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Wandrin Dateline: June 18, 2005 -- Denver, CO Future Travel... About July 20th, I will start my journey to Wisconsin. Montrose, CO.... was the base for exploration for several days. As I explored some of the back roads near Ridgeway, I took this picture of Sergio Fernandez. He was traveling from San Diego to Glenwood Springs, CO on his bicycle. A free lance journalist from Spain, Sergio writes about his desert travels around the world. To learn more about Sergio's travels, his web site (in Spanish) is http://www.conunparderuedas.com/ While in Montrose, Rich Goscicki joined me with his trailer and we traveled together as we explored southern Colorado. Southern Colorado... This journey is best done with a selection of scenic photos from the hundreds that were taken. Near Ridgeway... a bucolic scene of a herd of cows and distant snow covered mountains. Telluride... scenery is best viewed from the top. Take the free tram to view snow covered mountains in each direction. Yankee Boy Basin near Ouray provided this aspen grove. This drive will also test your acrophobia. A view of Ouray from the Amphitheater National Forest campground. Black Canyon of the Gunnison... has sheer rock walls 1800 feet high. A one mile hike to the bottom is possible, but that would mean a mile back with an 1800 foot elevation gain. Makes me ache thinking of it. Crested Butte... A cloudless day and large open valleys with snow covered mountains  provided lots of scenic pictures. More scenery near Crested Butte. Traveling to Lake City and back provided great landscapes from the river bottoms to the mesa tops. This lone clump of Indian Paint Brush provide color for this scenic. With a little work this corral would hold horses. .... Rich seemed to fall in love with every place we explored and entertained thoughts of moving from Estes Park. Great Sand Dunes National Park... provides a different kind of scenery. The dunes are huge. There were "sand boarders" on the dunes, golfers playing a round of "sand traps" and down by the river, kids were building sand castles. Morning shadows on the dunes. Pike's Peak at Colorado Springs ....After 30 years of Colorado residence I had never visited this lofty peak. I picked a clear, but very windy and cold day to take the tour. There was enough snow on the cog railway to call out the snow plow to clear the tracks before arriving at the top. Just wondering... Do heirs of Sam Walton shop at Wal-Mart. How come men's "shorts" are below the knee -- sometimes mid calf. Exercise... I have been doing some short hikes. Not really enough to make the pants fit more comfortably. Since Vanita took up the water sport of kite boarding, the bicycle doesn't get used very often. Looks like a couple month's worth of ivy growth!   Food... Whenever Rich joins me on my travels, we eat well. In addition to great campground meals, we are on the lookout for out of the way dining -- no chain restaurants or common fare. When in Crested Butte, we found the Ginger Cafe just off Elk Avenue. Seating about 20 patrons, it served a variety of Asian dishes. Rich and I chose some very tasty and moderately spiced items off the appetizer menu. Check it out when you are in the area. I apologize for recommending the Pei Wei in Tucson. It is just another restaurant chain. It was good food, but now that I know it is a chain, I won't go back. Cinnamon Rolls... When we were at the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, we met the milk delivery man who travels a lot of these towns. He recommended the Lake City Bakery. We checked it out to find a good cinnamon roll with good balance of texture and flavor. Crested Butte also had a bakery. However, it was time to put balance in my life and I had a delicious blueberry muffin instead of the cinnamon roll. Rich actually caught me in the act of evaluating the muffin before me. Soon you will see this picture on the walls of bakeries across the country -- "watch out if you see this man in your bakery". Bumper sticker... "Keep Boulder Weird" Vanity Plates... MTNBOY -- On a pickup RAGLOP1 -- What profession is that? Carpet layer? HNDSDWN -- Keep your hands down? Don't volunteer? Some Latest Reads.. "Prairie Nocturne" by Ivan Doig. Although not a prolific author, Doig is one of my favorite fiction writers. As a great story teller with quality writing that borders on poetry, I am unable to put his books down. This story takes place in the 1920s weaving Montana history into the lives of characters to take them from the ranches of Montana to New York and beyond. "American Nomad" by Richard Grant. This book researches "nomadism" on the North American continent. From the first nomad in the 1500's -- a Spanish conquistador to the RVers of today he explores the nomadic life including some interesting "nomads" along the way. The definition of a "nomad" according to Webster: "Any people who have no permanent home but moving about constantly, as if in search of pasture." That sounds a like me. In the last chapter of his book, he essays that the full time RVer is the only true nomad left in America. "The Last American Man" by Elizabeth Gilbert is a biography of Eustace Conway who has lived in a tepee or other modest abodes in the forest of North Carolina's Appalachia for 20 years including four years of college. In his early forties, he continues to live off the land and what it offers him for sustenance. "Truth is stranger than fiction" and the life of Eustace Conway is an epitome of the quote. These lines from that book caught me. "... Even a century ago, for instance, there wasn't a man in America who didn't carry some kind of knife with him at all times. Whether it was for skinning bears or trimming cigars, a man needed a knife as a basic tool for living, and he knew how to take care of it and sharpen it and handle it. Who needs a knife now?" (p.213) My father always had a jack knife in his pocket. He was of the feeling that you weren't much of a farmer if you didn't carry a jack knife. With that "ideal", I have always carried a jack knife. Today it is one of those tiny "Swiss Army" varieties. It comes in handy frequently including that tiny little scissors. My first jack knife was a Christmas present from my Uncle Norbert Treichel. It was a Craftsman with several blades -- including the can opener blade. That did come in handy later in life. Of course, today, a jack knife will be collected at airport security or at the entrance to any public building. That includes my jack knife with its inch long blade. Over the years, it has been checked at the door of many public buildings Thanks for reading ... If you are not already notified of updates, send me an email.