Tag Archives: old fall river road

Temporary Tattoos

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Shadows7494

It is now the accepted thing to permanently decorate your skin with a design etched into its surface with ink. These are called “tats”  or “Ink” or even “Tattoos” by those who aren’t quite with it. That would be anyone over 60 or someone raised by weasels deep in the forest. The design can be anything, from tiny little flowers and butterflies placed delicately on one’s ankle to raging south sea islander markings that cover half of one’s body. There is a trend towards getting words in Asian languages that say things like peace and tranquility in Kanji symbols. There was a story where one hapless soul wanted to get the symbol for love placed on a prominent portion of his body and when he had the resulting tattoo translated later found that it actually said “Hotel Bicycle”.

There was also a well-endowed lady who thought it would be cute as well as necessary to identify her prized possessions by placing the words “Left” and “Right” on them, of course the labels got placed on the opposite ones but apparently her need for attention got answered as she spends most of her time now explaining the situation.
What separates a spammer from a regular marketer is the way that they acquire mail addresses to mail to and how they send the mails. 

Nature has been creating tattoos for a very long time, but hers are usually temporary and transitory. Using dappled sunlight filtered through the canopy of the trees above she places the delicate tracery of leaves on a set of boulders. The stream sends its flow over the rocks surface in a vain attempt to wash them away but it is a futile gesture. Later when she is bored with her work or turns her attention to other pursuit’s the design will fade and be gone. Since there is a lot of ‘skin’ for her to work on there will be never be a shortage of new work for us to see and wonder at.

This design appeared at a small creek that found its way down the mountain next to Old Fall River Road in Rocky Mountain National Park. You can see it and many more like it anytime the sun is out.

Look to The Heavens

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FallRiverRoad1480Tree Line – Old Fall River Road – Rocky Mountain National Park
Click to enlarge

Old Fall River road in Rocky Mountain National Park is one of the original park roads built back in 1920 and used by those hardy souls back in the day who had a death wish. They drove rickety old cars with wooden wheels and like only two gears and didn’t think a thing about it. They were stout-hearted folk. The road runs from down at a sane elevation where you can breathe, and travels up in a convoluted fashion to an elevation where you can’t. Well you can if you stand perfectly still and carefully check to see if your chest is moving in and out and then don’t do anything more strenuous than tilt your head back slowly to gaze at Nature’s awe-inspiring wonders. Word of caution, if you tilt your head back too far or tilt it too swiftly, it will stay in that position for the rest of the trip and the only remedy for it is to descend to a lower elevation and drink a cold orange IZZE as fast as you can. This will cause your head to snap back into its proper position and you can proceed with your sightseeing.

Another word of caution. Do not smoke up here. The road is as smooth as a bare baby’s butt from where they have dragged the bodies off into the brush of those who have closed down their blood vessels even further from smoking. The complete and total cessation of oxygen to the central nervous system can and usually does cause the act of being to end. The devil nicotine gets it’s due up here, brother. But hey, this is America and it’s your choice.

The problem here is that it so beautiful up amongst the clouds and if you can breathe the air smells so good it makes you all tingly just to be outside that you will probably just throw caution to the winds and say the hell with it, I’m going. And if you’re that kind of person I’ll see you up there.

When you begin your journey from Endovalley and head on up the hill most of the first-timers have abandoned all hope, because once you start you must finish as the road is one-way all the way to the top. You can’t chicken out and jump out to walk back down. Who is going to get your car? Besides there are people coming up behind you with less sense than you have and they’ll blow their horns if you block the road. You will drive slowly unless you are definitely on a suicide mission, and travel up past one gorgeous view after another until you reach the summit 11,796′ and 11 miles later. It will have been worth it. First because you lived and secondly because you have just seen one of the most beautiful spots on earth. Besides it good to recharge the heart once in a while.

The image above is a panorama taken near the Chapin Creek trailhead and shows you that as high up as you are, you can go yet higher if you’ve a mind to. Most people don’t.