Caching injury

On Monday, Sherrie and I headed back up to Green Mountain Falls to finish a cache along the Catamount Trail that we started 2 weeks ago and also do a couple other caches. We were close to the first cache last time, before being chased down by a storm. With the owner's assurance that we were in the right place, we started searching again. The cache was hidden in a rock crevice. We climbed up into the crevice about 10 feet, and then I climbed up onto a 4'x4' ledge that had an nice "window" to the outside, letting in lots of light. I found the cache tucked into a crace by that ledge, hidden by some smaller rocks. I was replacing the cache, when one of those rocks (about 6" diameter) started falling out. This part happened really fast, but I believe I tried to catch it and instead it smashed my finger against the rock wall. It continued down the crevice, luckily missing Sherrie, who was below me. We climbed back out of the crevice, and I took this picture of my finger:


I decided I wanted to continue on our hike and we did so. The valley we were in is called "Garden of Eden" and is aptly named. It's gotta be the prettiest place I've ever hiked. The trail goes up the valley, following a stream all the way to South Catamount Reservoir on the side of Pikes Peak. Here are some other (prettier) pictures from the hike:
A fritillary butterfly

A buck in velvet

Fireweed

South Catamount Reservoir with Pikes Peak in the background.

I was going to write more details of the hike, but my finger's making it tedious to type.

S is for Saturday...

...and spider, sunflower, and sunset.

This immature orb weaver was busy wrapping her prey in silk, that's why some of her legs are really blurry while some are perfectly clear.


This was a wild sunflower and the center is only about 1 inch across (taken with a macro lens).


Finally, tonight's sunset at Quail Lake:

Life in Macro

I got some macro lenses for my camera this week, so most of the photos in this post are my experimenting with those. Warning for any arachniphobes (Alissa) - there is a spider pic (I like them and this one gives me a slight case of the heebee jeebees). I'll put that pic last.

Sherrie and I went hiking and caching up on the Catamount Falls trail in Green Mountain Falls today. Our hike was cut a little short by some rain and thunder, but we still did about 5 miles. Here's a picture of the falls near the start of the trail:

Now on to the macro shots...
The reproductive parts of a petunia in my garden:


A flower longhorn beetle on some cow parsnip:


Black widow spider in my back yard:

Happy Independence Day!

I had to work during the day, but my evening on the Fourth was spent at the ballpark.

Our choir was invited to sing the National Anthem for the Colorado Springs Sky Sox (Triple A farm team of the Rockies) - quite an honor, since it's typically their best attended game of the year. Here's a link to a youtube video of our performance: National Anthem
Sox the Fox was decked out in holiday attire:

The Sox battled the Las Vegas 51's
and lost 10-6. Ok, battled might be too strong a term for the way they played, but oh well. After the game was a great fireworks display: