cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog
I am still based on my friend’s place in Paonia, Colorado, but took today as a day trip on the scenic West Elk bypass- the first part was most glorious, a sometimes rough gravel road that climbed through aspen forests, crossed Kebler pass, and dumped me in the town of Crested Butte. This is one of those towns with the mains street duded up in western store fronts, lots of restaurants, art galleries, and tourismo shops…
cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog
I strolled through the Farmers market on the mains street (regretting not making that the lunch stop spot). There were two musicians, one on guitar and one on fiddle, and I asked them, if I could have them play some live music for the ds06 web radio station (I planted the tip jar). They did accommodate for a song, something about “Doing it for Money” (?) and I got them to chant the “ds106 radio 4 Life” call. Doing this on the iPhone, I have no recording, and I even forgot to grab a photo. But asking street performers to do live things on the radio feels really easy to approach people.
And this place has the “Horizontal and the Vertical” covered, Jim Groom:
cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog
In a rest room, I spotted the local news, the police blotter or “Mountain Mischief”, with this breaking story:
“Mountain Mischief”
by the Mt. Crested Butte Police Department6/3/11- A 24-year-old Crested Butte Man was stopped for speeding on Highway 135. The officer observed the driver gulping from a water jug and smelled an overly strong odor of cologne as he approached the vehicle. The driver was subsequently arrested for DUI and possession of marijuana and paraphernalia. His attempts to cover his misdeeds were interesting, yet unsuccessful.
Let that be a lesson, do not be caught drinking out of a large water jug and sporting too much cologne. But if so, feel assured you may be deemed to have “interesting” attempts at misdeed coverups.
Given the length of the drive loop, I boogied on down the hill, leading ultimately into Gunnison, or how I heard a local refer to it over lunch, “Gunny”. I was going to buzz on through town, but spotted an interesting coffee shop, and decided to give it a visit. I set up the StoryBox, and noted a young guy working intently on a MacBook. I asked him if he had time to test something, so I had him look for the network, and read the info to see if it made sense.
With some help of my friend Ken, I found the place in the piratebox distribution (/etc/init.d/piratebox_start) where I could modify the opening page, to have better link to the explanation of my project. As it turns out, the guy is actually from Phoenix, up here fishing, and he thought it was “neat”– I think he added a photo of a fish he caught.
Time was pressing as I was trying o get back to meet my friends at 4:00pm at Revolution Brewing, but I knew I would be late, so let them know (it was more like 5:15pm by the time I got there). I buzzed on along US 50 along the reservoir created by the damming of the Gunnison River. It seemed kind fo bleak, a mostly drab colored wider canyon, sort of a poor imitation of Lake Powell. I was glad I scratched my plan to camp there the 2nd night, it was not extremely attractive for tent camping.
Downstream of the Blue Mesa Dam, the river falls way down in the narrow confines of the black walled canyon, and my road climbed high up and over the sides. The views were sweeping, as was the drive back through Crawford, Hotchkiss, and once again Paonia.
I did meet up with Ken and Oogie at Revolution Brewing and enjoyed a CHerry IPA and a Jesse’s Garage Pale Ale. Their beers our outstanding, all done locally, and housed in a small place that was once a church. It really is a gathering place for locals, all whom know each other well, people who connect without twitter and facebook (well some of them use them, but it is secondary).
cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog
I am slowly picking up things for the StoryBox (hey, a file just came in my dropbox). I really, really, really really, would appreciate if folks could seed it even more withe pictures, drawings, writings, music, audio recordings…. just check it out again at http://cogdogblog.com/storybox.
That’s today’s exciting dispatch.
