A Sunny Sunday
Spring tends to come in fits and starts in Colorado, and this year has been no different. This weekend was one of the few truly nice weekends we’ve had so far, with both Saturday and Sunday in the 60s and sunny. The only negative is the wind, which was really only an issue on the highway.
I took advantage of this nice spring day and rode my motorcycle down to Colorado Springs. This was an opportunity to take the BMW out, to go hiking, and to test the little Ricoh camera I bought for travel somewhere other than around the neighborhood.
Rather than take the interstate all the way down to the Springs, I rode south to Castle Pines and then west to Daniel’s Park. The road from there down to Highway 85 is a fun little stretch. From 85 I headed to Sedalia and then took CO 105 south towards Palmer Lake. This is a lovely scenic route that sort of parallels I-25 off to the west through rolling plains with scenic views of the foothills. It’s not very technical but it’s a very popular route for motorcycles and sports cars, and is usually safe and free of snow and sand most of the year. Traffic was light and I saw dozens of bikes taking advantage of the weather.
When I got to Colorado Springs I headed over to Garden of the Gods to hike and test my little camera. Although it doesn’t have a viewfinder handling is fantastic. It’s much faster to turn the camera on, frame, and take a picture than is possible with my iPhone, and the image quality is actually good. The lens is very sharp and the camera almost always nails exposure. It does like to focus on near foreground items in matrix focus mode. Since I wanted to get the rocks or mountains in focus most of the time I found myself using the touch screen tap-to-focus functionality a lot.
It’s hard to take any truly new photographs at the park, but it’s still a thorougly enjoyable place. It was super crowded today though, with people taking advantage of a warm sunny Sunday. It’s a hike up from the overflow parking area, but I’m glad it’s there considering.
After the hike I rode down to Urban Animal to grab a beer and buy a curry from my friend Johnny’s food truck. It’s always good to catch up with him, and Colorado Springs is far enough that I don’t get down there often. Taking the opportunity of good weather for the ride and hike and then following that up with the beer and catching up with my friend made this a really great day.
Posted on 02 April 2023