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July 14, 2010, a Wednesday
near Cottonwood Pass (Stage Stop Meadows) to near Crested Butte South, Colorado, USA
— Photographed wildflowers and moved down the road
We got up around our normal time and the wind was dead calm! The clear sky wasn't too exciting, but the calm wind would be good for wildflower photography, and we decided to head out. I made instant coffee to go and J started a mug of tea steeping and we left in the Jeep around 7:10.

We headed up towards Cottonwood Pass and stopped at a meadow on the hillside that was in shade. I photographed some Barbey's Larkspur again, the reason we stopped, then started photographing some of the other species there: Mouse-Ear Chickweed (far left), Yellow Paintbrush (near left), Prairie Smoke (below left), and Mountain Death Camus (below right). Part of the meadow stayed in the shade the whole time, and we had a blast photographing.


We returned to the RV around 9:00 and I downloaded the images I took this morning while prepping the RV to move. We left our campsite around 9:25 and drove separately to a convenient place to hook up the Jeep to tow. We got underway around 9:40.

We pulled into the Lakeview Campground at Taylor Reservoir around 10:00 to dump and take on fresh water. They didn't have a dump station like we were expecting, so we found a convenient pit toilet on a sparsely-populated loop and used our Flojet Macerator Pump. Then we pulled into another loop and took on fresh water. We got underway around 11:00.

We turned right on CO-135 around 11:40 and then right on CR-740 around 11:55 at Crested Butte South to head up Cement Creek.

We found a nice place to boondock — kinda. The site sloped quite a bit and even with using all of our Lynx Levelers, we were still tilted a little. We decided to stay because the wildflowers up Cement Creek are supposed to be good. Neither of us had even been up that road, but we've been to the Crested Butte area before to photograph wildflowers. We packed up our computers and left in the Jeep around 12:50.

We went to Maxwell's Restaurant in Crested Butte for lunch around 1:10. I had an Italian Stallion (Genoa Salami, Pepperoni, Provolone Cheese, Spring Greens, Olive Oil, and Tomato), and J had Potato Soup and bread. I also had a pint of New Belgium 1554. The New Belgium Brewing Company is a regional brewery located in Fort Collins, Colorado, and their 1554 is a tasty black ale. Their Italian Stallion should probably be called a heart attach on a bun! The bun was about 2.5x6 inches (6x15cm), and the grilled/toasted meat was about an inch (2.5cm) thick and oozing grease! It was tasty, but way more than I needed to eat. We left around 2:10.

We went to the Post Office practically across the street to pick up our mail, then we ...

Went to the Crested Butte Public Library to use their free Wi-Fi. It's in a nice historic stone building and the interior has been recently remodeled. The Wi-Fi connection was FAST! :) I uploaded some blog entries and sent out my Photography Newsletter. Then I started to downselect the images from this morning in Capture One (C1). We left around 5:35.

We went to Clark's Market to pick up a few things and I went to the Acme Liquor store nearby to pick up some supplies. Then we went to the Phillips 66 next door and I cleaned the dust off of the Jeep windows.

We returned to the RV around 6:10 and it was really hot in the RV — about 85°F (29°C). I continued downselecting the images from this morning in Capture One (C1).

I had dinner by myself around 6:30 of a leftover hotdog and some broccoli slaw. J wasn't hungry yet after the big lunch.

I finished downselecting the images from this morning in Capture One (C1) and selected four images for the blog. I couldn't ID two of the flowers using our hardcopy wildflower field guides, so I went online using our external cell antenna to get a usable Verizon Wireless National Access signal.