Category: Galleries

Great Sand Dunes National Park

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As part of our month-long Colorado road trip, we spent a couple of days at the Great Sand Dunes National Park.

We rented some rather worn out sand sleds, hiked to the high point of the first ridge (while fighting the strong high winds that day) and eventually managed to get the sleds working well enough to glide back down.

 

Sledding down the dunes

We had also planned to take the 4WD route over the mountains (Medano Pass Primitive Road) but were put off by the reports of very deep sand to get through.  We did hike up to see the nearby, cool-to-see Zapata Falls though.

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Visiting w/Martha & Dave

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In early August, I met up with Darlene on her way back from Wisconsin and we spent a few days hanging out (and playing games) with Dave and Martha at their home in Conifer, Colorado. We then headed out in the camper van to wander around exploring a bit of Colorado for most of a month.  On our return, Darlene kidnapped Martha and brought her back to California to stay with us for a few days.

Giving Dave & Martha a taste of VR (virtual reality)

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Painting my Nemesis Figures

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I decided to try a relatively quick and simple wash painting of the miniatures from my Nemesis board game, focusing on giving the creatures (or “intruders”) a nice scary look.  They came out great!

 

It took just a few steps but still most of a day.  I coated the originally gray plastic figures with a black spray-on primer (Rust-oleum Flat Black) and then, after that dried, I sprayed white primer from above (Rust-oleum Flat White) to create a sort of highlight/shadow effect over which to apply a wash.  (A wash is a very diluted mix of paint that you brush all over a figure – it tends to collect on edges and pool in crevices bringing out detail and definition, depending on how you brush it.)

I used three color washes from this Citadel Shade Paint Set. The primary shade was blue (Drakenhof Nightshade) and then I blended a bit of red and green washes here and there (Carroburg Crimson and Biel-tan Green) to give it a more interesting look.  I did a little bit of detail painting in the fleshy parts around the creatures’ open mouths and then painted in the floors and bits of equipment on some of the stands.  To keep the project short and simple, I just applied several coats of different solid color washes to each hero character corresponding to the player colors rather than painting all the little details realistically.

Last step was a spray-on, matte clear coat (Krylon Matte Finish) to protect the painted figures from handling while playing the game.

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Road Trip to the Pacific Northwest

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Humboldt Redwoods State Park (California)

With Darlene out in Wisconsin visiting her family, I loaded up the van with Pan and Hera and headed up to the Pacific Northwest for a couple of weeks, visiting with my brother and some friends in the Portland/Vancouver area as well as exploring a bit of countryside – while avoiding the smoke from the wildfires already flaring up.


Visiting with Corey and his family
And with Jon & Siobhan

 

Glenn and Michele then joined me in their new van for a little tour around Olympic National Park.

 
Hiking in Olympic National Park (Washington)

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Gaming In Person Again

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With everyone fully vaccinated, starting in mid-June we were able to get together for in-person board gaming again – and so much more fun than the entirely virtual meetups during the past year.

Some of the titles we’ve been playing recently: The Crew, Now Boarding, Near and Far, Burgle Bros., Sagrada, Azul, Nidavellir, Viticulture and Viticulture: Tuscany, Mechs vs. Minions, Covert, Cartographers, Acquire, Cloudage, Captain Sonar, Railroad Ink, Pret-a-Porter, Bang!, Smartphone Inc., Crazy Karts, Kanban EV, Sidereal Confluence, Between Two Castles, Vindication and Brass: Birmingham.

Update: We got together again on the last day of the month for Shikoku, Steampunk Rally, Cosmic Encounter, Feierabend, Betrayal at House on the Hill, Master Word and Villagers.

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Onward to Lassen

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After a couple of days layover in Tahoe to ski some new snow and repair the van (a badly installed anti-sway bar), we headed off again – north this time towards Lassen National Park.  Along the way, we spent an afternoon riding as far as we could (before being turned back by snow) up the Mills Peak Lookout trail near Greagle, checked out the Subway Cave near Old Station, wandered around some rough forest roads, visited Burney Falls – and in Burney I was finally able to snag a covid vaccination shot!

The highway through Lassen was still closed to vehicles as they continued to clear the snow but open to biking which made a lovely ride to the top from the southwest entrance.  We made two attempts at hiking the Chaos Crags trail on the other side of the park (after getting caught in a thunder and hail storm) and pushed past the still snow covered road to check out the Fantastic Lava Beds area.

 

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Early Spring in the Eastern Sierra

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Darlene and I loaded up the cats and the camper van in late March and headed out for an extended, month-long trip.  After a few days of skiing at Alpine and Homewood from the Tahoe house, we headed down to Bishop and Mammoth for some more skiing, as well as mountain biking and other exploration in the surrounding area for a few weeks while camping out on public lands.

We biked around the Mono Craters area, found a nice wading pool just outside the now closed off Mammoth Hot Springs, hiked up to the still frozen South Lake and bailed out of a swim in the still-quite-cold Owens River near Bishop.

Despite all the time I’ve already spent in the Eastern Sierra (including attending high school in Bishop), we managed a few new adventures like biking up Coyote Valley Road, skiing at June Mountain, visiting the exposed “tuff” formation along Crowley Lake, winding through Chidago Canyon, visiting the petroglyphs along Fish Slough Road, and finding an eagle’s nest (with chicks!) in the Owens River Gorge.

In mid-April, it looked like a bit of snow was going to mostly hit the Tahoe area, so we headed back up to Tahoe for a few days to catch a bit of it before heading out again and north to Lassen.

Oh yeah, and we broke the van on a particularly rough road near Mono Craters – started hearing clunking noises from what turned out to be a very badly installed anti-sway bar.

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