Belated Father's Day Getaway

I had planned a special Father's Day for Mikey, but he was so dead after staying awake for 24 hours to DJ the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life, followed by DJ'ing a wedding with no sleep, that we postponed it until yesterday. I took him to a great place to fly fish that I had heard about from a local old-timer. We went along Weminuche Creek, near a wilderness area. We hiked in a little more than 2 miles and I took this picture of Mikey & Dude along the way....While Mikey was fishing, Dude and I took a long exploratory hike along the Creek. During the hike, I stopped to look around and Dude came back to check on me when I snapped this picture of him looking cute...

After our hike, Dude and I rejoined Mikey, who was having a great time and had caught and released over a dozen fish in a couple of hours with his fly rod...

On our way back out to the truck, I was awestruck by the beautiful view and took this picture of Mikey hiking out with the mountains in the background...

We both had a great day, as you can tell from Mikey's expression of his "appreciation" below...

Hike to Poison Park & Elk Park

Muriel joined a group of local outdoor enthusiasts for those age 50 and older called the Gray Wolves. During the summer, they go on a weekly hike, led by one of the members. A few of the members were born and raised here and know a lot of the local history and landmarks, so they provide interesting insights and stories during the hikes. This week, we went on a 9 mile out-and-back hike in the Weminuche Wilderness to Poison Park and beyond to Elk Park where we had lunch and enjoyed the view. There were lush, green meadows surrounded by the Weminuche Cliffs towering above. Here's a couple of pictures from Poison Park... Here's a picture of the rest of the Gray Wolf Hikers quickly leaving me in the dust... ;-)

Below are a couple of pictures I took from Elk Park, where we stopped for lunch on a ridge overlooking the Weminuche River Ranch far below, dwarfed beneath the cliffs above.

First Hike of 2009

For the first hike of the season, we went with Dee & Steve to a place none of us had been before: Fish Creek Trail to Leche Lake. It was a beautiful day and we took the dogs and lunch along. We sidetracked along the way to Opal Lake then continued our hike. Everything was so green from all the spring rains and the meadows and forest were surrounded with mountains and rocky cliffs. We walked through scenic meadows, saw a cow elk in one, crossed a few creeks along the way.

We stepped off the trail on a ridge and were rewarded with some spectacular views...

Before arriving at our destination and enjoying lunch by Leche Lake, named for it's milky appearance.

Hopefully, this is the first of many hikes we will enjoy this summer!

May and June Page From Calendar

As we mentioned in prior posts, our daughter, Tiffany, coordinated with Tony & Shea and Shannon & Ray to collect pictures to use to craft a beautiful calendar. It was such a great gift with photos of our loved ones that we will treasure for many years to come! We decided to publish a picture of the page for each month of the year this year. We missed posting May's, so here is both May and June. Enjoy!

Happy Mother's Day Yia Yia

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Prom Highlights and Hearing Loss

As many of you know, I was DJ at the Pagosa Springs High School prom last night. Went well, although it took me longer than anticipated to set up the lights, due to the way the room was decorated, which limited options for effectively covering the dance area. Finished setting everything up just in time to start playing and was bombarded with requests all night, so didn't get any pictures or video. After looking at the layout, I decided to go with 4 speakers rather than 6, which afterward I'm thinking for the level of loudness they wanted 6 might have been better. To give you an idea of how loud it was, I had to run back out to the trailer for something, walking through the dance area, through another large room, out the front door, with doors closed, and walking down the sidewalk, you could still hear the music at a level I normally play at dances. Then, once I got back they asked, "can you crank it up louder, then louder, then louder! My hearing hasn't got back to normal yet. Even standing behind the speakers, I had difficulty hearing people's request. They started typing them out on their phones and showing me when they came up. It was so loud, again even behind the speakers, that I could not listen through the headset (volume cranked up) to most of the requests for language that was school appropriate.

It was a tough gig. As you can imagine the differing taste in music was tough and I am sure I made some people very happy and pissed off a few as well. However, with a couple exceptions (see lowlights below) the dance floor was packed, with almost no room to move all night. The lights worked out great and were awesome, wish I had got some pictures/video.

The highlights (songs that got cheers from the crowd) some of these may surprise you.
Jump (feat. Nelly Furtado) by Flo Rida
All I Ever Wanted (Radio Edit) by Basshunter
Day 'N' Nite by Kid Cudi
Right Round by Flo Rida
Save A Horse (Ride A Cowboy) by Big & Rich
Poker Face by Lady GaGa
Play That Funky Music by Wild Cherry
Low [feat T-Pain] by Flo
Glass Danse by The Faint
Pour Some Sugar On Me by Def Leppard
Boom Boom Pow by Black Eyed Peas
Let It Rock by Kevin Rudolf
Cherry Pie by Warrant
Walk This Way by Aerosmith
Mustang Sally by Buddy Guy
Shake It (Radio Mix) by Metro Station
In The Ayer [feat. will.I.am] by Flo Rida

Some of the lowlights included:
One couple (obviously C&W fans, since the Dude was wearing a western hat) asked if I could play Cotton Eyed Joe and feeling guilty since I hadn't played but a couple of country songs, I relented (against by better judgment). When the song began about two thirds of the dance floor emptied and went to the other room, some of the kids glaring at me as they were leaving. The dozen or so that were left seemed to enjoy it. I followed it up with a popular very upbeat song and the dance floor was packed once again.

The other low moment came when a gal asked me to play Better Together by Jack Johnson, which is a great song, but not for this crowd. I put it off, then at the end of the night, this gal comes back up and asks when/if I was going to play it. She explained that she was there with the Principle's son, who came back to town for the prom and this was their song. I played it and at first there were a few boos, but half of the crowd still danced to it.

It was a challenging event, but I had a blast, although I may never regain my hearing. Got home in bed about 3:00am and was still hearing all those songs going through my head, in fact I still am. Was up at 6:30 am and feeling it now.

Many Thanks to our Friend Bryan Meekin who helped me set up and came back after 1:00am and help me tear down and load! He then had to head over to help out at the after prom party, which was supposed to last until 5:00am.

The only pictures I have are the ones below of me in my outfit ready to go.

What, you didn't wash the dirt off the trailer, before the gig! Yes, the shirt is sound activated. The dancers on the front dance to the beat of the music.

Nice shoes Dude!

A better look at the Awesome Job Muriel did adding a sign to the trailer!

Amazing Race Phil Keoghan's Ride Across America

Yesterday Muriel and I went down to the town park in support of Phil Keoghan's Ride Across America. Pagosa is one of the stops on his cross country ride from Los Angeles to New York to raise awareness and funds for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. We missed his entry the previous day into town, due to some misinformation on arrival time. There was supposed to be a segment on the CBS Early Show yesterday from Pagosa, but haven’t seen it online. Check out his video blog at http://www.philridesacrossamerica.com/daily_blog.html for an entry from Pagosa. Looks like he is a few days behind on posting, so keep checking, you may see us. Also, Check out some of the twists the town did to Phil along the lines of the Amazing Race, pretty Cool!
http://pagosa.com/artman/publish/article_4982.shtml
http://pagosa.com/artman/publish/article_4983.shtml

Below are some pictures and a short video from yesterday’s gathering.

Picture of Phil coming off the new bridge over the San Juan which was just put in the day before and dedicated when Phil was there.

Phil enjoying a free Pancake Breakfast donated by the Pagosa Springs Kiwanis club

Phil's wife on the ride out of town on their way to Wlof Creek pass

Short Video showing some of the mornings highlights