I'm not a skier myself but I believe these manicured slopes are part of the Monarch ski resort complex.

I safely returned to Denver this morning after spending the night in a different boondocking area in Buena Vista. I didn't expect to stay as long as I did, but my mini mini-vacation turned into a regular mini-vacation.        

All of that shows a lack of planning on my part, which proves I not only find it difficult to decide exactly where I want to go, but I also find it difficult to decide exactly how long I want to stay.

Oftentimes things that make me want to see or do something else come up while I'm traveling, and I just can't help being diverted from where I was headed, to a new more interesting location. I have never been good at making and keeping plans. I think it was Mike Tyson that said, "Everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the face." And along the same lines, a German Field Marshal once said, "No plan survives first contact with the enemy." I think both describe fairly accurately why I don't bother making plans.

Now I'm pretty good at coming up with concepts; this latest mini-vacation, for instance, started with the concept, "I want to get out of this heat in the flatlands." And I think I stuck fairly close to that concept. This winter, I will probably have a different concept such as : "I want to go someplace warm for the winter."  I'm good at ideas, but I'm terrible at making plans on how to achieve the concept.

So I drift along; most folks would say, "Whichever way the wind blows," Westerners would say, "drifting along like a tumbling tumbleweed." Guided only by a rough concept of where I should be going, or what I should be doing, largely based on how I feel at the moment.

Now to slightly change the subject; that's exactly why I knew, even as a kid, military life would never be for me. I put in my four years with the Air Force, but never gave a split second's thought to re-upping. Being constantly told what to do and when to do it was not for me and never has been. I've always had trouble dealing with the thought of having little to no control over my life and what I can do, and when.

Maybe it was because I was an Air Force brat? Or perhaps it was because my dad was an Air Force lifer and had no control over where we lived or for how long? Maybe that lack of freedom in my early life made me long for freedom now that it's available. I don't know, and it's way above my pay grade to figure it out. So I'll try to live in a way that makes me happy, which is exactly how I live now.

theboondork

Salida Colorado, Arkansas River.

I love seeing families having fun together. These are memories the kids will hold on to their entire life.

There were several groups of young people, that were doing something in the river, but I'm not sure what kind of groups they were, or what they were doing.

The Arkansas flows right through downtown Salida, and everybody has a way of riding the river.

Most tourists hire professionals to raft them down the river.

But the locals usually have their own way of floating down the Arkansas.

This boys expression tells you everything you need to know about what he sees ahead.

Most folks make it through the rapids, but some folks you just know are gonna get wet.

Salida is the laid-back kind of town where it's not odd to see someone with some gray hair and more than a few wrinkles,  skateboarding down to the river.

Another group of young'uns that look like they belong to some kind of a group.

Sometimes I feel like taking old pictures of new things. I especially like old signs.

I have noticed in my travels that in general, young people do things, and old people watch them. it's seldom the other way around, and when it is the video will be on YouTube.

Young people are running and jumping, splashing and yelling, and old people are either sitting or walking, and even those meager activities requires a nap.

I don't know at what age we make that change from doing to watching but it seems to happen to most folks sooner or later.

View from the top of Monarch Pass on the way down to Salida.

I put on my traveling shoes yesterday morning, said goodbye to Tincup, and coasted down the mountain to Salida, Colorado, to see if I could find some river surfing on the Arkansas that Salida is famous for.

I got to Gunnison just in time for breakfast at McDonald's and headed East on Highway 50, which brought me into downtown Salida and past the Walmart, where I would probably be spending the night.

Surfing never much interested me, even when I was living in Miami, so it sure as heck doesn't interest me now, but when I saw river surfing on the Internet and found out that Salida, Colorado was semi-famous for it, I decided it was something I wanted to see.

I definitely hit Salida on the wrong day, it was late Saturday morning, and the town had a huge Farmer's market going on, a concert in the city Park and hundreds of people at the Riverpark on the Arkansas River watching all of the river stuff. All that meant that the town was packed, and parking was difficult to come by, especially for a vehicle as portly as the Lance.

But I found a space after a lot of driving around in close quarters and could walk around town a little bit and mostly check out the river surfing, which is why I came.

To avoid utter confusion on my part, tomorrow I will do what I've done in the past and write my blog about what's actually going on at the present time, and show pictures from the past that will tell a different story from my blogs written part. That appears to be the only thing that will save me from the  confusion of trying to write about the past when I'm already in the future.

Theboondork

These folks have just pedaled to the top of 11,000 foot Monarch Pass. There smiling now but some of them are well on their way to knee surgery before their 70.

Since I was, and probably always will be a motorcycle guy the documentary named "On Any Sunday" was a favorite of mine back when I was living in Miami....But I think you have to be a motorcycle guy or gal to appreciate it.

Every parking spot in town was full, so I ended up in this small crowded dirt parking lot, which fortunately was close to the river. I'm parked on the left  in  the back of the lot. And I consider myself very fortunate to be able to get in and out of that spot without a single scratch on my various overhanging enormity's.

Walking on one of the bridges that crosses the Arkansas. Salida is a river loving town. And a lot of the town's income is derived in one way or another from the Arkansas River.

Salida has a lot of beautiful old buildings. But it takes a lot of money to keep these old buildings up, and Salida is mostly a summer town, so the money only flows in for six months which makes being in business here difficult at best.

there was a concert going on at the park next to the Arkansas River. I don't know if the band could sing and play well or not, but they could definitely play loud....Listen to me! someone who grew up with loud rock 'n' roll music, and now I'm so old I complain about how loud music is! If that's not proof I'm an old geezer I don't know what is.

Get off my lawn you young whippersnappers !!  AND TURN DOWN THAT MUSIC !!!

Salida has a lot of beautiful old buildings but on crowded days like this is not a good time to take pictures of them.

I always get messed up when I take these mini-vacations because I can never keep my stories straight. right now, I'm talking about something I did yesterday, but yesterday doesn't interest me that much since I'm always looking ahead. But now I'm sitting here trying to write something about yesterday, which doesn't seem as interesting as It did when I did it.

I would be much more interested in talking about what I did today: which was spend Saturday in Salida, Colorado, watching all the entertaining Arkansas River stuff that I thoroughly enjoyed and would be interesting to write about right now. But Noooo, I've got to talk about something that happened in the past instead of interesting stuff that happened today.

It's my fault; this happens when I'm in a new place and take more pictures than I can put on one blog post, and I've moved before I can post all the pictures. Or, like this time, my Internet was too weak to post all the images, and I ended up with many photos that have nothing to do with what I'm doing now.

But anyway, to help straighten this out, pretend today was yesterday, and I'm where I was yesterday instead of where I am today, because I'm using yesterday's pictures like there todays. Tomorrow's pictures will actually be pictures of today and not tomorrow, so don't get confused. Now that I've cleared that up, you can look at today's pictures and probably won't know what day it is.

Theboondork

Did I happen to mention that all-terrain vehicles,, ATVs, are the way everybody gets around Tincup?

There all lined up for breakfast at Frenchy's Café.

this is the Tincup Courthouse on weekdays, and a church on Sundays

Frenchy's Café, it's the best place to eat In Tincup.... It's the only place to eat In Tincup.

dirt bikes are another way people get around Tincup, and this is the way I used to get around Tincup. The dirt bikes don't have to be street legal around here because I'm not sure if there even legal streets around here. everybody just goes where they want as long as they watch out for the cows. This whole area is open range.

My parking spot at the Tincup cemetery. The cemetery is only about a mile off the main road, but it was a lot more beat up, and a lot narrower that I remember in the past.

there's a couple of creeks running around the hills that the cemeteries on so the town built a boardwalk to get across the wet areas.

The town takes care of the cemetery, not only because it's old, but because folks are still being buried here. Although I don't know how they get here on that beat up road unless they carry you up here on an ATV.

I've always thought that the Tincup Cemetery has the best view of Any Cemetery you could find.

it bothers me when poor folks can't afford A stone headstone, wood just doesn't last very long before it becomes illegible.

This wooden headstone shows the name, but the dates have disappeared.

My boondocking spot last night. it had pretty good Internet right here.