concepts

Clicking the pics will bring you extremely good luck for several seconds........sorry ! Times up.

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.