I was amused too.
Have spent the month of July the past two trailer camping in Alberta and BC. Amazing. Makes the Tetons (our favorite camping place) seem basic. Peyko Lake really is that blue. It is located on the Glacier Parkway about 15 miles or so north of Lake Louis. The waterfall is in Yoho National Park and the sunset is at Jasper. The fire in Jasper was devestating.
Takakkaw Falls in the spring time are amazing. I haven’t been back to Jasper since the fire but I know our family’s favorite campground at Wapiti suffered some severe damage. My sister goes camping there every summer and their usual spot was not available this summer.
The campgrounds were significantly damaged. Most trees were burned to the ground. Landline at Wapiti.
Lake Louise, and that beautiful old world lodge are two of my very favorite memories from decades ago when my wife and I spent a night there while driving through Canada in a 1972 MGB convertible, as college students in the mid 70’s.
Major bucket list item is to go back and really explore the area and hike the mountains.
This is from a cyclocross race today in Wake Forest, NC, at the Camp Kanata CX race.
There’s an adaptive cyclist club in NC. They help put on the race that went on today. They had 10 riders on course this morning. They range in age from 8 to mid-50’s (I’m guessing on upper range, it may be higher).
Here’s a pic of them post race. I wish I had gotten them at the start. I’ll attempt to do better next week. Their bikes (rides?) are pretty damned cool. They’re like little dune buggies. While their rides can’t hop the barriers for a normal cross race, they can handle just about everything else.
Here’s a link to their website: Programs
My mom always wanted to visit Iosepa, so we took a drive yesterday:
Pretty remarkable what the Polynesian community has done out there. When I first visited in the 80s, it was simply a graveyard. Now there’s a sizable covered pavilion with a stage, a number of small brick buildings for food preparation, playground, restrooms, etc, and a lot of enhancements to the memorials. I had no idea the last person buried at Iosepa was in 1968.
(My only complaint was the couple of basketballs laying around were not fully inflated and that hampered the beginning of my return as a basketball player… which is probably a good thing for everyone.)
A progam listed an all-day event that featured Tahitians, Hawai’ians, New Zealand (Maori), Tongans, Goshute Tribe, Dinner music by Kimo Watanabe, Samoans and then the Fire Knife dancers to finish it off at 9p, with a youth dance, afterward.
Hats off to those communities for keeping this special place very special.
Sacred Ground
Wow! Looks just a bit like Yosemite
Not as awe inspiring as most pictures on this thread, but thought it was a cool picture.
It was taken in the lobby of the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco.
So the picture had to get pist, then you posted it? ![]()
Oops, I forgot to priifread it
Below are some photos of my latest project at my old house in Southern Idaho; the root/wine cellar.
This old building was built around 1890, has an inner room 3 feet below ground with a stone foundation, supporting an inner brick wall, and an outer brick wall separated by a 4 inch air space, and a set of exterior, wood sided walls, on a separate brick/slate/concrete foundation, outside the brick enclosure.
The sill plates on top of the concrete foundation and bottom of the door frame had rotted, portions of the all the walls were sinking, or collapsing, and neither the inner or outer doors would open.
It has small wooden warm air outlet vent out through the top of the building and a cold air return vent at the base of the inner stone foundation. When cleaning out the vent, I found an interesting surprise, standing out of sight, back inside: a likely 80+ year old flask, rusted, and badly decomposed (It’s OK dear, I’m happy to run out to the cellar and grab some potatoes for you). ![]()
I jacked the building up, replaced the wood foundation sills, repaired the door frame, and repoured sections of the outer concrete foundation. I spent the summer trying to find a brick mason who was willing to come all the way out there and repair the failing portions of the brick walls and FINALLY found someone, who finished the job this week.
In the spring, I’ll replace the portions of the old wood exterior siding that have been water damaged, and repair and restore the old wood shelving for the interior which I temporarily removed while the brickwork was being done.
The inner room, with repaired door and masonry:
The outer building wrapped in concrete blankets for the last foundation pour, earlier this week.
The small, obscure opening to the cold air return vent, at the base of the stone foundation:
The remnants of the old metal flask
Saw a Great Horned Owl yesterday in Big Cottonwood park. It stayed undisturbed on the branch for over an hour. That’s the first GHO I’ve ever seen in the wild.
These were from this past Sunday, the 14th. Unfortunately we arrived just as the adaptive riders were starting so I didn’t get many good pics.
The next one are a couple of the bikes from the guys from The Wounded Warrior Project. These are highly engineered machines.
Sadly I didn’t see any of the ones that had suspension like a Baja racer, not much suspension on those that I saw on Sunday.
These bikes allow folks who normally would miss out on trail rides or hiking to get out and about. They are great folks to be around. They are almost all extremely positive and happy.
I think I’ve shared this link before for the North Carolina Adapted Sports organization. There may be organizations like them in other states.
University of Utah Health has an adaptive recreation program called TRAILS. There’s also the National Ability Center in Park City. I’ve seen both groups out with riders on our local trails.
TRAILS usually has a group of athletes that ride adaptive cycles during the Salt Lake Marathon bike tour. I usually volunteer as a bike marshal. A few years ago I assigned to help keep a clear path on the leaders of the adaptive cycling group. One individual had an unfortunate crash that day, he was all scraped up, but once the folks at TRAILS tended to his wounds were, he got back up with a determination to keep going and finish.
I have a riding buddy that organizes the National Ability Center’s Summit Challenge ride at the end of every summer. They have rides from 20 miles up to 100, and their athletes actively participate in the event.
Like you, my interactions with them on the trails or at either of these events have been nothing but positive.
This afternoon I rode my bike by an old house I’ve previously tried unsuccessfully to buy (to restore), and was surprised at the visitor on the roof. The house is at 600 East and 300 South and when I came back by two and a half hours later the visitor was still there. I’m going to go back tomorrow afternoon to see if perhaps the visitor lives close by and spends a lot of time on the roof.
Photo of the house below, with a close up of the root of the tower following:
Or it’s plastic to scare off other birds ![]()

















