Fun Springtime Weekend On The Front Range ~ Golf, Red Leg, Ute Mtb, Golf With MLC, Stop @ Tomahawk 01May24 - 05May24

First up was Kala on Wednesday wanting to hit some gold balls! We headed over to Patty Jewitt, a great COS muni. It was a smidge breezy but we won't blame that. Best practice areas and putting green in the state ~ GR8 in the shadow of Pike's Peak. Kala was hitting well.

Of course we hit Red Leg on the way home and sat in our fav CO Adirondack ski chairs. My suggestion of lobster rolls was summarily rejected @ $28 each. That night we caught the latest from Elizabeth Moss and we fully approve of the The Veil... surely reminded us of Homeland with Claire Danes.

Thursday I cajoled Jim to head out for a ride before enduring my 3rd unsatisfying call with CO agencies, insurance support persons, and an appeals board ~ where all three said "I can't help you" ~ I bailed for the time being and we had some more fun.

Friday I hit the Atlantic Sun Conf lacrosse championships hosted this year @ Falcon stadium in COS. The host Falcons were 7-1 in the league and decent overall; they were seeded 2nd behind the Utah Utes. Both these teams are affiliate members of ASUN (playing just lax in the league). Awesome; one would've thought... the 1st game saw the Ute slaughter Cleveland St. And, the 2nd game with a rematch between the Falcons and Jacksonville U had the bolts down quickly and really never in it well enough. How can JU play that hard (great energy from them) at 7Kft elevation when they live at 56ft? AFA lost by 4 goals despite being tied on tow occasions.

Oh well, there are many more great league championships this weekend before we pick the sweetest 16 next week. Bittersweet... as that includes my old team, the mighty Mountain Hawks of Lehigh, who handled Navy in their semi game, and faces BU in the championship of the Patriot league today... which they won and will be in the NCAA tourney. Woohoo.

So, Saturday was qualifying for the Miami F1 race AND it was qualifying for the Coffin-Marietta 3-some at Patty Jewitt Prarie course. We had a blast with Derrick, a para-olympian coach with 6 going to Paris. I played well through 6 as did Kala with her improved ball-striking. Matt wasn't with us but on occasion as yesterday's poke bowl got him on the run. None the less, it as nice but windy and a blast being with the kid for nine and dine. Too, we got the kid an early bday gift of a MLC-colored 4# walking bag; his current bag leaks balls and fails to stand well from some fails.

I recorded the lax league championship games and headed to Summit. Kala got to play another round of golf with her friend Gail ~ nice. Matt @ CO Lumber had completed some tough cuts on 18mm birch plywood for me for a new set of speakers I'm building; assembly and use are in the NestMT. I went the back way on #24/#9 and stopped at Tomahawk for my 1st effort of the year on the Middle Fk. Decent but weird... I wielded the fun RFT3 loaded with a chubby and trailing egg and caddis weighted by Perdigon. I did catch a half doz rainbows! ~ in several hours. The 'bows hit the Perdigon and egg and some small browns hit the caddis on the swing. Water is stained but at perfect pre-melt flows at 90cfs... pretty fun but weird. I'd arrived early and appraised normal attendees of the sitch on departure ~ some think is unwarranted; it won't hold me back. Cool meadow.

11 Mile Fish On The Run 11Apr24

I did a final recon on the S Platte in 11 Mile by stopping there on the away home to COS. 50 cars lined the canyon this decent 45° day. The cuts and bows are on the redds now more but the water is still very cold. It was a decent day with a half doz fish over 3 hrs mid day ~ but no bigs landed. Best bugs are midges, including money midge, maroon pop top, and top secret. I did not see bug sign, just fishermen. I toted the newish Rodfather Bombadeer; it was effective but the wind called for a smidge more length.

Riding The Lake; City Park Golfing; Bad Fishing On Bill's 30Sep23-02Oct23

Kala & I rode the lake rec path to the top of the ridge toward Breck. Good day but a breeze kept us busy cutting through on the way out and dusted with leaves on the return. Nice 18 mile outing with 600 ft of vert. I got a pan of our home hill, Buffalo Mtn, and the lake, in fall colors.

We caught another round of golf with Matt at the keen Denver City Park course. Our 2pm tee time had us playing 18 at sunset. Great view of the Denver skyline.

I fished William's Fork today and didn't even get a strike. This outcome is rare indeed. Sure there were a dozen cars in the lot, and sure I arrived late on the water @ 11:15am, and sure there were high gusty winds in the afternoon, and sure the wind blew a myriad of cottonwood leaves into the water messin' with the fish eyesight, and sure the flows were high at 225cfs but c'mon man, nothing worked. I left early. That's the confluence of the William's Fk with the Colorado.

Brantley's are inbound for some days in Summit. I wish the weather was gonna be better.

Another Couple Days On The OBX 05Sep23-06Sep23

We took a pretty lazy day as many in the house were prepping for their fantasy draft Tue night. The ladies shopped and I rode a Rip Curl bike which was rusted, underinflated, rickety, small, and made sounds I didn't know a bike could. I looked for helmets, tools, oil, and pump but nada... NP ultimately as the path was pretty flat over the 12 miles. We found an awesome looking spider near the house ~ supposedly innocuous to humans. I scored another Burial, a DDH pale ale named Prophetmaker, good but no compare to their IPAs. I broke the TV after connecting HDMI to watch ESPN as local Spectrum is in dispute with Disney ~ now an entire insurance snafu is underway.

Next day we headed out to the Elizabethan gardens near Fort Raleigh on Roanoke Island. Gardens were cool full of butterflies, flowers and trees. It was humid as heck though. We saw a number of statues too, including the largest ever tribute to Queen Elizabeth ~ and the history section taught us more of west Europe's infamy in NAmerica; a number of the plants were NEuropean in origin.

We ate lunch back in Manteo (still on Roanoke) at the tasty Blue Water Grill, adjacent to an inlet to the Roanoke & Albermarle Sound... that's Kala & me in front of spectacular fishing boats in an inlet next to the restaurant... wow.

After lunch we moved north on the island again to one of the four NC aquariums, the Roanoke Island one. It was much cooler (as in it was indoors with A/C) and a fun time. Their core mission is turtle recovery and repair... their turtle displays were great but so were the ones of sea fishes and jelly fishes.

Of course too I saw permit and black drum ~ in tanks rather than on the end of my fly rod.

Dinner was at the house on leftovers.