Fall at My New Home

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We are rounding third base, on finishing our new home in Marble, Colorado. Here’s a photo looking towards the Raggeds Wilderness Area. If I turned around and took a photo, you’d be looking at the Maroon-Snowmass Wilderness Area, where I used to be a Wilderness Ranger.

The fall colors are gorgeous this year.

We’ve got all of the drywall up, and have some other exciting news: We are doubling the capacity of our solar (photovoltaic) system from what it is now.

For those of you who know my family, this has been quite the project, and the result will be a dream home that my wife and I can raise our family in.

Snow’s on the way. Better get moving.

Weird Fall Colors

The reds and the golds look a little bit odd this year. Despite the nice white on the straight and up and down parts, something just isn’t quite right. I don’t know if the black stuff is a fungus or not. And those little dots remind me of pixels or LEDs on a sign.

Maybe the forest fire smoke from Idaho, Montana, California, Nevada, Wyoming, Utah, and Elbonia are messing up the colors.

The gold probably is the best of all the colors, and does look kind of impressive against the blue sky.

A picture is worth a thousand words, so let me show you what I mean:

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This fall scene was taken at Silverthorn, Colorado. I don’t know. This fall just doesn’t seem like the ones in the past.

Tow Truck Driver Fist Fight

This past weekend, I was in Denver and saw probably the coolest thing in my life: Two tow truck drivers in a fight. A nasty fist fight, with amazing results. You probably didn’t see this in the news.

It seems a guy’s hummer overheated on Colfax Avenue. He coasted into the gas station I was at, called 911, and left the scene in a friend’s Smart Car.

As I sat watching, a tow truck showed up and backed up to the front of the Hummer. At about the same time, another tow truck from company “B” showed up. The driver got out and started yelling at the driver from company “A”.

The heated exchange lasted for a few minuets, then they started throwing punches. After an ugly 20 seconds of John Wayne fist fighting, driver “B” jumped into his truck and fired it up. He did a u-turn, and backed up to the rear of the Hummer. He hopped out and ran to the back of his truck and started hooking up to the disabled Hummer.

Driver “A” ran to the Hummer and started hooking up his tow truck.

Both men jumped into their vehicles at the same time and fired them up. They both lurched forward, wheels spinning, engines racing, and thick, burnt rubber tire smoke filling the air. I heard the sound as if taffy were being pulled.

One driver was in a Ford, the other in a Chevy. The tug-o-war lasted about 2 minutes, but seemed an eternity. The smoke choked me and was so dense I couldn’t see any of the vehicles.

Sometime during the fight, the trucks both stopped, unhooked, and drove out of the blue cloud at the same time. When the smoke cleared,  this is what I saw:

 

 

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A stretched Hummer. Who would’ve believed it? The sheet metal wasn’t even wrinkled. Amazing.

The drivers looked back at each other, then the Hummer, and they both tore out of there like jackrabbits.

Someday I’d like to see them do that with the Smart Car.

World’s Best Mousetrap

two mice caught by the same mousetrap

Disgusting, isn’t it? But it’s not as disgusting as finding mouse poop in your food, or on  your dishes in the cupboard.

This double catch was a surprise to me and actually made me smile, being the Great White Hunter that I am.

When I was a ranger in Meeteetse, Wyoming, I used to set traps in my cabin when I came in from 10 days in the Washakie Wilderness. I would hear “SNAP!” and get up and chuck the captured dead mouse out into the  bushes.

One night I caught 10 mice. What I could have done with this trap (slept better).

I still can’t believe I caught two at once. Send me an email or respond to this article, and I’ll tell you how I did it.

Weird Magnetic Spot in Colorado

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This past summer I added a freaky item to my cave tours: The Weird Magnetic Spot. Here you see a few guests trying the demonstration.

During my tours I stop in the middle of this circle and say, “The owners of this cave found out that there is an unusual magnetism at this very spot. So they laid out the concrete in this circle pattern with the ‘X’ in the middle, and they showed us tour guides how to demonstrate that fact to our guests.”

Then I take out my wedding ring, and an ordinary rubberband. I stick the rubberband through the ring and slant it upwards. The ring climbs UP the rubberband to my uphill hand.

I tell my group, “I don’t know what makes it work, but you can try it after the tour.”

I found one lady standing in the circle after the tour with her eyes closed. “Yes, I can feel the energy,” she told me. Her friends said that she was the best at that stuff.

I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I learned the trick in a magic book.