Coloradans, please ‘splain water to me.

Manitou is a fun little town, sure there are some odd people there, but the restaurants and arcade are great.

Dang, dude, were you following me around? We just got back from Colorado and visited the places last week. Did the Durango/Silverton rail trip, stayed in Telluride a couple of days, and a whole bunch of other stuff, including Steamboat Springs for the hot air balloon rodeo this past weekend. Skipped Mesa Verde because it was just too hot!

Interesting you ask, because I was making the same comments to SWMBO about the mid-day watering I saw going on. Mostly those big rolling sprinklers that go in a circle, but near the Black Canyon we saw what looked like humongous rainbirds. Mostly they appeared to be watering hay.

Maybe Colorado is like France, where the farmers do what they want and to hell with everyone else? Then again, I'm not a farmer and maybe there is good reason for doing what they are doing...

GRM content: Got to drive a friend's 2001 Boxster through Gore Pass. What a blast! Rented a Mustang for the trip (was supposed to be convertible, berkeleying Avis). Not a bad car, though. The six had good passing power and it handled pretty good. I just hated having the door up to my chin and seeing only the back end of the "power bulge" through the small windscreen.

PHeller wrote:

Conquest351 wrote: If you have a well, as most agricultural properties have, you can do as you please.

Because you know, there are property line divisions in the aquifer.

In Texas, your property describes everything on the surface, the air, and everything underground within your property lines. I understand that decreases as you get closer to the core of the Earth, but you understand. Mineral and water rights can be sold off by the owner at their discression.

Just to clarify.

I understand what you're saying, as far as a global or universal problem, it is flawed. But that's the way it is right now.

E36 M3, if I would've known you were going out that way, I would've had you get my dog/couch/bed and bring it all back to me! I miss my dixie Dingo!

That being said, everything you've noted are things I noticed within my first couple of days living there, too. For me, it was Ohio instead of Michigan. And the ladies are much, much, MUCH nicer and cuter than anywhere else I've lived. It was pretty astonishing. Many'a hours were spent on the 16th street mall taking down a slurpee from the seemlingly millions of 7-11's in downtown Denver while scopin' chicks. It's a state of pretty big extremes, the eastern half being fairly mid-west farmer, Denver/foothill corridor being pretty ideal/healthy, and out west being a bunch of mountain jock ski bum hippy Miata drivers.

Too bad it's freaking expensive, gas sucks, and you have to smog your cars. F' that, I'd rather plunk down some pipe on a corn fed Ohi'r broad than deal with that BS.

A few random comments (I live near Ridgway, maybe 10 miles south of the park):

1) Smog testing is only on the eastern Slope (Denver, Colorado Springs, etc.). Us backward folk on the Western Slope don't got no stinkin' smog checks. We got no stinkin' smog, period.

2) Residentially, Most of the long-term residents are very cautious with water use. My household averages about 90 gallons/day. Folks who move here from moister areas, or cities, tend to want their plush lawns. some eventually get the fact that we are still a semi-arid area that gets most of our water as snowfall, or in summer monsoon rains between July 4th and late August. Some don't - but we try to educate them. Agriculturally, some of the farms and ranches use big sprayers, some use drip. You tend to notice the sprayers and not see the drip/ditch systems, so I'd say it's not as prevalent as it seems.

3) Speaking as a Western Sloper, the biggest fear of folks over here is that the Eastern Slope (where the political power and most of the population is) will grab/steal our water (really, I'm not kidding) and put us in a world of hurt. Our attitude is that they should manage their water better.

4) water rights are carefully regulated by law, as to who can use how much, on a priority basis set up decades ago based on the date when the rights were established and the rights specify a maximum use per day, supposedly based on actual measurements - oldest has preference. In dry times, the holders of the oldest rights can put a "call" on folks with later rights. As you can imagine, this gets really complicated fast, but the folks who are watering with sprayers can't use all the water they want, they are limited. It may not look like it, but it is. Also, the crops ( they grow a lot of extremely fine sweet corn down valley near Olathe) need more water at different times of year, so the amount of watering at any given time varies based on the crop, the time of year, and the rainfall.

Sorry if this offends any eastern slope forum members, just summarizing the viewpoints over here in the boonies where the elk outnumber the people many times over. Hope you posters who were here recently had a chance to get into the backcountry on some of the 4WD trails, which really aren't that tough. The scenery and history (old mines, ghost towns, etc.) is amazing once you leave the pavement, and it's pretty darn spectacular from the pavement - i.e. 550 between Ouray and Silverton.

Glad to see it's not as bad as it appeared at first.

Basil, no I wasn’t' following you, you were following me before I got there!?!?!?

Jim. Thinking back to when I asked about camp sites you may have recommended we hit up Ouray for July 4th which we did. Nice little parade. As we were in the C30 we didn't do any off roading ourselves but instead did a 'Jeep' tour in a Dodge truck up Imogene pass, very very cool.

Yes we did the Million $ highway, spectacular. One of my favorite views though was going South on 550 from Ridgway to Ouray, for a while looking SSE you can see an amazing series of peaks that are very jagged, they almost look crenelated. I could look at that view every day. This one, look to the left side.

BTW, what do you do for a living out there?

Jim Pettengill wrote: 2) Residentially, Most of the long-term residents are very cautious with water use. My household averages about 90 gallons/day. Folks who move here from moister areas, or cities, tend to want their plush lawns. some eventually get the fact that we are still a semi-arid area that gets most of our water as snowfall, or in summer monsoon rains between July 4th and late August. Some don't - but we try to educate them. Agriculturally, some of the farms and ranches use big sprayers, some use drip. You tend to notice the sprayers and not see the drip/ditch systems, so I'd say it's not as prevalent as it seems.

This paragraph makes me very happy to read. Much as I try not to waste water, I have no idea what our daily usage is. Shows how complacent I am and how easy it is to criticize others while sitting not being as aware of my own usage as I think I am.

I can forgive this waste of water, it was the countries Birthday after all.

At the top of Imogene pass, don’t worry I only shaved as I had an Interview the day we got back to Michigan and I figured shaving that day would give the perfect beard length for the interview without having to trim it when getting back late at night Ridgway State park has awesome tent camping, but it’s about ¼ mile uphill from the parking lot to sites. Plan ahead!! Please note, tent is larger than tent pad area which was raised!!!

No matter what you guys say, I still liked Manitou springs, but as a Volvo driving, latte sipping liberal elitist who bought a hemp man bag while there it shouldn’t surprise you!

Oh, and yes gas did suck, what’s this with 87 being midgrade?? 85 octane is just horse piss, I’m not sure you could even start a fire with it!

Adrian_Thompson wrote: Oh, and yes gas did suck, what’s this with 87 being midgrade?? 85 octane is just horse piss, I’m not sure you could even start a fire with it!

high altitude = less oxygen = less "fuel" needed, i believe

Essentially, we're all running lower compression up here! Except for the turbo cars.

Fuel quality gets worse as you head west in the US, generally speaking.

Georgia has been trying to extend the state boundary with Tennessee for several years in order to get access to the Tn River for use due to growth of N Ga. So far it aint happening because they would just suck it dry like the lakes in Ga.

Adrian_Thompson wrote: No matter what you guys say, I still liked Manitou springs, but as a Volvo driving, latte sipping liberal elitist who bought a hemp man bag while there it shouldn’t surprise you!

Hippiesssssss, shun the hippiessssssssssss

HiTempguy wrote: Hippiesssssss, shun the hippiessssssssssss

If by Hippie you mean responsible, working, tax paying, mortgage paying member of the community who believes in spreading the wealth by spending his own around the country, then yes, go ahead and shun me!