Colorado Trip

I just got home from a trip to Ft. Collins, Colorado. I was there with the Explorers for the National Competition. We were able to get some sightseeing in between competition events. This was my first rip to Colorado and it wasn't a disappointment! Of course the camera was with me and I banged off about 750 shots. Some were to capture the history of the Explorer events, some were tourist shots and then a few more were a little artsy, like this one of the fence. You see these all over the place. This one happen to be in one of the many National Parks.

Another shot I liked was this old oak tree that was dying. The neat part was that it had grown right up next to a huge rock formation. I decided to make this one into a Black & White shot. I'm thinking of matting it in a white matte and black frame for my wall.

As we were heading up into the Rocky Mountains, I spotted this Fly Fisherman in the river. Luckily there was a place to pull over a get a few shots. He paid us no never mind and just kept fishing. This was when I was wishing I had a tripod. I managed to prop my camera on a guard rail and I fired off a couple of images were I slowed down the shutter speed to about a 10th of a second. This makes for a nice effect with moving water. It gives the water a silky look. I was happy with the image I got and so we moved on higher and higher. Every few minutes we would notice the thermometer dropping a degree from the 95 reading we started out with. As we got to the 2 miles above sea level mark, we came upon some traffic congestion, which is not real good on a 2 lane mountain road! The uproar? A big area of snow with a small herd of Elk walking around. They didn't seem to mind us, and just walked around grazing and eating snow...a way they get water. I have some other images that the Elk's head filled the entire frame. Although they came pretty close to us, it is against federal law to try to touch them in the National Park. However, I found out that there are actual Elk Farms that raise Elk like cattle. As a matter of fact, when we came down from the mountains, we stopped for some dinner in a local eatery and I had an "Elk Burger"! Pretty good too...very lean. Anyway, as we continued to drive we kept seeing left over snow banks and it was now fluctuating from 55 to 47 degrees. Some of the guys decided that wanted to have a snowball fight and we let them have at it. It was funny to see a couple of them who have never seen snow, come beat feeting it out of the snow bank saying, "I can't feel my fingers!"

We were hoping to spot some of the Big Horn Sheep that live in the area, but a guide told us that at this time of the year, most of the herds are in the higher elevation where there are no roads. We did spot a couple of Deer. They would be standing right on the side of the road. One was only 10 feet from one of our vehicles, looking right into the passenger window. The only other wild life we got close to were some Chipmunks. So after the trip into the gift shop at the peak of one of the summits, we drove on and stopped for a photo-op, at the marker for the "Continental Divide". Then we turned around and headed back the way we came. We didn't get back to Ft. Collins until almost midnight and I was tired and ready for bed.

The next day was the awards presentation. We were there with our defending champion in the 9mm pistol competition. Unfortunately, he did not repeat this time. Ryan did however, win first place for 9mm Rapid Fire. That is, 5 shots in 10 seconds (done twice) at 25 yards into a bulls eye target. He also took 1st in the Nation for .177 cal Air Pistol. Another one of our team, Johnny, took 2nd place in 9mm Rapid Fire and yet another, Chris, was inducted in the National Top 20 shooters. So not a bad showing. In some of my next posts, I will highlight a few more images.

So until next time....c-ya!