Rally - October 30th

Last weekend, I went to the Rally to Keep Fear Alive (oh yeah, and the Rally Restore to Sanity...by default). Here's just a few pics, including some of my favorite signs.

Fueling up before the rally...the restaurants in Chinatown were hopping:

Crowds starting and we're not even to The Mall yet:

Mythbusters kicked it off (was hard to hear them where we were - but could see them on the jumbotron):
Crowd pics:

See all the people on the museum steps:

Cops on horseback patrolling the crowd:
Where's Waldo?

Guy climbing tree (he didn't make it):

Turf restoration area behind us:

They gave up and opened it up:

Here it is full of people:

Poor doggie, couldn't even read the signs:

Here are some of my favorite signs:"Slogans Suck""Pimp my gov""Never forget" (with a dinosaur on it)"The insane are people too""We were going to be in DC anyway""Give me apathy, or give me whatever..."It was impossible to meet up with anyone...so this sign was particularly funny to me - "I'm over here"
I think this was my favorite - "My Dad dragged me to DC just to hold this sign"
And there was even an actual double rainbow:
As the crowds started to leave early...we were able to move and actually see one of the jumbotrons pretty well. Stephen Colbert:
Jon Stewart:Kareem Abdul Jabbar:R2D2:
Mass exit up 7th Street:

Luray Caverns Photos (Columbus Day)

(for some reason the slideshow plays backwards)

Blog-Action-Day...this years theme: WATER

A week ago Friday was Blog-Action-Day, a day where thousands of bloggers came together to discuss a broad range of water issues.

Here's a compilation of many of the blogs: http://blogactionday.change.org

And here are some of my favorites I came across that day...

Five Women Water Heroes Worth Watching: http://environment.change.org/blog/view/five_women_water_heroes_worth_watching

Eight Facts You Didn't Know About Water: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/10/8-facts-you-didnt-know-about-water.php

Short article about Global Handwashing Day (October 15): http://www.waterforpeople.org/media-center/organizational-news/hygiene-education-guatemala.html

Water Advocate John Sauer's blog about America's youth who are stepping up to make a change in the lives of students around the world who are carrying water and not books: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-sauer/children-should-carry-boo_b_764566.html

Google's blog about their water and energy use: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/clean-water-for-those-who-need-it.html

Lastly, some general facts about water and sanitation, etc: http://water.org/learn-about-the-water-crisis/facts/

Garden of the Gods

After a few days of work in Denver, I found some time to visit Colorado Springs as well. Garden of the Gods hadn't changed in 16 years since I had been there:
See the rock climbers?
Kissing camels:
Giant blue jay (forgot how big they are out west)...
Pikes Peak:Balanced Rock:
Me holding up Balanced Rock:
[shew, that's hard work!]

Purple Mountain Majesty

Not the mountains...but can definitely see why America the Beautiful was written out there:
And now the rest of my WY and CO trip...Cheyenne, WY State Capitol (had been before, but didn't have good pictures)...
Esther Hobart Morris - Proponent of the 1869 legislative act which made WY the first government in the world to grant women equal rights:
Liberty Bell (there's one at every capitol)...
A few stops on the way to Casper...where those on the Oregon Trail stopped too - Register Cliffs:
Where travelers signed their names in the rocks...and locals use it for target practice:
Even the birds stop here:Not too far away the Mormon trail passed by, and those looking for gold in CA, and the Pony Express:
Oregon Trail wagon wheel ruts nearby:
Recreation of Ft. Caspar (yes, they spelled Casper wrong when they named the city)...
North Platte River...part of a BP refinery site cleanup project in Casper. BP created artificial white water conditions for kayakers as just one part of the huge project, which also included 200+ groundwater monitoring wells:
Downtown, with Casper Mountain in the background (no snow yet, but it's coming)...
Hell's Half Acre...look familiar? They filmed part of Starship Troopers here:I managed to see every reservoir on the Platte in Wyoming (6!). This one was the site of a recent dinosaur discovery. They left one of the bones in place, supposedly in the rock in the foreground...can you see it?
On to Rawlins and the WY State Penitentiary:
Inside this unassuming building was where 16 prisoners were put to death:
Some via hanging and the rest in the gas chamber:
Okay, can't end my blog on a gas chamber, so here's another antelope picture:) I counted all the ones we saw in just one day and the tally was 421! [for real this time...this is a true head count as best I could count them]

Where the Deer and Antelope Play

...literally! I have seen so many antelope, and I've only been in Wyoming for 24 hours. The count so far is 1,045. Here are just a few that I managed to get pictures of.

Within site of downtown Casper:
On a road just off I-25:
Near my Dad's land:There are even Jackalopes: