Great Divide

Last night, the girls entered a little talent show at the church.  In my unbiased opinion, they were the big winners.  EDO fronted a bold cover of Kate Wolf's Across the Great Divide, while VSO provided smooth backing—rhythm and harmony.  They are a sort-of punk/folk duo, but they make a good combination.  (Imagine Kasey Chambers playing covers with Emmylou Harris, . . . only better.)  Next year, we may have them play a full set.  At any rate, here she is one hour before her debut:  EDO on the mountain side, where the rivers change direction, across the great divide.

Sliders

A little before Christmas, I took EDO and one of her friends sledding at the hill behind the chain-up area.  We were in the middle of a big storm cycle so there was fresh snow both on the road and on the sledding hill.  The girls enjoyed the hill while I remained on the road.  Literally.  I spent the entire hour laying in the slush putting tire chains on rental cars.  The drivers—Chinese tourists from what I could tell—waited inside their vehicles with the heaters running until I gave them the thumbs up.  They were grateful, but, unfortunately, they weren't good tippers and I went home both soaked and penniless.

 

Yesterday, we went back.  This time VSO joined us and, while it had snowed the night before, the pavement was mostly dry, meaning that no one was trying to chain-up in a blizzard.  VSO, on account of her "old bones," used the snow tube, which wallowed down the hill like a bloated sea creature.  EDO and I used small foam-plastic fliers that go faster and straighter, allowing us to compete for distance.  (Being heavier, and more willing to cheat, means that I usually win.)  If we're having a good day, which we usually are, our sliding eventually deteriorates into a general snowball fight, which it did yesterday.

The Caves

Just about four years ago, in April of 2013, we went on a short camping trip in Clear Creek.  EDO, who was nine at the time, formed a memory of playing in "caves."  In the last few months, she has asked me to take her back there, so that she could look at the caves.  We finally took a couple hours to drive up there yesterday.  I'm not going to say that EDO was disappointed, but I do think that the caves looked to her rather less like caves and rather more like potholes.  Over the past four years, the rock has not changed very much, but EDO sure has.

Vintage Photography

In the days before digital cameras and photo editing software, a serious picture maker knew how to develop film and create prints.  In other words, being a good photographer meant having some dark room skills.  I, of course, was never very good and my dark room skills were abysmal.  I could only rarely position the film properly on the roll inside the development tank: One frame always touched another and my negatives were usually smudged.  In addition, when it was time to make prints, I often contaminated them with dirt and scratches.  In sum, all the analog photos I ever developed looked like crap.

They looked, in fact, like the picture I've included in this post.  This picture was, however, a perfectly nice—if dull—digital image that I made yesterday while trying to capture an interesting swirl of clouds in an overcast sky.  Instead of deleting it, which would have been good, I used a photo editing program (Nik) to create a "vintage" image:  Today's software will convert a digital image into something that looks like I made it by hand.  In the past, I spent many frustrating hours trying (and failing) to make clean—unsmudged and unscratched—prints using chemical baths in a dark room, but now I can get the same effect—a crappy picture—with the click of my mouse.  What a development!