Golf With Matt & Summit Stuff; CoWWBoyz Too 26Aug23-30Aug23

I dropped off Kala @ COS for her trip to Raleigh and headed up to Denver for a round with MLC @ Kennedy. Good time with the kid; after I drove to Summit for some audio measuring and fishing. I measured and updated the center channel latency and delay settings ~ that description is HERE.

I don't drink a lot of sugary drinks but if I do they are Izzes or San Pelegrinos or hand made Arnold Palmers, which are less sugary and costly. Here's a batch in prep with a kettle gift from Matt to facilitate with much less power yet greater speed. Spa time in Summit Co is sublime below Peak One.

I tied a couple dozen mayflies and fished a couple of sections of 10 Mile Ck again (Officer's Gulch & Adjacent Copper Ponds). I caught some browns and rainbows but felt the catch was smaller in size and quantity than on previous year's outings to these sections.

While I bailed on my CoWWBoyz they crushed it on the Green River ~ with 3 local captains leading the way. Just a shout out here as none of them can type. Nice fish Haine-O-Nado. Headed to OBX tomorrow!

Vital Flies & Killer Brews 25Aug23

I've been procrastinating retying mayflies since losing my lot of 1000s to the Eagle before Ireland; this probably because it is a daunting task. I finally started today with bugs I need rolling into fall. I started with some competition weights, the Perdigons. This is a short and inefficient "run" for me but I need to get some mayflies loaded on each line. My Perdigon ties employ 2.3/2.5mm slotted tung bead on a #18 comp X barbless jig hook in mylar green/root beer, mylar black, and mylar purple. The purples are tied with copper colored beads and the others with silver; don't ask me why, I just like them that way. I use 140 denier white to make the bodies pop but I use a Sharpie to blacken the thread for the whip finish at the head. On the way I tie in 5 speckled Coq de Leon natural fibers for a tail as well as the body wrap. Keeping the thread underbody thin & smooth by unraveling the thread is advantageous ~ think slick with a slight taper. Then, after wrapping the mylar up and tying it off, I coat the body with clear UV epoxy, spreading it thin, before hitting it with UV. Touch up with dobbin if needed before lighting. Finally I dab the top, especially the slot of the bead, with black UV epoxy and cure it. These drop like a bomb and are FOMO for fish moving in fast water.

The 2nd part of this entry is about beers discovered over the last 10 days. Specifically a new brewery collaborating with a couple of my favorites. I'm in COS and these are distributed to "my guy" locally because of the collabs. I'm talking about Tripping Animals out of Doral, FL... not what I ever expected ~ born in garages in Venezuela. They have somethin' going on as they scored colabs with both ORB & Cerebral ~ yeah and the brews are what you'd dream to find: DDHs of stellar taste and feel. No weird hops combos just fantastic citra, simcoe execution: Frisco Screams & Great Run (displaying the respect for the Nugs). Great job, if not a smidge pricey. I also scored the Extra Extra Juicy Bits, a nice DDH DIPA from Weldworks ~ I still wish the project in COS had worked out.

Yeah... these guys are very capable. I'm glad the collabs got them into CO so I could enjoy.

Friends & Family Stuff In Summit & The Front Range ~ Golf, Hike, Ride, Fix, Listen & Gaelic Games 13Aug23-20Aug23

13Aug23 ~ Kala & I headed to Summit Co but first stopped for golf with Matt @ Kennedy GC near his apartment. We had a great outing there; Matt donned the Lahinch GC hat we got him while in Ireland. We stopped by for a post-round beer at a brewery new to al of us, A Bit Twisted. When in Summit I prepared Thom Ka Ghai (chix lemongrass soup) for us.

14Aug23 ~ We headed out for a hike around the tarn below the Nest on a day of gorgeous weather and many wildflowers still popping.

15Aug23 ~ Kala & I rode mostly to Breck via the lake rec path this day; it was another gorgeous mtn day. Of course afterward we stopped at ORB for a pop and to pickup September's allocation.

16Aug23 ~ We laid low most of the day and did some computer & audio stuff. And we did house chores like staining the deck chairs. Here we clean them off with wood cleaner and then let the dry before coating with natural transparent oil stain. Nice.

17Aug23-18Aug23 ~ I fished the Blue and Kala worked out. On Fri we caught up with TV series' we're watching.

19Aug23 ~ Part of my desire to be in Summit this weekend was to attend the Keystone Mountain Music Festival, which we did. We saw a couple of Nashville-based acts. Kevin Daniel lead a 3 piece called The Bottom Line; he belted somewhat sad country tunes with a good voice and picked his guitar well while backed by a couple of good beat boys. Keith the bassist wears gloves from a nickel allergy ~ I didn't win the merch by guessing "medication." We enjoyed a beer at Steep in River Run before joining for the 2nd act. During break we checked out the long construction of KS River Run base lux condos; cranes over Keystone. Too we chatted up Tom Baugh, an interesting 70's era AFA grad, who lives in Summit and is a ski instructor for ABay. There was a group of AFA Class of '25 kids walking by and he high fives 'em, exposing us to his college days. Tyler Bryant & The Shakedown were the 2nd act. These guys are young rockers with some blues influences, with a couple of decent voices and a bunch of crowd pleasing covers. Not pleasing us a much as the 1st act, we split a bit early. Mix and sound was decent all day but Tyler's voice was not that discernible.

Kala & I stopped at my fav Summit pizza place, Last Chance, and it's affiliated taphouse, Cove & Craft, for the first pizza enjoyed in many weeks. I then kept the music vibe alive that evening with a full audit of Molly Tuttle's latest album with Golden Highway... City of Gold, on the dialed-in Nest Music Theater. More on the review in later entries.

20Aug23 ~ We were off to the Front Range early to meet up with Jim & Mary for the All-US championship Sunday of the USGAA finals tournament. This is the season culmination tourney for Gaelic games played in the US. There are two games: hurling (men) / camogie (women) and Gaelic football played in the tourney at 5 different levels (top to bottom: Senior, Intermediate, Junior A, Jr B, Jr C), to a national champion in each. While the day was hot we had a blast, finding our spot between Field 1 & 2 where all the Intermediate and Senior finals were played. Gaelic games are Irish-derived obviously but the US clubs and games are played with both Americans (often emigrating from Ireland to the US or born of Irish parents or grandparents in the US) and Irish citizens visiting the US to play. Still, the players are unpaid, as are the volunteer conveners and organizers, coaches and refs, to my understanding, in Ireland and NAmerica. At the level we observed on championship Sunday, there were lots of Irish players... this makes the USGAA quite different from the Irish clubs and games where your birth county is the team for which you can play. Anyway, action throughout the day was awesome. Scoring in both games gives 3 points for a shot in the net and 1 point for a shot through the uprights. Scoreboards don't even do the math for you so a score of 2-22 is 2x3 + 22 = 28. First up was Intermediate Hurling where San Diego (red) thumped Madison.

Next we saw Intermediate Ladies Football (no pics) and then Sr Ladies football. We sat next to the parents of a number of the Chicago senior women footballers and chatted them up for info. They were happy to share, often in Irish accents; this especially as Chicago was good at Gaelic football and bested their Charlotte rivals. #14 for the Chicago women was a scoring machine. We learned this was a grudge match of sorts as the Charlotte team is very good as well and when Chicago last played them, 6 US marines were on the team and, well, did what marines often do. Jim tried on the trophy for good measure.

Before the senior hurling championship we got food from the trucks. Not bad gyros. Then came the match I most wanted to see... the seniors featuring top level US hurlers. The match featured Galway (maroon) vs Tipperary (gold & blue); it's not really them but their US clubs were so named. It wasn't a match as Tipperary crunched maroon ~ their players could score with hands free from at least 20 yds further, and were faster to every free grounder.

The biggest match of the day seemed to be the senior football meeting. Crowds (mostly other players at the tourney and their mates or parents) lined the field and the game was begun with a parade of the players lead by a Colorado Gaelic band. Again Chicago was in the senior finals and we were in the thick of their rooting contingent. The Chicago blue looked smaller than the fiercer Philadelphia red. But, haps on the field showed cleverness, weaving plays, and the speed of Chicago at these games. Philly was down early and stayed there... our friends were stoked again with hoots often beguiling the red coaches. Great action if even it got a little chippy... multiple players were tossed from the game on both sides; leaving their teams man down for 10 minutes... it didn't seem to deter Chicago though who prevailed. We didn't really get to see much of the senior camogie game as it ran concurrent with the big football match; I did duck over and see some of the action but no pics. As we left for True Food dinner with J&M, I snapped Kala and my pic over the games ~ I am very red from a day in the 93° sun.

Dinner was very good in the Cherry Ck area at True Food, as was a fine day with J&M. We stopped to see Matt and pickup golf hat gifts he'd given us. How should I feel with a hat suggesting "3 off the tee?"