There's smoke in the air...

 

Woke up @ 5:15 today (in order to avoid the 100 degree temperatures predicted for today) to do a 50+ mile bike ride.  I'm glad I was going east and not sticking around town.  The smell of smoke was overwhelming.  This was our second worst day since the fire began.  The wind finally stopped blowing last night so all the smoke settled in and is still making things hazy this afternoon.

 The bike ride was great.  The sun was just coming up as I started.  The hot air balloon was taking off in Windsor by Eastman Park.

This bike ride is usually a little shorter but there was a piece closed that probably added 2-3 miles.  My changed route took me by the Vesta's plant (wind turbine blades).  I had to stop on the way home to let this big daddy get out on the road. 

My changed route also took me by the Kodak plant.  I believe a small portion is still being used in the back area but part of the front was being demolished.  Their plant used to look like a lush golf course.  Those days are obviously long gone unless you consider the rampant spread of bind weed lush!

 

Bike: Poudre River Trail to Greeley

Trails Used:  Poudre River Trail

Distance: 57.67 miles

Difficulty: Moderate to Difficult (lengthwise)
Overall average: 13.2 mph (went the exact same speed as last year)
Overall Time: 4 hrs, 22 min
Total Ascent: 67 ft.

 

 

High Park Fire

I've been meaning to get these pictures up on my blog for some time now....This is the view from my backyard:

 over a couple of different days

 This was the view when I dropped the kids off for swim lessons this week:

 

This is the same view as above on one of the worst days yet.  The smell was awful!  Needless to say, we did not bike to swim lessons that day! (Notice that the mountains just disappeared.)

 

The helicopters and planes have been flying over us nonstop.

       

 This was last night coming home from Winter Park.

We have had some ash on our deck and in our yard and varying levels of smoke to deal with.  However, that is nothing compared to all those people who have lost their homes!  So sad.

Winter Park fun!

We went to Winter Park for Father's Day weekend.  The boy's went mountain biking and the rest of us hiked,

 Golden Banner

 

Oxeye Daisy

 Columbine

 

  

(someone decorated the teepee with mistletoe and a dream catcher)
biked, drank mojito's, went to the base and jumped around (fun but expensive),

 

 

 

and swam at the Rec Center pool (highly recommend, the pool has a cool water slide, lazy river, hot tub, toddler/preschool play area, and a diving board.)

We came home to a hot, scorching (97 degrees), and smoky day.

 

Ugh!  I hate when we have to run the AC all night and can't put on the whole house fan!  I can't wait for this fire to get under control.  It will be awhile since it's 99 degrees and windy today.

Horsetooth Mountain Park

I went for a little hike this weekend. I was planning on doing Red Mountain but we decided that it wouldn't be a great place (plains, very open, few trees) when the 30-40 mph winds arrived. I thought that sticking close to home and finishing quickly seemed like the better option. So we ended up at Horsetooth. We parked at the Soderberg Trailhead. We would have done a longer hike had a storm not been blowing in. Saturday it was 80 degrees (albeit windy) and beautiful. I had committed to tennis already so that left Sunday for a hike. I woke up to it being 52 degrees. The temperature took a nose dive quickly thereafter. The wind and clouds came. The picture below was taken as the bad weather was rolling in. Luckily we got our hike in before the rain came. It turned out to be an okay day for hiking. Some little yellow flowers were just starting to peek out behind the rocks! I'm ready for spring/summer! Lots of bikers and runners were out trying to get their exercise done before the weather turned. There was a ton of smoke from the Crystal Fire blowing down the canyon by the time we finished. We made it back to the car w/ 10 minutes to spare before it started to spit rain and we were safely locked away inside the house by the time it turned to snow. I did do a new route today so that was fun. It started out along the reservoir then crawled up into the hills and back down.

Hopefully I will have my new camera soon and start capturing better pictures. I'm very anxious to get it!

Horsetooth Mountain Park
Trails Used: Swan Johnson, Shoreline, Sawmill, Stout, to Towers, and back on Swan Johnson
Distance: 5.2 Miles (GPS crapped out a couple of times, so this is an estimation)
Difficulty: Moderate
Moving average: 3.5 mph
Overall average: 3.3 mph
Moving Time: 1 hrs, 17 min
Stopped Time: 4 min, 47 sec
Total Ascent: 861 ft.
Maximum elevation: 6126 ft.