Belvedere Blues Fest

I finished processing photos from the Belvedere Blues Festival:

Pikes Peak Marathon

The Pikes Peak Ascent and Marathon were held this weekend. On Saturday, the race starts in Manitou Springs, elevation 6,300' (1,920m) and finishes at the Pikes Peak summit, 14,115' (4,302m). That's a 13.1 mile climb of 7,815' (2,382 meters) with an average grade of 11%. On Sunday, the Marathon is held. It's pretty much the same route, except that, at the summit, the racers turn around and run back down.

If you think the marathon is hard, consider that a number of people complete both the marathon and the ascent in the same weekend.

The photo above shows both the starting line and the summit house on top of the peak.

Kelly ran the marathon this year and finished in 7:09:41. That's about 1 hour improvement over last year. Awesome!

Sunrise on the peak before the Marathon start

That's part of my world. Be sure to visit My World Tuesday!

Not the stargate?

This is the Julie Penrose Fountain at America the Beautiful park in Colorado Springs. The park is named after the poem that Kathryn Lee Bates wrote after visiting Pikes Peak. The most prominent features of the park is the Julie Penrose Fountain which "is a sculptural fountain representing the life-giving movement of water between the atmosphere and the earth."

Due to budget constraints, the city of Colorado Springs cannot fund the operation of the fountain. If you're interested in donating some money to help the fountain, please visit The Friends of Julie Penrose Fountain.

That's my world! Be sure to visit My World Tuesdays for others.

SmugMug

I signed up for a 14-day trail on SmugMug.com.

I like the look and feel and features. I really like the following:

• Order DVD/CD of my photos. This means I can use the service as a backup.


• Builtin support on Elements - I can upload directly from there. Sweet!


• Supports Google Map (I like Google Map better than the others)


• People can buy prints.


• I can customize the look - why on earth would you display a photo against a white background?

Here is a link to the gallery (ask me for the password)

Here's a cool picture of the results of an exploding water ballon: