It's too bad the smell of fresh mountain air, cleaned by a recent rain/snowstorm, can't be captured and transmitted digitally.

Below is a kernel-density map showing where and how often I've ridden my bike around Boulder in the last year and a half. I've posted things like this before for my rides in California. The color map (the legend is in the bottom-left corner) indicates that anywhere there's a green dot, I've cycled through there at most a few times, and anything between blue and purple are my usual routes. There are a few red points mainly centered around where I live, which corresponds to places I've been through a few hundreds of times.

Looking at the map, I'm a bit surprised at the amount of exploring I've done out in the plains. I didn't realize I had done that much out there. I also want to note that most of the dead-end segments are due to geography - the roads end where the segments do.

Valmont View

Taken here on Saturday the 25th of February.

Here are a few photos I took on my snowshoeing hike in the mountains behind NCAR. As always, click to enlarge an image. Unfortunately, I broke one of my nearly brand new snowshoes. Luckily, I was nearly back to the car when it happened. By the way, today's high was -7C (20F).

Above is a panorama of some lesser Flatirons.

The narrowly beaten path between the Aspens.

A snowy view. Gotta love Boulder!

It's presently snowing. We've received around half a foot since last night. This is on top of the 22 inches that fell late last week. Boulder is a very snowy place right now!

This is the thirteenth photo I've posted in this series, and was taken only two days short of a full year after I began the project. I think I will cease taking photos of Boulder Creek every month. However, I will continue to post photos that highlight the natural beauty and change of seasons around Boulder.

Here are a few pictures from the hike we just did at Chautauqua. We've hiked there before when it was dry, but it has a special beauty when it's been freshly snowed on.

I just returned home from a trip to Chicago for the 2012 yt workshop. I didn't organize the meeting, but I did give a few talks. I think overall it was a very productive and useful workshop, and I met quite a few people who I had previously only corresponded with over the internet.

I found the Chicago "L" pretty useful, although it's not quite as nice as the New York Subway. Being overground most of the time, it's possible to view the neighborhoods it goes through (which is one benefit it has over a subway). Chicago, and especially South Chicago, is in a state of decay that I rarely see in western cities. Of course it's been going on for decades: the city has lost nearly 1 million people since 1950, but it's interesting (and sad) to see blocks where only a few buildings are standing, where dozens used to be in a vibrant neighborhood.

For fun, I decided to build a plastic 1/20 model of a F1 Mclaren MP4/5B, which raced in 1990. That year it won the constructor's championship, and Senna won the world championship in it. Here are some pictures of my model. I didn't do the best job on it, but that's OK. It was fun to do!

Melissa helped by painting the "HONDA" on the engine, above. Very tiny letters! As usual, clicking on an image will give you an enlarged version.

Taken just minutes ago. It's snowing pretty heavily right now!

On New Year's Eve, we went on a hike in Arapaho National Forest with our friend Chris and some of his family.

He brought along his dog Leo (the tan Lab-Pit Bull mix), and his aunt brought hers (Hershel, black Lab-Weimaraner).

It was pretty windy at spots which made it feel colder than it actually was. I figured that where we turned around, at the top, it was in the low teens Fahrenheit with the wind chill.

On the way down we were all getting tired and hungry, so to keep the dogs moving at our pace (instead of smelling this, peeing on that, wandering over there), we picked up a big branch and used it as a carrot. Dogs help make things fun!

Taken just now from our driveway. It looks even better in 3D.

Almost a year ago, we went on a hike on Christmas Eve up to the Flatirons. Last December it was considerably warmer than it has been this year -- there was no snow and temperatures were mild. As you can see above, things are very different this year. Although the snow mostly melts between storms, we've had on the order of four feet of snow so far this Fall and Winter. A storm that came through two days ago dropped over a foot where we live, and more at higher altitudes.

Today we decided to go for a hike up Flagstaff, which, for those familiar to Boulder, is just to the North of the Flatirons. There is a road off of Flagstaff that is closed in the winter, but is somewhat plowed for walkers. We walked up this road to the end, with a few knee-deep excursions off to the sides.

On the hike I came to a realization about snow. Most of the time when I go to "natural" places, they need to be respected and impacted as little as possible. Trails are to be followed, and the surroundings left intact. When I look at an untouched snowy field, it's very pretty, and my first thought is to never go into it, lest I damage the pristine snow. But of course, damaging snow isn't really possible, it's all temporary anyway.

Clearly, Melissa doesn't have the same problem.

Seen going past our front door twice yesterday, a man cross country skiing pulling two little girls in a sled. Snow and lemonade, I guess.

For our trip to the Bay Area for Thanksgiving, we took the Amtrak California Zephyr from Denver to Emeryville. The train leaves Denver at 8am, and arrives in Emeryville at 4:30pm the next day. It's clearly not the fastest way to travel (nor is it the cheapest with a sleeper cabin, which we purchased), but it is far more scenic than the alternatives.

Real utensils! Lovely and unique railroad views!

The train consisted of (in order) two engines, a baggage car, three coach cars, an observation/lounge/snack bar car, a dining car, and two sleeper cars. Our cabin was in the last car. Included in the price of a sleeper cabin are all meals in the dining car. The food is better than airline food (well, that is, was, when meals were actually a thing that airlines did) because it's actually prepared in the kitchen below the dining room and not simply microwaved. The dining car has tables that seat four, and if your party is less than four people, you will be seated with strangers. We met some interesting (using the full breadth of that word) people while eating our meals.

Our "roomette" was cozy. There are four shared toilets in a sleeper car, and one shared shower. The toilets are pretty much like airplane lavatories, but the shower was surprisingly spacious, fairly clean, and the water pressure and temperature was good.

The Zephyr is considerably quieter than a passenger jet, but because it runs on rails that are used primarily by freight trains, the ride isn't always smooth. It was not such an issue when the train was moving at 30 or 40 MPH through the mountains, but when it was going 80 MPH across Nevada in the middle of the night, it made sleeping difficult.

In summary, we're glad that we took the train. It's a unique experience that goes through the most beautiful parts of America that can't be seen from the interstates. We had the time to do it, and it was worthwhile. That being said, we're not eager to do it again anytime soon. We met many people on the train who seemed to love it - they were even on a first-name basis with the train staff. But the train isn't quite for us. Still, we recommend that other people consider trying it at least once. There are many things worth doing at least once, and this is one of them.