roadtrip? ummmm....that's next issue!

Sleeping In The Dirt- Issue #2 crammed the interwebs tubes yesterday. Office managers are reporting efficiency brownouts coast to coast.

daylight savings

was able to take advantage of the extra hour after work for the first time- luvin it!

spring has sprung

our seasonal springs in elena gallegos have awoken once again- making for refreshing pit stops along the trail

still a good bit a snow up high, there's good chance the springs might run on into June.

get a load of this guy

Peregrine Falcon Acting Pretty Cocky Since Being Taken Off Endangered Species List

from those guys at the Onion- HT: Trout Underground

fish on!

I wish~

in case of emergency

stuck in code seminar= major suckage. I'll be fishing my blue place a good bit today. Sparse grey drake hatch, sparkling clear stream, cutt rising @ pool head, casting in~

good morning!

better than coffee:

HT: HuffPost

hey there y'all*

*(a little aphorism I picked up in the great state of TX. Man that is one big state allright- it'll have y'all talkin' jus' like a local by the time you clear the state line.)

Well greetings my friends, feels like a lifetime since I last composed something of questionable worth. Just walked home for lunch thru one of those curious weather oddities we've somehow gotten used to this spring: a sun/snow shower, wth?! Crazy spring indeed: East ABQ getting snow, West ABQ all blue sky like today, heard Denver's got a snow day. Hard to believe our Rio caddis hatch is just a coupla weeks away, in a normal year that is! Looks like Spring is a month behind already, wonder if the bugs feel the same?~

In a nutshell, my last coupla weeks went something like so:

1. burn midnight oil attempting to complete my latest project.
2. Neglect family, physical & mental health, fun, blogging (in that order) under crush of looming deadline.
3. Publish project Friday PM
4. rush home to pack, spend restless night attempting to transition between Work Dad and Play Dad.
5. wake well shy of crack-of-crack-of dawn to hit the road on fabulous road trip to all things Disney Orlando, FL.
6. wring every last drop of fun out of every waking minute exploring five Disney parks in five days
7. reverse the drive back home, thru yet another storm-of-the-century no less. How many is that now? I forget~
8. spent last coupla days shoveling all the paperwork that piled up at work while away. Hey c'mon now guys, I was only gone five days!

whew!

For those of you who haven't gone, FWIW DisneyWorld was simply the best family vacation this Wulffpack has ever experienced, hands down. And I like to think we've done some things, ya know? YNP, RMNP, Black Canyon NP, Hood River, Crested Butte, Moab, Leadville, Creede, Taos, Pagosa, Fruita, Steamboat, Marco Island, Ann Arbor, Aspen, Durango, Flattops, Weminuche, list goes on, but there's unanimous agreement round here the House of Mouse rules the roost!

For my fellow New Mexican'ts: you can indeed make the drive (in two days!), save yourselves a coupla grand and a lot of air travel hassle in the process. Done right, it simply proves to be an Epic All-American Road Trip to make Clark Griswald proud. 15 hours to Shreveport, a mere 17 more on down to Orlando, all fueled by ample supplies of Starbucks, gummy bears, XM Radio, crawfish eats in roughly equal proportions.

From of Dry Flies & Fat Tires...

Make sure you target Amarillo's Big Texan Steak Ranch & Opry and Lafayette's Prejean's restaurants to add some Bam! to the drive. Heck, you can't go wrong with any restaurant on the gulf coast!

It's just now occurred to me, Team Roughrider has driven this great country from coast-to-coast in two fabulous road trips just this past year: Coastal Oregon last July, Orlando just now in the bag. Have to give credit where due, it all starts with a Team of the highest caliber, absolutely essential to any great road trip's success. I've found my team makes even 32 hour slogs an adventure unto itself, never mind the destination! Luv you Roughriders!

Wow, trip highlights:

• the entire gang belly-laughing on Buzz Lightyear while targeting neon aliens from our ridiculous spacecrafts.
• EPCOT, and I mean the entire park, smelled like.....flowers, ahhhh. I spent the entire day just inhaling all the flowery freshness, ya know? Guess we've been away from parts East a good while now, huh?. ;-)
• One and all screaming like little girls on RockNRoller, Tower of Terror, Expedition Everest, Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, Kijali Rapids, et al. Not sure if Grandad's recovered even yet, but dam those were fun!
• Absolutely pwning Magic Kingdom. Thanks to Mrs Wulff's astute research and my, ahem, Exemplary Leadership in the Field, Team Roughrider achieved every single major objective (in record time!), were even able to hit our favorite rides twice. Magic Kingdom: PWNED, Booya! ;-]
• Mission Space at EPCOT is not to be missed- that motion simulator had us all yammering how we just narrowly escaped disaster on our epic voyage to Mars. AbFab schweet- one of my fav's.
• Prejeans restaurant, Lafayette LA: The boy afterwards: 'I wasn't too keen on eating that gator...' 'Weeeell, you didn't have any gator...' 'good' I guess everything in that restaurant looked like gator to a seven year old native New Mexican, lol.
  
  

  From of Dry Flies & Fat Tires...

• Electric light parade and fireworks over magic kingdom: Magical, of the eye-misting sort not experienced since I was a kid myself. Even for this been-there-done-that-40-somethin Dad!
  
  

  From of Dry Flies & Fat Tires...

Well rumor has it the extended Wulffpack Alphas are prowling our fair city as I write this, my brother's pups in tow. So it's likely to be a coupla/few days more before our den truly settles down again and this blog can resume abnormal programming. Til then, I leave you with this thought:

Expedition Everest coaster (AKA: where we lost Granddad) from ABQ RoughRiders on Vimeo.

Have a Magical day!~

72 gullet-busting ounces

eat it in an hour- its free. ambulance charged separately.

cage match

where patrons fight it out w/ 72oz. steak

the big texan restaurant- amarillo tx

gettin after it in the big texan

stuck in gainesville

dallas burried

wth!

storm centered ovr dallas- guess where we are headed. Not cool dude

question:

is it possible to route all future roughrider trips thru Lafayette, LA?

four thumbs up!

Prejean's will ship their gumbo overnight delivery- good to know!

lafayette la

refueling on crawfish etouffee, cawfish bisque, crawfish pie, crawfish boulettes, fried crawfish at Prejean's in heart of cajun country.

greetings from sunny FL!

with apologies to our denver readers

six went in- five came out

this is where we lost grandad

Magic kingdom: done

naptime

dad needs a nap

big thunder mountain!

ahead of schedule even- good work team roughrider!

starting gate

hollywood studios: done

relaxing by mickey's pool. Tomorrow is our big day in magic kingdom.

lost: lunch

lost my lunch in this fine establishment

spring break traffic

double parked for big show

epcot in the bag

fun had by the bucket today- debriefing over dinner at uno's

goofy angler

eagle has landed

12.35am,1830miles in 2 days; today drove 17 hours. Mrs Wulf: 'whew!' kids: Mickey mickey mickeymickeymickeymickey!

Somewhere in the heart of Florida

Fl

gulfport ms

crawfish etouffee- yum!

swampahoochi mississippi

I think

big muddy

gummy bears on roadtrip

papa driving momma reading kids napping

shreveport la

fried clams crawfish oysters & shrimp while Elvis impersonator rocks da house

FWD:amarillo tx

on way to Magic Kingdom

wth?

the great rift

Finally!

After way too many postponements, much gnashing of teeth, incomprehensible muttering and pacing about la casa de Roughrider over the past month, the entire familia was understandably relieved I was finally able to get it done Sunday.

Taos Box, The Gorge, Rio Grande Rift.  Many names, yet all evoke images of wilderness, of rugged isolation, of startling beauty from those that have ventured down into its depths.  Sunday marked a return to prospect for those infamous cuttbows that migrate up into the Lower Red during winter, holding over until spring runoff.  Schweet.

On the drive up, Taos offered a quick refueling stop in the form of my new favoritest java joint discovery, Altitude Coffee.  Or is it Elevation Coffee?  Anyone?  Whichever, name aside, they brew a damn fine cup o joe. They're situated about a mile shy of the turnoff to Arroyo Seco, look for them on the westside as you head north outta town.

Soon enuf, found myself negotiating the dirt road heading out to the rim of the Gorge,  dirt, I should mention, in name only.  The morning's frostiness had the mud frozen solid, the rather alarming ruts from yesterday's traffic frozen in time.  I took but a moment to shrug off any projections of what the road conditions might be like on the way out, the 'road' all thawed and gooey, fully resplendent in all its adobe glory.  What me, worry?  

Turn around?  Dude.  Seriously, the rim's right there, the nearest paved access is like another 40 min away, I'm sure it'll be fine.  Besides, whomever made those canyon ruts yesterday looks to have made it out allright, in so far as I don't see them hub deep, locked in the frozen crust overnight.  I just might have to lock in the 4WD, don't sweat it.  Wonder how those cutts are doing?

Such is the diminished thought process of an angler three months removed from his last quality time on the water, sound familiar out there?  Gonna catch me up one day, you'll read it here first (if not via your local paper!) ;-)

Geared up, eying the morning's descent, I breathed a sigh of relief, as it looks like I remembered to pack everything, thank goodness.  Can't be anything much worse than making the 800' descent, only to find you've left your reel or somesuch critical piece of gear on the passenger seat back topside.  Enuf to make a grown man cry.  Not that I know anything 'bout that first hand mind you, but I've heard things... ;-)

The drop down into the Rift always gets the blood racing a bit.  Anticipation of the day's fishing, the heart pumping beauty, and raw exhilaration that comes with the realization of today's (managed) risk all combine into the singular awareness you better be on your A Game today, bub.  800 feet down in its remote canyon, littered with basalt boulders, each slick as snot, nary a soul or cell tower for miles, the Gorge remains one of New Mexico's greatest and best wild places.  Absolutely not a place to get injured, if you catch my drift. 

The descent remained as sheer as I remembered, ice still sheeting much of the northern exposures.  In the softer spots I am able to make out tracks of those canyon denizens that preceded me- deer, coyote for the most part, some other clawed little dude of undetermined origin.  Coupla different boot tracks also, yesterday if I'm a judge, bummer that.  I noticed the boots appeared faint on the (frozen) downhill, all slickery on the return, hmmmm.  No worries, mate, wonder how those cutts are doin?

I lose sight of the Rio for a good bit as I hit the big bench, surrounded now by pinon, scrub oak, and ponderosas of all things.  Typically I'm humming along, soaking in the sights of the improbable forest in the middle of high desert country, when I first hear the Rio's growing roar, getting close!  Turn that same corner, time after time, and I'm once again staggered by the dazzling contrast:  black basalt boulder fields bracketing a shimmering green ribbon flecked with angry white swirls, all capped with a stunning cobalt sky.  Whoa!

Just a hop, skip, jump further down the trail, I've reached the juncture of the Lower Red and the Rio, the renowned La Junta, and I'm finally eyeballing today's venue.

next up, The Great Rift part II.