A Really Grand Time

Philip Schreiber meets the hole at House Rock.

  Met up with an old friend who invited me to join seven of his paddling buddies to float down the Colorado River thru the Grand Canyon. Never knowing what to expect even after a number of trips, I could not have asked for a better mix of really adventurous and easy going folks. Not sure if it was the Colorado origins or the somewhat like mind sets, of all the trips, this felt the most like a real team.     The Canyon never ceases to amaze, and with monsoon season starting the water went the full range from crystal clear to chocolate milk and a few shades between. Side canyons flooding and making spectacles of waterfalls, hikes up ancient paths and all in a chasm exposing rock that is more than a billion and a half years old. How is that to make your life seem rather minuscule in comparison.

Taking a break at the Phantom Ranch boar beach. 

The morning sun lights up the entry to our adventure at Lee's  Ferry.

Silver Grotto makes the red canyon walls glow.

The crew takes advantage of the shade in Redwall Cavern.

A campfire of molten wax and coffee cans.

Our version of a Disney Cruise. 

Colors like a rainbow everywhere you looked.

River Rises Again

With buckets more rain falling on Texas the rivers are rising again so I got a chance to go on spring break without leaving town. Surf is good but the board shorts have to stay under the wetsuit thought since the water is a little colder than all those tropical paradises. None the less the surf works pretty well and being in landlocked Fort Worth I do not have to fight any crowds.

Rolling Sculpture

   There is a non profit, Stream and Valleys, in Ft. Worth that has been diligently creating a usable trail network along along the banks of the Trinity River. Over the years the network of paved riding trails has extended from Benbrook lake to Beach Street and north to the Stockyards giving virtually the entire city no excuse to get outside and get some exercise.
  Thanks to some contemplating during some of that riding local artist Jim Beckman has teamed with Tom Diel to create the sculpture "The Peloton", a series of oval stainless steel tubes that represents a really fast pace line of bike riders. Displayed along the north bank of the Trinity river along that very bike trail next to the Clearfork Main Street bridge it inspires additional speed from the riders that pass it
   After a frustrating day of gray clouds and sprinkles, a little patience paid off in the evening with a colorful sunset for a background.

"The Peloton"

Summer Memories

As the weather is starting to cool off (yeah cool, it just isn't breaking a 100 degrees) it makes me think back on the summer that is so quickly beginning to fade. Just a few pictures of pretty simple scenes that you see along the way. I am gonna miss it as soon as it is gone. Then you have all the leaves changing colors the breezes picking up and all that the changes bring up. Right after that I am praying for snow so I can go ski and then you are right back to sun, warm weather and the heat of a Texas summer. Damn the time flies when you get older and the seasons pass so much faster than you really want them to.

Ancient History

Getting out of the summer heat, I spent some time digging thru some files of negatives. Scanned some old black and white medium format images into the computer. Wow, they look like ancient history with all the modern digital stuff and technology that I usually use, but oh what images the old film stock could make.

These are from a kayak trip with a group of friends down the Grand Canyon in the 1990's. Truth be told it was just a few years ago but it feels like ancient history now, probably partly because of the film source. Ahh what memories of cold water it brings back. Really hard to believe that I think of cold when I see pictures of the Arizona desert.