girl told us "we’re not very strict", and in fact you can take that stuff with you.  They even sell bottled water and rope to secure stuff to your tube, both of which I bought.

Another thing the website tricks you about is reservations: it says they’re required.  But we called and they said we wouldn’t need them.  It apparently gets crowded on the weekends, but it was pretty sparse when we were there.  There were probably a few dozen people on the river with us, but we were spread out across 3 miles and the width of the river, so there were only a couple people anywhere close to us.

One of the guys at Bucks County River Country told me that there are no dams nor waterfalls between Point Pleasant and the Atlantic Ocean, which seems unlikely, but if true, it’d be cool to go all the way out there.  It’d take forever in a tube, but still.  And while the Pennsylvania side of the river is mostly private property around Point Pleasant, the New Jersey side is mostly public land, so if you brought your own raft you could put in wherever you wanted and go forever.  Just remember to take 2 cars and leave one at the endpoint.

Below is a map of our route.

Aunt Nancy and Uncle Bob just sent us some great photos of our whitewater rafting trip in Steamboat Springs.  They stood on the shore and patiently waited the hour or so it took for us to come down the river and pass their spot.

When you land in Philadelphia after flying from Colorado, the first thing you think is, "Where are all the mountains?"  And the second thing is, "Man, there are trees everywhere."

Having been born and raised in Pennsylvania, I have grown accustomed to all the trees, to the point that I don’t even think we have an abnormal amount of trees.  But being in Colorado, with its vast open ranges, mountains, and whitewater rivers, dotted but not smothered in trees, I feel like I’m on another planet.

This trip was only a short 5 days, and it stormed or threatened to storm almost every day, but we managed to get in a couple of hikes, a bike ride, a trip down the Alpine Slide, some whitewater rafting, and a trip to the rodeo.

The bike ride and the rafting were both along the Yampa River, which is slow and tranquil in some spots and fairly frothy in others -- it’s considered a stage 2 whitewater, though probably only because of one or two drops of perhaps 3-5 feet.  Most of its whitewater sections along the ~5 mile, 90-minute trip are pretty tame; we were neither required nor advised to wear helmets for example.  But the scenic beauty of the river, the surrounding landscape, and the charming backyards of Steamboat Springs make it an extremely enjoyable ride even if the rafting isn’t extreme.

During our first hike, at Mad Creek, I got into the creek up to my waist; and at the end of our bike ride I got into the Yampa completely.  The water was freezing both times, but it was at least a hot sunny day for the bike ride.  When I got into Mad Creek, it was the middle of a downpour.  But I generally can’t resist getting into rivers and lakes given the opportunity.

I’d never ridden an Alpine Slide before, but I gather that it’s something icy, fast, and fun in the winter.  And in the summer they let you ride down it on these little carts that are about twice the size of a skateboard, with 2 wheels on one end and just friction on the other end, to prevent you from going too fast down the long concrete slide.  There’s a single joystick-like control that you push forward to go and pull back on to stop.  The track itself is probably a quarter-mile long, just winding back and forth down the mountain.

As we rode the chairlift up to the top, a girl went down the slide below us, going full speed, and wiped out pretty badly right in front of us on the first curve.  Some of her arms and legs went over the side of the track, and she ended up with a big gash in her hand and probably some nasty scrapes all over.  If I hadn’t seen that, I might have just floored it when it was my turn, falsely assuming that the arched sides of the track would keep me safe all the way down.

The rodeo was pretty interesting and not exactly the redneck-infested event that you might expect, though we weren’t in the south so maybe you wouldn’t expect that.  The best part was the "calf scramble," where they invite all the 6-12 year old kids into the arena and then let loose a calf which has a ribbon on its tail; the kid who gets the ribbon wins.  There must have been 200 kids and it was a hilarious sight to see the mob of them chasing this calf, which was running for its life.  They then repeated this event with kids 5 and under and using a sheep instead of a calf; this had the added bonus of the sheep bounding right on top of the mob of kids as it tried to escape.

On Saturday we had to drive from Steamboat to Denver to catch our flight home.  It’s a 4-hour trip, but the country out there is just beautiful, and since our rental F-150 had a line-in jack through which we could play the music on our iPhones, it was a nice drive.  We passed through Winter Park, which has a restaurant called Fontenot’s, and I got a dish called Orzo Pasta Salad.  It’s a base of cold orzo -- which I’d never had nor heard of before -- with field greens on top, then hot sauteed mushrooms in a "roasted red pepper balsamic dressing," and finally Pecorino cheese on top of that.  I ordered it without the actual red peppers, and would have also omitted the onions had I known they would be hiding in it; but regardless it was an amazing meal.

Another great thing about Colorado is the climate: whereas in PA, during the summer, the temperature may go from a high of sweltering 90 degrees to a low of sweltering 70 degrees, in Steamboat Springs it goes from the 80s to the 40s.  So you get the nice hot summer days and still have nice cool nights.  The pool at the condo was even heated, so while not great for daytime swimming, it was a giant hot tub at night.

It’s difficult to describe just how different and amazing Colorado, and Steamboat in particular, is.  It’s huge, it’s wide open, the sky is far more blue, the rivers are clean, and the views, pretty much no matter where you look, are breathtaking: there are mountains everywhere, many of them snow-capped all year ’round.  Not to mention the skiing and snowboarding in the winter...

I’ve been to Steamboat 3 times now, and it’s hard to leave.  I feel like I belong there.  We would move to Steamboat in a heartbeat if it weren’t for the fact that we’d miss all of our family in PA too much.  But Kim’s mom would follow us there.  So I know I won’t be able to convince all of my family to come, but I figure at least one or two of you would be down for it.  Rolly and Margie?  Maria?  ...Sinjin?

Kim was on photo duty for this trip; here are her albums:

Drive to Colorado

Mad Creek Hike

Steamboat Lake Hike / Aunt Nancy & Uncle Robert Visit

Biking and the Alpine Slide

Whitewater Rafting

Rodeo and 4th of July Fireworks

Drive to Denver

Cheshire has been running around here chasing a fly that was buzzing along the wall.  He finally caught the fly while it was hanging around a small table lamp.  He batted at the fly with his paws until it mostly stopped moving, and then he ate it.  Now he’s running around crying because he can’t find the fly.

recently said to me about cleaning out a Windows install vs reformatting:

"It’s like getting rid of a zombie in a building, you can walk around looking for the zombie and take a while, or you can just burn the entire thing down."

Someone uploaded this to FileChucker’s file upload demo a while ago:

OK, so California isn’t new.  But I did finally just post a set of photos from our trip to California: Redwood Trees at Muir Woods National Monument.

In even more exciting news, Kim and I got a kitten last night!  He doesn’t have a name yet, but he is already an internet superstar with his own kitten photos online.

We just got back from an awesome trip to Steamboat Springs, Colorado.  I went snow-skiing for the first time ever and had tons of fun.  We got a few inches of snow every day, and 10" on one of the days, and it was cold enough that at times we were up to our knees in "fresh powder" as they say.  People were saying this was the best week for skiing that they had all year.

We had also gone to Steamboat in the summer of 2005, and it was equally awesome during that time of year.  We did lots of hiking, some biking, and almost did some white-water rafting.  (I took photos at Fish Creek Falls and Rabbit Ears Pass.)

In any season, Colorado is a beautiful and amazing place.  Steamboat Springs in particular is a nice and quaint little town that just feels like home.  I’m having a hard time understanding why anyone would want to live anywhere other than Colorado.

I didn’t take many photos on this trip since we mostly just skied, but Kim took some, and I’m sure she’ll post them soon.  The few photos that I took were from the plane and I’ll post them if there are any decent ones.

Kim and I took a short trip down to Ocean City NJ this weekend.  We had never been there during the winter so it was a new experience.  The place was a ghost town, as you might imagine: entire blocks of Asbury Ave and West Ave that are well-nigh impossible to find a parking spot on during the summer were completely vacant.

There were some people around -- apparently enough that Mack & Manco and Uncle Bill’s are open year-round, which alone makes the trip worth it -- but walking along the boardwalk for a while, we saw maybe a dozen people, and on the beach we saw only 2.

Anyway, at the corner of 8th & Atlantic I saw this sticker on a utility box and had to get a photo:

Close-up of the best part:

I finally posted the last 2 photo sets from our trip to Utah:

The Great Salt Lake and Antelope Island in Utah

Last month, Kim and Maria and I went horseback riding at a place called Venture Farms.  It’s an out of the way place on a back-country road with lots of animals: llamas, donkeys, goats, more I can’t remember, and I think nearly 100 horses.

The only other time I’d gone horseback riding was in Colorado.  While the CO ride was through absolute wilderness that was often breathtaking, this local ride was still pretty scenic -- much more so than I was expecting for Pennsylvania.  It’s not that PA isn’t beautiful -- it definitely is -- but in some ways it just doesn’t compare to Colorado.  But we rode along some ridges with nice views of the countryside, in addition to going through some woods and riding on roads briefly.

One thing about the ride in CO is that the horses didn’t run at all: they walked very leisurely.  I was expecting the same thing this time, but to my surprise, at quite a few points during the hour-long ride, the horses started running!  My horse seemed especially eager and probably ran the most out of the whole group.  I would guess that my horse was moving at somewhere around 20-30 MPH, but it seemed extremely fast, and was easily one of the most exciting things I’ve ever experienced.

My only complaint about Venture Farms is that the woman who was the group leader seemed to be either in a foul mood or was just not very nice.  There were 5 other people riding with us, and the leader constantly told me to keep going when I would slow down to try and keep pace with Maria, whose horse was a little pokey.  And when the ride was over, we were hanging around a little bit checking out all the other animals, but we got the distinct feeling that they wanted us to leave right away.

Speaking of those other animals, one of them was a goat, which had a fresh baby goat with it, and the baby goat would jump up on its mother’s back, and stand up on it.  He just stood there while his mom walked around.  It reminded me of Mario standing on top of some of the bad guys as they move around in Mario 2.  It was really funny, and Kim got a video of it, which I’m hoping she will post on YouTube.

I just posted the photos from our trip to Hickory Run State Park.

Kim recently had a business meeting in Utah, and despite the fact that airfare to go out west is astronomical, I went along for the trip.  Her ticket was on the company dime, of course.

The farthest west I’d ever been before this trip was Colorado, and Utah is the next state to the west, so it was a new record for me.

Utah is beautiful.  We only had 3 and a half days there, 1 and a half of which were work days, so we didn’t have too much time to explore; we saw Salt Lake City, Alta, and Antelope Island (briefly).  But even just in Salt Lake City, it’s so clean, and there are mountains everywhere; it’s a lovely city.

We took lots of photos.  Here are the ones I’ve posted so far:

Update 2006-12-17: here are the final 2 sets:

Some random interesting things about Utah or the Salt Lake area in particular:

The highways are really wide.  Route 15 is 6 lanes in both directions at some points.

Every shopping center has a pawn shop and/or a payday-loan shop.  Literally every one.  There must be hundreds of them in and around Salt Lake alone.  It’s weird because those kinds of places are so tacky, and there were other tacky/gaudy shops, but then the next block would be really nice.

All restaurants in UT are non-smoking.  That alone is nearly enough reason to move there.

They have this great little restaurant called Noodles & Company.  We went there twice in 3 days if that tells you anything.  I had the mushroom stroganoff and the penne rosa, and both were amazing, for $5.  It is a chain, so I can only hope that one comes to PA soon.

And finally, not really about Utah, but about the flight out there: it was non-stop, which I always figured (you always hear) is ideal, but 2 hours into the 4.5 hour flight I started getting really claustrophobic and fidgety.  And the seat next to me was empty.  I don’t know what my problem was, but Kim also was really claustrophobic on the flight back (due to the huge guy next to her).  So from now on I think I prefer that longish flights like this have a layover.  And I would certainly always rather drive 8 hours in my own car than fly any amount of time.  Of course to go this far west, driving isn’t usually a viable option, but I’m just saying.

Also, they tricked us when we got our seats: they were like, you’re in an exit row, are you willing and able to assist others in the event of an emergency?  And we’re like of course, no problem.  What they DON’T tell you is that the exit row seats don’t recline!!  On a 4.5 hour flight, that’s something they ought to tell you.

I just posted photos of our Hawk Mountain hike from the other weekend.

Out of the blue I was thinking about the J4 cave today and found your photos after a quick Google search.  Thanks a lot, they bring back some good memories.  I must have been in that cave a dozen times while at Penn State in the early 90’s and didn’t take one stinkin’ photo! 

What’s with the straps in the entry culvert?!  Like you said, if you need handles, you probably don’t belong there.

I understand it’s closed these days; that’s too bad.  I’m glad some of us had the opportunity.  Thanks again for posting the photos.

-Frank

Kim and I visited a charming place called Hells Hollow yesterday.  No, really.  And yes, the fact that there is no apostrophe does drive me crazy.

Kim just added photos of a bike ride and a horseback ride to her website.  Of all the cool things we did in Colorado last month, these were two of my favorite.  The bike ride was so scenic, winding along and crossing over the Yampa river lots of times, and it was a beautiful, sunny, blue-skies day.  The horseback ride was great because I’d never ridden a horse before, and we saw some amazing views of mountains and endless fields and lush green valleys, with no civilization in sight.

I just got back from an awesome little vacation with Kim and her parents in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.  If there were such a thing as heaven on Earth, I think it’d probably be in Colorado.  There are rivers and mountains everywhere, and the civilization (mostly farms) is sprinkled so sparsely across the landscape.

The little town of Steamboat Springs is wonderfully quaint and cozy.  There is a walking/biking path that runs along the Yampa river right on the edge of downtown, and it takes you past bridges and mountains and restaurants and stinky bubbly sulfur springs.  From literally everywhere in the town, and for that matter everywhere we drove in Colorado, you can see huge snow-capped mountains either right next to you, or off in the distance.

The only downside is that the sun is more intense there (seemingly a LOT more intense) due to the high altitude, and we got some sunburn pretty early-on in the trip.  The only time I ever wear sunblock is at the beach, so I didn’t really think about it for the mountains.  But on the upside, I wore a baseball hat for the first time in probably 10 years, to keep the sun off my head and face and ears, and I rather enjoyed it.  I think I’m going to look for a hat to wear more regularly now.

Between myself, Kim, and her dad, we took over 2.5 gigs of photos and movie clips.  I’ll be posting some of them here soon.

I am on Canadian soil as I post this message!

Kim and I are on a little road trip to visit Niagara Falls, and it is amazing.  And I’ve never been outside the USA before so this is extra cool for me.  I know, I know... the Canadian side of Niagara is about as close as you can get to the USA without actually being in the USA (er no, wait, that’s California...) but still, I am on foreign soil for the first time in my life.

I took about 200 photos today, so they’ll show up here soon, along with a more full report of the coolness of this adventure.