Car Watching - Ferrari 360 Spider

 What did my eyes spy one evening last week ?  Why, it's a Ferrari, of course.  A 360 Spider.  Hard to believe that this car is 10+ years old.

 This gorgeous 400 horsepower attention-getter can go 180mph...just what you need to dry your hair with the top down.  The owner of this beauty has a 1980's sense of humor, too.  Where are Crockett and Tubbs when you need them??

I had to get another shot of Ferrari's V8 car with Big Shark's V8 in the background....because both are incredible chick magnets!

Council Bluff and the Spiders

 I took the chance on the beautiful Friday to drive down to Council Bluff Lake to ride the trails.  I arrived a bit before 11am and it was pretty much a ghost town.

 This time, I remembered cash and payed my fee with dollars instead of change, like last time.

The trail itself was in much better shape and I knocked off more than 5 minutes from my Burnin' Race Loop time versus last time I was here.  Look closely at this photo, though.  You'll see my huge frustration with this trip:  spiders.  Well, not exactly the spiders themselves.  The webs.  If I told you I had a thousand webs cover my face while I was riding, it's probably low-balling the total.  There were more spider webs than I have ever encountered riding mountain bike trails.  I must say at times there were spiders hanging from my helmet, my arms, my clothes, and my legs.  Now...I'm not particularly bugged by spiders, but I am not a big fan of them.  And no-way-no-how am I a fan of them hanging all over my body while I'm trying to negotiate rocks and logs and turns.  I was so creeped out and itchy when I got done that I took a bit of a shower at one of the faucets at the camp site.

Car Watching - Noble M400

 I keep saying that Chesterfield is a great place to spot really cool cars.  Today's example is a Noble M400.  From the land that brought us fish and chips, the Noble is a mid-engined car that takes advantage of all that the world market can bring.  Namely, it puts a Ford 3 liter Duratec engine behind the seats.

 But it's not your dad's Duratec.  It has hotter cams...and two turbos.  And a ridiculously tall wing.

Those twin turbos give the wild little M400 more than 400 horsepower.  What's that, you say?  Lots of cars have 400 horsepower these days?  Sure.  But what do those cars weigh?  My guess is that they weigh a lot more than 2400 pounds, which is what the Noble weighs.  Do the math on that.  Zoom, zoom indeed.

Growing Kids!

 My oldest and prettiest is a Sophomore this year.  She acts like a COLLEGE Sophomore, but it's high school.  This beauty is playing volleyball again, and yes, she has a driver's permit.

 Tyson doesn't like having his picture taken, so it's rare to catch him with anything except a scowl on his face.  He's getting pretty tall, and he's playing baseball and soccer as a Freshman in high school.  No, he does NOT drive yet.

 Eli.  What can be said about Eli that hasn't already been said?  He's going into 4th grade and his fashion sense is without question.  In a Kakouris tradition, there is a dog peering out of the window on the first day of school.

This little dude plays baseball and basketball.  Kinda funny to see kids this size heave the ball at the basket, but they really try hard.  I'd love to have those shoes in my size!

Visiting Copper Mountain - Strictly Business, of Course!

 Due to the graciousness of Giant Bicycles (and my own employer), I was invited to attend "The Link".  It's a yearly thing where Giant gathers dealers together to see and ride the new stuff.  It's always an amazing shindig.  I visited The Link in Park City, Utah in 2013.

 For 2015, The Link was at Copper Mountain, Colorado.  That meant arriving at Denver International Airport on Sunday.

 The drive up highway 70 was different this time around.  When we did our family vacation in Colorado in 2012, we drove up this same stretch of highway and it was brown, brown, brown from the dry weather.  This time, it was green, green, green except for some of the pine trees that have been damaged by the Japanese beetle.

 The view from my incredible hotel room.  Green.  Mountains.  Ahhhh.

 First order of business on Monday was to ride bikes.  I busted through the killer catered breakfast and hit the trail with this Anthem.  A carbon fiber version of my own bike, it also sported the new Shimano Deore XT 1x11 drivetrain and carbon wheels.  Excellent.

 I climbed up the Colorado Trail from the Copper Mountain resort.  I stopped quite a bit on the way up to snap photos, as well as catch my breath.  Copper starts at 9700 feet.  Altitude kicks my ass.

 Super thoughtful sections of wood keeps the flow.  What an awesome trail, and, at least in this section, it's very well maintained. 

 Would you love to flow an awesome machine down this stuff?  Don't worry, it's not all groomed like this.  There are rocky sections, roots, pine needles...

 Pine needles.  Grippy.  And they smell good, too.

 Right-click this photo and view it in it's largest state.  That little creek is overflowing from all the rain.  It was raging.  The killer little bridge over it was icing on the cake.

 Lacking even more air as I closed in on 11,000 feet, this view took more breath away.  That raging little creek is calmer here as it comes down this pass.  That bald mountain up there is above the tree line.  Looks so close...but it's so far.

 I finally turned around as I heard thunder rumbling in the distance...and I ran out of steam.  And air.  Coming down was a blast.  So much fun.

 I snapped a great view of the bikes as they were gathered.  There were so many top-of-the-line bikes.  Giant really, really spares no expense so that it's dealers can try out the best.

 Tuesday afternoon, I wanted to ride the lift up and try out some of the "downhill" trails.  I hate chair lifts.  I hate heights.  But the top of this mountain is at 11,500 feet, and there isn't any way I was climbing all the way up there to bomb down.

 This was my Tuesday ride, a carbon Trance with more XT 1x11 and lots of travel. 

 At the top of the lift, this is what greeted me.  Right click this one, it's beautiful.  From here, the Elk Alley trail took me back down to the lodge.  I am not one to extract all of the downhill goodness from a bike with long travel.  But I was grinning ear to ear.  After reaching the bottom, I decided to hit the Colorado Trail again, this time with the Trance.  It climbed very well, despite inches more of travel than I can possibly use.  I got about 40 minutes up...

 ...and then the crack of thunder raised the hair on my arms.  No rain yet, but the air turned a blue color.  Very, very eerie.  I booked it back down, which was super fun on the Trance.

 And more rain came.  Still a beautiful place in the rain.

 I was able to hang for a few minutes with BMX Hall of Fame member Perry Kramer (of PK Ripper fame!)  He has an encyclopedic knowledge of the first days of BMX.  An absolute treasure and a pleasure to talk with.

 Blue skies on Wednesday.  I only rode a little bit, as the trails were quite soggy.  So, I took in the beauty of the resort and the mountains.

 This could be a post card.

 That big snow mound at the base of the mountain is used by the Woodward people.  There are little practice jumps for snow boarders.

 Another picturesque view from the grounds.

 What would life be like if our trails looked like this after it rained...every day?  It's crazy, it rained every day, and only early in the morning would the trails really be soggy.

One last view.  The beauty and the beast.  That should be beasts, as the mountains AND the weather can be beasts.  Love this place.  Loved the trip.  I hate flying, but it was more than worth it.

Car Watching - 1959 Ford Thunderbird

 What did we find while driving over to Grandma and Grandpa's house today?  A 1959 Ford Thunderbird.  Eli and I jumped out of the car and took some photos.

 This 'Square Bird' is obviously a driver, but it's still in darn fine condition for being nearly 60 years old.

 59's had the 'Thunderbird' FE V8, in most cases the 352 four barrel rated at 300 horsepower.  My Dad's 1966 Galaxie had the same engine years later, only I'm sure his had a two barrel carb.

The whole reason to for me to jump out of the car and snap these photos was this view:  the rear end.  Those tail lights, the long trunk, the cool wrapped bumper...yep.  1959 was a very good year.

Memorial Day 2015

 This year on our trip to Jefferson Barracks, only Eli could make it.  The other kids had events.  So, we visited my Dad's grave site, just Deanna, Eli, and myself.

We waited until the evening hours, as it's become quite the mad house during the day on Memorial Day....with over 190,000 buried here during the 150 years of it's existence, it sees a lot of action on this day.  It's fascinating to see the rows upon rows of head stones, and yet, many of the head stones you don't even see because they are flat, rather than upright.

My Dad would have loved my kids.  I've often imagined his interactions with them.  Then again, I'm thinking of him as I knew him in the 1980's.  He would be 97 this year, and even if he was in good health, it would have been hard for him to make it to this point.  But, one can dream.

Car Watching - 427 Cobra Replica

I love car watching in Chesterfield.  There is such a diverse array of vehicles for the eyes to feast upon.  This was a mean looking 427 Cobra replica.  Just take a gander at the license plate.

Car Watching - 1970 Plymouth Road Runner

I didn't catch this one...my 9 year old son did.  Oh, so proud of him I am.

This is a 1970 Plymouth Road Runner.  Built on the venerable B platform in Chrysler's line-up, it shared the same basic underpinnings as the Belvedere.  But the Road Runner's were different.  It was meant to be a muscle car, stripped of heavy-weight luxury items.  It's base engine was a special 383, and one could order the 440 Six Pack, or even the mighty 426 Hemi...no small blocks, no sixes...just big block goodness here, folks.

Can you believe that the 1970 Superbird was built on this cars basic body?  Collector value aside, I'd take a Road Runner (or it's stable mate, the Plymouth GTX) any day.

Want to know the best part?  Many Road Runners were built here at the St. Louis assembly plant (others were built in a Detroit plant).

Car Watching - 1967 Chevrolet Camaro Convertible V8

 A beautiful example of a daily driver classic pulled into the lot at work the other day.  A 1967 Chevy Camaro Convertible with a V8 and manual transmission.  He had "383" badges on the fenders, so at the very least it's a nice big rebuild.

 This is no trailer queen, or collector car.  This guy drives it.  It's a great looking driver, too.  Color was great.

 Such clean front end on this baby.  Apparently, the owner has owned it for many, many year.

Interior was very nice as well, and I just wanted to get a shot of the manual transmission.