Trip Pictures

The top one is the wedding in the Rocky Mountains that I went to, my sister's son Eric. It was held at Columbine Point at Snow Mountain Ranch in Granby, CO. You can see from the brown trees in the background that the spruce beetle has really wiped out a lot of the fir trees.

In the bottom shot, you will see a middle view of the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs, and at the top left is the Kissing Camels rock. This part is closed off to climbers for the prairie falcon mating season. The prairie falcon actually came out and chased the swifts and green-violet swallows, its main source of food, quite a lot while I went on a guided walk with one of the local volunteer guides. (You can come by tomorrow, and see Birdblogging on the prairie falcon.) The rocks here are formed by an uplift of the layers that are formed by centuries of sedimentation - that is, they were underwater, formed of sand laid down by an ocean - then lifted up to almost vertical by the pressures of earth, here volcanic, then worn away by the winds. The City was given them to keep open free to the public by their owner, Charles Elliot Perkins, head of Burlington Railroad.

(See http://www.gardenofgods.info/default.asp for more information.)



The is taken at the Garden of the Gods as mentioned above, a phantasmagorical rock outcropping, that has some of the most amazing natural sculpturings I have ever seen. In the top picture, you will see Pikes Peak in the background, the garden in the foreground.

In the lower one, I came across a herd of bighorn sheep, which you can just make out, below a slope of rock and desert landscape. I understand they come down in the summer, are up in the higher elevations in the winter. A ram, that I assume is the herd's leader, took up a somewhat defensive position when a few of us passing tourists got out of our cars to take pictures, but he wasn't threatened and soon went about getting his herd in order.