John Woods' Mount.BOB Photos

Here, in approximately chronological order, are the photos I've scanned in from MOUNT.BOB, the latest in a long series of Talk.Bizarre Outrageous Bashes.

As I get time, I will scan in more of these and try to identify the people therein. I've probably gotten more than a few of the identities wrong so far. (If you can identify any of the unknowns or mistakes, send me mail!)

• Woodland Park, CO elevation 8265 feet.
• Red Rocks National Forest Campground
• En Guarde! Smarry and Babs rush to do battle with kludge, who being armed only with a film camera, is swiftly beheaded.
• "Two women hug, please crop" Babs and Lilith reunite.
• Go long! sprout and mark cleary about to play catch; Babs, Matt M., Eamon, Kristen
• That-a-way! Gooley points to the buffet (no, that was Las Vegas) while cleary looks dashing.
• The look Matt M. and Gooley in foreground, Nat and Brian (void) schlep stuff in background. I don't know why Gooley has that expression but it has to be recorded for posterity.
• Paul Arrives Rone greets Paul Egli (and heather, not visible) while scott stands guard.
• The Face of Evil A rubber mask brought, I believe, by Gooley.
• The Other Face of Evil Matt Marchese, shortly before smiting down Mike Delong with a thunderbolt, while Yong-Mi looks on in amusement. Pete Evans takes notes. [also rone and Tom Boutell]
• It Is Balloon! A tent festooned with balloons. [Sprout]
• The gang left to right: corp, eamon, jeremy, pete evans, katie, jj, kEvin, Gary Heston, smarry with the too-green-hat.
• Music by Genevieve on drums, Nat on banjo, and Barrett Justice on guitar, appreciated by Eamon (obscured), jkcohen (obscuring), and everyone's favorite new oldbie, Johnny Mayall. The brown Suburban is the Gooleymobile, and across the road is Jeremy's Lincoln Townsizedcar.
• More music by the above crowd, photographed from behind Genevieve.
• Boy Mozart and Mike Delong
• More People Babs (lizard hat) talking to someone; around the back: Brian aka void, Nat, Kate M., Matt M. in foreground talking to Pete Evans.
• Unloading I don't know who is in the background unloading, but in the left: cleary and smarry; center: Matt Marchese, rone, kristen.
• Under the Big Top 1 kludge, chris adams, corp, kEvin.
• Under the Big Top 2 jj and johnny m. in the background; genevieve in the foreground, most of kludge, and the back stevi's head (left).
• Under the Big Top 3 genevieve, eamon, Our Fearless Leader, rone.
• Under the Big Top 4 boutell, omar, and pete evans conspiring with katie (sitting) and kristen standing with back to the camera; Jeremy (or at least the top of his severed head) just in frame at the bottom.
• Under the Big Top 5 Kim (rone's gf) drinking water while talking to Tommy Tarka (nice trick if you can manage it), her daughter, and her daughter's bf (obscured).
• Under the Wet Top 1 Into every life a little rain must fall, but it would be nice if it wouldn't also fall inside TENTS as well. Jeremy, stevi, and Mike are holding up the ever-moistening tent while Nat directs the salvage effort. In the background is kludge photographing me photographing kludge photographing me photographing kludge photographing me... I'm not sure who is facing away from the camera in the foreground.
• Under the Wet Top 2 Mike (again), andy green, and siobhan wilson.
• Under the Wet Top 3 Unclear who is doing tent duty in this one, but Eamon is on the left, chris adams center foreground, boutell talking to Babs and what appears to be the Unabomber, and Evan Pritchard sitting way in the back.
• Gooley's Travelling Yard Sale Kate and cleary ponder what to take from the yard sale while lilith bargains and gooley provides strategic vision.
• Evan in the center flanked by dorsey, jkcohen (with his back to the camera) and jj.
• At the front desk Brian (void, i.e. chaos' bf) registering with jj at the front desk, stevi and scott in the background, and Babs' hat facing the camera in foreground.
• Clarinet solo by one of Kim's kids.
• people again Babs talking to someone, Brian, nat, kate, and Matt M. and Pete having a tete-a-tete in the foreground.
• MORE people ljd in the tank top talking to jkcohen, Matt M. in front, siobhan on right, and the hats of Mike and Yong-Mi (quiz time: which is which?) If you brighten the image a bit, you can see Kim's son David at ljd's right elbow.
• jsam and ljd heading for a tearful reunion. I think. Maybe they were going to kill each other. I forget.
• Boy Mozart modelling this year's fashion hit, the MOUNT.BOB t-shirt. corp and adw on left and right, respectively.
• lots of tents and Sprout holding up her Foxtail, freshly ripped from the rare Colorado Fluorescent Fox.
• MINES! DANGER! smarry, John Fitrakis in HOTT.BOB shirt, and Dersk's mines-warning tape prominent.

Here are my photos from the Pike's Peak trip. Some of these are available as way-too-big TIFF files for those who might want to turn them into screen backgrounds. (My link is slow, please be courteous.)

• A strategically placed restroom near the beginning of the Pike's Peak Highway. Derrick surveys for possible enemy agents.
• Thoroughly rested, dorsey (the dark smudge), babs, Gabby (the OFFICIAL baby of MOUNT.BOB '97), Tony Garcia, and kEvin wait for the rest of us to quit fooling around on rocks (next).
• Said rock. Jeremy invites me to the top of this magnificent view, already attained by Barrett, chris adams, and Johnny Mayall. Derrick wisely remains in a less gravity-challenged location. (hi-res)
• The next rest stop [Barrett, adw, Johnny, scott, rimrunner, babs, jeremy, sprout; the Garciamobile had not arrived with kEvin]
• A dam, a lake, a plan: Panama or something like that. (hi-res)
• Same lake different angle. (hi-res) Much later, we could see this lake from near the top of Pike's Peak. It looked tiny from up there, a couple thousand feet higher and a few miles off.
• Another rest/photo stop adw walking behind Johnny and Barrett towards scott and genevieve, with a random at the right.
• A vista from this rest stop. You can see the lake. And most of Colorado... screen-saver time
• On the brink A brief rest stop on the way to Pike's Peak, looking out from above 13,000 feet. [Genevieve]
• At the top looking over the side of Pike's Peak. The photo does not properly convey the fact that the clouds you see are DOWN from there. Supposedly on a clear day you can see the New Mexico border from here. hi-res
• another view from the top this time just as the hailstorm arrives. hi-res
• jfw does the tourist thing I took a picture of Sprout next to the sign, and some other tourists took my picture there (in exchange for taking a picture of them with their camera, the usual deal). There you have it: 14,110 feet (4,301 meters).
• A snowbank. SNOW??? Buried under a thin layer of dirt, snow lasts a long time up there.
• Hot Brakes Fail The brake check shack where they make sure you have a hope of surviving the trip down...
• The Pike's Peak gift shop where we had lunch and got knick-knacks.

A few photos from the Manitou Springs Cliff Dwellings, then back to the BOB. (Perhaps some enterprising person will be able to glue these into a single panoramic shot)

• The museum entrance
• Left third (pardon the poor quality, it began raining and and my cheapo camera completely screwed up the exposure calculation, and my scanner software only partially salvaged it.)
• Middle third
• Guess.

• Signs and Portents What's a camping trip without an effigy to hang?
• The banner of the beast The inset shows the awful truth!
• still more people The leprosy in this image comes from the cheap camera, not from Gooley's cheap film, alas. Visible are Jeremy and rimrunner (foreground), Ilana and John Allison (center), and in the background are Dersk, Earl Perry, and Matt Marchese.
• moo You can just barely make out Derrick's face here, but who cares -- the SHIRT is EVERYTHING.
• chaos with camera, and John Allison (jja).

From the EAT MORE HASH BROWNS breakfast bash:

• [IMAGE] (I'm not sure about most of these) Foreground: Andy G., Jeremy. Seated: Dersk, Mike Delong, (?), (?), Katie, Derrick. Background: void, chaos, Matt. Standing: pygmy.
• [IMAGE] Seated: siobhan, yong-mi, chris adams, Dersk, (?), (?), Katie. Background: smarry, chaos, void, Matt. Standing: pygmy.
• [IMAGE] far left: jja; far right: smarry. seated: jeremy, andy g, siobhan, yong-mi, chris adams, pygmy standing. Back: chaos, kristen, pete.
• [IMAGE] Babs, Zed, Nat counting his fingers, Eamon, Boy Mozart. Behind: Larry Doering (ljd) over Zed's shoulder, Jenine, and someone.
• last call for breakfast Lilith, Kate, Dorsey.
• Gold Camp Road A vista from the trip up Gold Camp Road with Gooley.

From the Great Chili Cookoff.

• 4 chilis: Gooley's chili (black pot on far left), chile verde, Corp's vegetarian chili, pygmy's vegetarian chili.
• 3 more chilis: my chili, Gary Heston's Hormel chili, Dorsey's curry. Indistinctly seen in the background (left to right): Babs, Gooley (?), Kate, Dorsey; distinct: Derrick in a lizard hat made by Babs.
• Babies don't like chili. So here is Sprout sharing an apple with Gabby and Laura Garcia. Background: Eamon, ljd, pete, pygmy, smarry in a way-too-green hat, Tom the Baptist (?) in a fedora, and Corp.

• The Infamous Fence Wanton destruction of Forest Service Property by unnamed parties. Actually, I went and looked closely at the fence, and most of the beams were completely rotted; one could snap them with a single hand, much less needing to sit on one.
• Flute Solo Sam (far left), Tommy Tarka, Corp, Pete, Boy Mozart and his Magic Flute, <unknown>, jja, stevie, Ilana in a HOTT.BOB shirt, and some obscure person staring at Ilana. (Can you identify the unknown person? Let me know.)

The last day:

• The Last Breakfast Johnny Mayall, Ilana, Jenine, Mike & Yong-mi, Tom Boutell, Babs.
• Eeyore Yong-mi, smarry, scott, Boy Mozart, and Gooley wearing the Eeyore shirt.
• Four people: Mike Delong, Babs, Boutell, jsam, and Jeremy in the corner. OK, so I lied.
• The Fitrakii: Diane and John Fitrakis, foster parents for HOTT.BOB (and crisper's actual parents), and Corp. Note the MINES tape.
• Big Top Redux: Left to right: background: two indistinct people and Corp; Eamon, Kate, Boutell; far right, sprout and her bear discussing Medieval Japanese history with the inscrutable jkcohen, and Jeremy hiding at the bottom of the frame again.
• Dersk. And Kate hugging someone. Another poor photo.
• Gone...
• but not forgotten. It would have helped if the forest service folks hadn't locked the other dumpster...

Post-BOB photos:

• BONGO! I have discovered that President Bongo is cooling his heels in the Colorado Springs Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. For security reasons, I cannot reveal the precise location, but just follow the smell of the bar-be-que!
• Balancing Rock from the Garden of the Gods.

And as a bonus, my current Macintosh desktop background, a random rock pile from the Garden of the Gods, which just struck me as incredibly photogenic, pre-scaled to some common desktop sizes.

• Garden of the Gods background (640x480)
• Garden of the Gods background (832x624) (Why not 800x600? Because even my Intel box at home has an Apple monitor. Scale it yourself.)
• Garden of the Gods background (1024x768)
• Garden of the Gods background (1280x1024)

You can find out all about MOUNT.BOB from this link here, or read just my own trip report postings.

Important Disclaimer:

All of the photos on this page have been subjected to heavy processing to remove certain, ah, aspects of the MOUNT.BOB experience. The following photo reveals the shocking truth of what MOUNT.BOB campers really looked like!

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