Way Out West With Wilkes & Wildflowers ~ Eldest And Bestest 13Jun25 -14Jun25

Les & TAW and we set a meet up @ the Nest for an "early" WE in the mountains. They had GP duties late so Kala & I beat them over Loveland by a bit. We prepped for some keen time with some of our oldest friends (ok, they are nearly eldest too :))... you know, the kind you made right after college, and shared your personal independent lives scoring those things which you desired most... very cool these last.

We began with nice custom lemon-ginger 'tinis prepared by DRC... the ladies loved them, and great cheeses with bread & crackers. We chased that with a keen chopped salad meal of smoked salmon, cous-cous with asiago cheese, romaine, fire-roasted corn kernels, roasted pepitos, and marinated tomatoes (yeah, secret sauce). The dressing is mostly a southwestern secret... it does include tomatillo, serrano, jalapeño, cilantro, buttermilk and secret spices. Kala & I have chased a desert recipe we liked for years... we are better than that now. So good. We served '8 Years In The Desert' wine... we were longer there but yeah, you get the idea ~ that's where we all met and did that thing that new peeps do: figure each other out, then do more.

We spent time at the music workstation (were only my old bud' able to hear more of what I'm offering & feeling). We rested well for the next day's endeavors... and arose for some scrambled eggs before compiling for an effort above Mesa Cortina ~ the team was unsure of my route on less-traveled trails, but were pleased with a direct car return. Wildflowers were everywhere ~ and in the forest we saw great returns as well as tons of downs. 

Four miles reaching home, skeptics arose. Nonetheless we had Buffalo and Peak One, and made our way home.

We hit the limited Breck Distillery Restaurant and were disappointed from the K&D buildup based on prior 4* stuff. Cocktails were 'ok' but nah ~ different and lame and expensive folks lead now here... DO NOT GO. NP, we hit the spa and rested for our returns to the Front Range on Dad's Day.

Keeping Up With TK ~ My New Ride Is A '15 Porsche Boxter GTS 08Jun25

The Car... I've long been enamored of the Boxter roadster and have driven some old and some new ones owned by friends. My favored look and engine is the Gen 3 variant known as the 981 model. Built from 2012-2016, it sports a naturally aspirated engine (vs current high-tech multiple turbos and the like) and can be found with a 6 speed manual transmission. Well... with MLC scoring a 911 I wanted to fulfill a long-standing fantasy to own a Porsche myself. I could drive along side him and he was surely encouraging of the endeavor. MLC found the car ~ holy shit. This isn't a mid-life crises (golly, let if be so) given my age. A burgeoning auction site named Bring-A-Trailer offered me professional access to some keen Boxters on which I could confidently bid and assure solid title transfer and transport. I hung out and watched BaT Boxter auctions for awhile; I also perused other similar sites like AutoTrader, Cars, and of course Porsche itself. I finally found my car, a 2015 Boxter GTS in Guards red with camel interior and manual transmission on BaT. Just lucky but this is also my color combo. I was fine with an 'S' variant but the 'GTS' is even better with more interior, exterior, and performance upgrades... despite his 911, even MLC is a little jealous of my spec. One tasteful upgrade the prior owner made (as you should not make many to a GTS spec Porsche) was the addition of a duckbill spoiler in Guards red; it's cool... I have the standard OEM tail too.

The Bid... I dove on the likely market value of the specific vehicle and established my bidding strategy. BaT disables last minute sniping by extending auctions by 2 min if a winning bid comes in in the last 2 minutes... so sniping was useless, but the winners always bid late. Nonetheless, bidding ~12hrs early was languishing $7K-$10K below market value. So I bumped the bid by a lot before going to bed... of course I bid the right looking number $XX,981. This eliminated much of the field emotionally looking for a surprise low ball win. Down at the wire there were 3 contenders bidding in $500 increments, and I kept my look of $XX,981 while others jumped on the mid-points. I won the bid nicely below my walk away number; woohoo.

The Delivery... My car was transported in covered truck from Florida to me in Colorado Springs. I received notice of pickup Wed 04Jun25 and it arrived Sunday morning. It came in a wild articulating car carrier truck... my Boxter was under the Ferrari and behind the Lamborghini! I already had received the temp plates to use till all the CO DMV titling and registration is finalized.

The Drive... Oh my, the drive. The steering and cornering on the GTS is confidence inspiring. A quick spin around the block with Matt and then Kala was initial proving... then we played dueling Porsches on the way to lunch ~ each toting our own Brantley for fun with friends. I wasted no time to attempt some rapid acceleration. The car is so pretty and such a great handler, and the throaty naturally aspirated exhaust sound is very cool.

The Duckbill... the prior owner did get one tasteful upgrade to BGTS... a duckbill spoiler in Guards red... I installed it vs the factory OEM one. It's cooler; it rolls right off the "tail" in the taillights well. Plus I get some rear downforce without deploying the spoiler ~ maybe just a skosh.

So awesome... now I need to get the CO registration, title, and plates ~ they are "in the mail."

Update 18Jun25 ~ The Ramp, The Inspection, And The PPF... I initially got into the garage on boards I laid in as a ramp from the road up our curb to the drive but replaced those (which broke into many pieces) now with big hunks of silicon rubber which fit nicely. The Pyle products look fine and work great.

My initial ownership act was to have the local 5* Porsche house do a comprehensive inspection of the vehicle. I had all the service records and CarFax and it's been driving great but it just makes sense. Plus I did need to get the GPS responding on the Nav Map and have the windshield wipers adjusted. All in, the shop was pleased with the condition and recommended only some unnecessary things, along with regular maintenance; maybe rear brakes soon. I'm very pleased it's all good but the guy did recently put $6K into it to sell it.

Pro Auto Spa did the PPF, expensive but they did good work on protecting the entire front half of the car... Colorado is very rock rich on our roads so this was an investment to keep the car looking good. There is no perceptible color shift with the PPF, the edges are super clean and rolled, and even the mirrors are protected. Very nice ~ recommended.

Update 24Jun25 ~ The Rennline MagSafe Phone Holder Head... I looked up the original owner's phone holder model and contacted tech support about what I'd need to get to use the same clean install. I got the right head and it is solid with the modern iPhones.

The last owner's recent windshield install was insufficient and didn't capture the cowling correctly, which also buggered the windshield wiper action. That's all fixed right by the Porsche dealer here now.

Update 05Jul25 ~ The Uniden Radar Detector And BlendMount Mount... The best current radar/lidar detection tech is a Uniden R8W, expensive but all the local Porsche owners suggest it... I got one. The existing BlendMount clip was for a different make & model detector so I contacted tech support after determining the rest was a BlendMount and purchased the right clip. I installed it today and it is tight. I'll let you know if it is also effective.

Update 19Aug25 ~ The FlyBox1... I needed a license indicative of fly fishing of course but respectful of the Porsche.

Update 09Sep25 ~ Captured Motion... I needed to keep up with TK again as he can now capture action with a window mounted GoPro. Since I'm a GoPro guy from way back, from fishing footage, I built a hanger for the window too and mounted my Session 5 (yeah, plenty old, plenty good, super small). One has to be ready at all times to stash the cam in the locked glovebox as else it can serve as evidence, even without a search warrant in CO... understood. I think glovies need to be remote activated therefore; mine is not; manual will have to do.

Molly Tuttle (With All New Band) And The California Honeydrops Concert @ Ford Amp In Vail ~ Plus A Day @ The Vail Mtn Games With S&P In The Rain 06Jun25

Denver Family Gathering... Kala & I and headed to Denver for dinner with the family on Fri on our way to Summit Co. We had a fun stop at the fairly new Monolith Brewing before dining to too much excellent Indian food at Tikka & Grill. We were in the Platte Park area to stop at Levitt Pavilion to see a free concert featuring the Comatose Brothers. Yoho came up too. We ultimately bailed on the concert because of constant rain ~ Jim toughed out some sets though! He mentioned the sound is solid and the opening act, Cousin Curtiss, was very good. We drove out to Summit earlier than planned but the weather improved as we got into the Rockies proper.

S&P @ The Nest... S&P came out to the Nest for a day of fun in Vail. I made tasty breakfast burros before the ride out to Vail but soon enough we were tooling over Vail Pass into Eagle County. We parked in normal Vail Village parking underground (in case the pending weather shift might attack Kala's car) about 10:45. A cool slackline demo was going on in the main village square and we stopped for a pop at the VBC Taproom above that. The Japanese team members were amazing acrobats, they might've deterred some local athletes from competing though. The team moved on to the Dog Park with a 20min walk and only Scooter & I caught the last race; the golden won. We headed back east on my lead to the climbing wall and saw the qualifiers for the Colorado Regionals of USA Climbing... cool.

VBC Again... We made it back to the Gore Ck area for a time-adjusted rez at Mountain Standard, one of my favored restaurants in Vail. Great lunch-dinner with a fine bottle of wine selected by our leader of de vin, Scooter of Oklahoma. The early dinner allowed a full viewing of the quaterfinals in play boating in "the hole" on Gore Ck. Competitor were so cold in the snowmelt-engorged Gore Ck but they were amazing in their Jacksons. Both Juniors and Womens were amazing, with clear "bests" in each... but we'd had enough of 45° and rain and headed back to VBC for more warmth and brews. The women dusted the boys in a weird numerological dice game of luck, but nobody chugged except Scooter & me. We waited out the storm again and headed to queue for decent seats at Ford Amp @ 5:30pm.

Awesome Concert... We didn't even queue and got awesome seats in slight right center row 9. Upside was sitting next to cool DEN couple with strong music appreciation skills. SD, CA-based Band of Gringos opened the show ~ ok. They did have a drone and a pilot for same deployer through the whole show (see him back left in the image).

2nd up were the fabulous California Honeydrops... They have a killer lead and cool horn/sax section, with 2 drum sets. Lyrics were simple, music was not... sounded like a fav from Detroit from long ago, 4 Tops at times. They were completely excellent live with 40s, funk, R&B, etc all laced through a bunch of guys but the lead vocals were hot. Very cool show.

Headliner Molly Tuttle... You all know me though, I bought tix to see Molly Tuttle's latest. And fortuitous "latest" it was as MT introduced an all new, all female band this night ~ the first time ever heard! Vail Ford Amp was the 1st show from the new band who'll play her pre-announced new album for Aug25 drop (with killer house musicians of course), So Long Little Miss Sunshine. This was completely a brand new lineup and breakout show for MT in her post-bluegrass step, and we were there to absorb it. She and the new band (unnamed as yet to my awareness) debuted four new never released, never played in public originals this night, along with the one new album drop mentioned prior, 'That's Gonna Leave A Mark.' The set was awesome. The band was not as tight as the Grammy winning Golden Highway in their late game, yet, but dispatched themselves decently alongside a complete legend, already. She also played 8 recent releases from her catalog, but none from pre-bluegrass interestingly (like "Rise" or "If You're Ready") and the new team had learned those songs well enough. They looked happy AF to play with MT, and were skilled. They'll be individual stars soon enough by association and selection. Nice for them; I'm sure these were tough interviews and  auditions... this is one of the hardest working artists I know, she's not gonna allow slack. The new band features a new harmony team of fiddler/mandolin/backing vocals from X, bass/backing vocals from Y, dobro & melodies from Z, and percussion from Q.

So good, MT can play her catalog like no other; she can play & sing iconic covers from NorCal. I really wanna know what's next. She tossed her wig on the title track of "So Long Little Miss Sunshine" played publicly for the 1st time ever. Cool... what's next? Listen to the show from a pro recorder with rights ~ he's got better and more complete coverage... 1st three are new.

June Music Appreciation ~ New or Old Pop Stars 03Jun25

This month I'm relating my notion of shifts about to occur on the airwaves in popular music. One big thing about to hit is Molly Tuttle; after many years making two killer bluegrass and newgrass albums she's announced a new "solo" album for Aug25 and dropped the first single "That's Gonna Leave A Mark." It portends of a shift to pop, but harkens back to earlier works... so good and some are ready. The pop world may soon be at her feet as this woman can sing, write, and, of course, play like a demon. Even the album title sounds like she'll drop plenty of darker and sadder stuff on us. I can't wait; my 140g vinyl pre-order for So Long Little Miss Sunshine is in (Album Trailer).

The second I see is the reemergence of the The Vindy's. This early '10s pop band from Ohio matured, delivers hot blues vibes and licks, good tunes and horns, and toured recently with Pat Benetar. Their most recent "Electric" is awesome, and it was not recent as they seem vintage cool to me. Since their fine last album Bugs, from the pandemic, they've been dropping other well produced singles like "Elton Glasses Baby" (OV), and the fun Christmas classic "Too Elfin' Cold."

Finally for this month and this "pop emergence" notion, I'm offering another Nashville artist, Maya de Vitry. She's the complete package with a cool voice, and spectacular songwriting, and playing many instruments, and she's the chief engineer producing her work. She's so versatile and can write and deliver songs in any style... maybe it's a stretch to peg her in pop, as she's not really, but she's here to garner exposure. Her recent album, The Only Moment, was one of the best releases of 2024. And for a recent appearance live on Current in Oct24, enjoy some of those songs, and for more check her on Red Barn Radio in Dec24 (I moved forward to "Taking Up Rock & Roll").

Camping With BC20X @ Spillway In 11 Mile Canyon ~ Shakedown Street & Some Fish 20May25-22May25

As the subject says, I'm camping @ Spillway with the Airstream to test some features and do some fishing. This is a great campground and my site #23 is fine, #16 looks to be the best for trailer use. I arrived without issue and set up camp including new additional solar for charging the batteries, more secure Moon shade awning, 12v mood lighting, StarLink connectivity, etc. New solar worked fine. It's super windy out here and was a great test for the awning. I made one small addition to hold the poles together but all is right now. Mood lighting worked well from a day of sunshine. StarLink was awesome, when it had power (more below).

Other shakedown testing wasn't as fruitful or at least had some negative aspects. I'd just gotten a new aux battery in the Crusher Too (free from Interstate as the old one wouldn't hold a charge after 26 months and I have 36 mo full replacement). Despite that the battery did not last a full 48 hrs running StarLink and the fridge without being charged. I drove it some today so have a little juice. I need to bring a charger for it that I can hook to my generator if it happens again. I admit I was a bit in the shade of a big tree limiting sun for part of the day. Also, the new inverter can't handle the Nespresso machine, even if we're connected to the generator. I had to tote the machine outside and plug directly into the generator. Far from ideal. I'll have to get to root cause ~ I know it's a high demand appliance and tasks the generator considerably but through the inverter, the inverter just shuts down.

On the first eve I hosted young neighbors. I forgot ice trays or ice and they had some ice ~ so I made margs and we chatted. Cool KC, MO couple and the guy could really play a mean guitar.

It was so windy for dinner though that I blew off making stuff and had leftover Cowboy Caviar. I slept well in the camper but it was chilly; batteries had not been charging at home with the inverter off and if voltage is too low, the furnace won't stay on... grrr. Batteries are charged now and it all works fine. Wed was a fishing day... it wasn't too crowded but the fishing was only meh. The cold nights and significantly reduced flows, down to 68cfs at the beginning to lesser yet at <60cfs today, made catching tough ~ I saw plenty of fish but caught only a half dozen on midges, no mayflies Wed.

It was windy early evening but I made sloppy joes on the skottle anyway. I had to improvise a bit as I forgot the chili sauce but did have a can of fire roasted tomatoes... I had everything else so it worked fine. I invited the CG host over for a sandwich and we exchanged stories. Cool CO software dude.

The 2nd day fishing was even tougher and still windy. I drove down to the tunnels to work that beat in the AM. One tiny brown... I came back to the Spillway area. I managed to catch only several but one was nicer and a little over 18". Today the midges and caddis larva worked. I found a small "stand" of columbine ~ cool.

Update 02Ju25 ~ Gas Line Fix... while in 11 Mile Canyon I noticed one of the two 20# canisters of propane was leaking from its tail to the mixing valve. Grrr. I disconnected it. I have since purchased and installed two new pigtails from tanks to mixing/cutover valve.