Colorado Springs Open Space Tax Survives Challenge

There's a post in the Out There Blog today about the Colorado Springs Open Space Tax. Douglas Bruce has been trying to kill it because it wasn't presented as a tax to voters in 2002. I voted for it and I really don't remember how it was worded but it was pretty clear to me it would be costing me money. For the most part, I'm against more taxes but this is one that I get a lot of benefit from. There's a lot of things I don't agree with Bruce on but I think he really has helped keep our taxes down.


I certainly hope that this will eventually allow Section 16 to be bought and saved from development. Since high school it has been one of my favorite places to mountain bike. Now with a trail connecting it to the Red Rock Canyon Open Space, there are even more ride options.

3 Days and 300 Miles

Until this last weekend, it had been nearly a month since I had done a long ride. When I had the flu about a month ago, I ended up with a sinus infection. For my hut trip, I was on antibiotics and felt Ok. A couple days after I was finished with the antibiotics, the sinus infection came back. Now I'm just over 10 days into my 2nd round of antibiotics.

With Texas Hellweek only 2 weeks away, my coach scheduled this last weekend as 3 back to back long days. Fortunately the weather even cooperated and it was nice all weekend. Julie was out of town Friday night through Sunday afternoon but her parents were able to watch the girls during the day. At night and in the morning, I had to play Mommy and Daddy.

Friday I took off work and met up with the Verizon (formerly MCI) lunch ride. When I worked at Agilent, I used to ride with them quite a bit but now it's hard for me to get over there. As always there were some attacks and sprints. I then went out and rode through Black Forest to Peyton and then came back in US 24. That gave me 93 miles and 4662 feet of climbing.

Saturday I started out with the 10:00 Acacia group ride. There was a large turnout and I'd guess there were about 70 riders. There seemed to be a lot of riders that weren't used to riding in a group. I really thought there'd be a crash. On Link Road I got dropped when I didn't realize the 3 guys in front of me had let a small gap open. I tried bridging but couldn't. I was pretty down on myself for not being able to hang. I had to keep telling myself I had done 93 miles the day before and that they're training for short, fast races. At the group turn around, Tim joined me on his recumbent and we went out to Hanover and Ellicott. I finished out the ride with a trip through Manitou to get 110 miles and 3501 feet of climbing.

Sunday was an absolutely beautiful day with the temperature topping out around 60 degrees. I rode down Hwy 115 to Florence and then back. On the way down I had a pretty good headwind. I was afraid it would shift but I got a tailwind on the way back. I got in another 97 miles and 4131 feet of climbing.

Safety

Soon after I got back from my Eiseman Hut trip, there was an article in our local paper The Gazette about avalanche safety. It's also on Colorado Springs Outdoors. One of the things it talked about was that avalanche deaths have increased since avalanche beacon use has become more common. I use the Ortovox F1 Focus Avalanche Beacon. The chances of surviving an avalanche even when wearing a beacon is only 50%. One of the guys that was on the hut trip was on a guided trip in Canada when a slide occurred and when of their group was caught in it. If I remember correctly, they could see the jacket of the guy on the surface but had been killed by being slammed into a tree. The article said there should be more focus on avoiding avalanches than on learning how to use a beacon.

When I ride on the road, I worry about being hit by a car. I avoid some of the worst sections of road but I still ride roads with narrow or no shoulders with lots of traffic. As I ramp up my miles for RAAM, I'll be on the roads a lot more. In fact over the next 3 days I plan to get in 20 hours of riding. I wear my id wrist band from www.RoadID.com whenever I ride in case something happens but I hope it's never needed. I used to only wear it on long rides. One day I was finishing a lunch ride and was less than a mile from work on a street when I saw a cyclist down from being hit by a car. Since then I've tried making sure I always have it on. I have a friend was riding along and apparently crashed and was taken to the ER but he doesn't remember it.

New York Trip Pictures

I have finally added pictures of our trip last September to New York to my website. We took the trip so I could do the Adirondack 540. Julie's aunt and uncle don't live too far away and took care of the girls while I was racing. Her uncle drove for the 2nd lap which included the period with the worst rain during the night. We also did sightseeing around the area.

I've also added some of Matthew's pictures to my Eiseman Hut trip page.

Very Cold Weekend

Tuesday it was 60 degrees which was probably because of the wind in front of a cold front. Wednesday it was cold and snowed a little and it just kept getting colder. Friday morning it was 1 degree and by Saturday morning it was -12 degrees. The high was 10 degrees.

I planned on riding a couple hours on the mag trainer. It ended up only being an hour because it took me longer than I thought it would to solder ends on the cables I ran for my CompuTrainer through the walls when we were remodeling. My computer is in a different room from where I ride and with little kids it just doesn't work to string cables across the floor which is what I used to do. There haven't been many cold days so I haven't bothered with getting it set up.

Sunday it was -5 degrees in the morning. The only time I had to ride was in the morning so I couldn't wait for it to warm up outside. I managed to ride for 3 hours on the mag trainer watching last year's Giro. Even three hours was a stretch for me. Many years ago I did a 5 hour trainer ride and don't have plans to do it again. I may be forced to if we get several nasty days since I'm training for RAAM. I checked out the page for the UMCA Indoor Challenge and some people are putting in insane hours inside. One guy has put in two 20 hour rides on the trainer. You're allowed 5 minutes off the bike per hour and every 6 hours a 15 minute break although that time doesn't count as part of the ride time.

At least riding the trainer Sunday motivated me to finish setting up my CompuTrainer. I plan on getting the Logitech MX5000 keyboard and mouse since it uses Bluetooth that gives about a 30 foot range. I just found today that TigerDirect has a rebate on it. The RAAM website has the CompuTrainer files for the complete 2006 RAAM course so maybe I should start riding it. One of the reasons I'm into riding my bike is because I love being outside so I hope I don't have to ride inside too much.

Undoing the Dew

One of the biggest problems with my weight and training has been my addiction to Mt. Dew. In college I would sit down after dinner to study with a 2 liter bottle of Mt. Dew and when it was gone it was time to go to bed. My first job out of college was a block from a Loaf n Jug and I had a 32 oz cup that cost 59 cents to refill. It was a nice break to walk to the Loaf n Jug and refill it.

Over the years I've tried to cut back which has worked for a little while and then I go back to drinking too much. At my current job, they have Coke and Pepsi products delivered by the case and it's just up to us to make sure what we like to drink is in the coolers. I sit just outside the break room and it's just too easy to get up and grab another can. I can think I haven't had much but by the end of the day there's a pile of Mt. Dew cans on my desk. I can easily go through a 6 pack in a day.

I've figured out that if I drink one can, I drink a lot. In 2003 I quit cold turkey and didn't drink any for 6 months. I had my best race season ever and got my weight back to where it hadn't been for 7 years. In May I won the Expert 30-34 Chalk Creek Stampede which was part of the regional championship series. In June I finished 2nd at the Fireweed 400. In August I finished in the top 20 at the Leadville Trail 100 and 4th the following weekend at the Durango MTB 100.

I think it was more than just losing weight in 2003 that helped my performance. Sure my doctor finally got my thyroid medication figured out but I think cutting out the sugar was a big impact. Refined sugar does lots of bad things to the body. I figure I need to do everything I can in order to finish RAAM and that include time when I'm off the bike.

Since with my Eiseman Hut trip I wouldn't have access to Mt. Dew for 4 days I figured that was a good time to quit. The first week is the hardest and the trip would get me more than half way the first week. There have been days that it's been tough not to grab a can out of the cooler but I've made it for 2 weeks. Since I track all my food in DietPower, I can see that my average daily sugar intake for the 3 months before I quit was 268 grams and the last week it has been 77 grams. My fiber intake has also increased 20%. The only problem is I've replace too much of it with diet drinks and I really need to drink mainly water.

I'd like to say I feel better but I've been fighting a sinus infection for a little over a week. I think though that I would have felt worse this week than I have. My weight has also gone up a couple pounds although I haven't been over eating. I seem to remember that also happening in 2003 for a couple weeks before the weight started coming off easier. I think too much sugar causes the body to be a little bit dehydrated and so I've probably gained a little water weight.

Fire in Gold Camp Tunnel #3

Monday there was a fire in tunnel #3 on Gold Camp Road. The access to the trails past it were closed for a few days although now they saying access is just restricted. There was an article in the Gazette about it. Eco-terrorism is suspected by someone not wanting the road re-opened. It was closed in 1988 because the tunnel was starting to collapse but the Forest Service has been talking about re-opening it to cars. It would be a shame if they did since that's such a nice area to mountain bike and hike.

As I understand it even before the fire, the tunnel had to be restored because of being put on the National Historic Registry or something like that. When the Forest Service was taking comments on it, I wrote against opening it to cars. I remember what it was like to mountain bike up there when it was open to cars. You can read more about the project on the Forest Service website.

Eiseman Hut Trip - Day 4

Wednesday was another beautiful morning with clear skies. It was also warmer with the temperature at 7 degrees. Tom and Dave wanted to just ski out so they could get back early. I thought it was a shame to waste such good snow. Matthew wanted to do a run too and David was fine with hanging out at the hut while we went.


First we skied down to the southwest saddle. It's fairly open getting down to the saddle and it also gets quite a bit of sun in the afternoon. There were a few spots that were starting to get crusted and I'd guess another sunny day probably made it not too much fun to ski. Once we got to the saddle we put out skins on to go up the ridge. We then dropped down all the way into the drainage. It was one of the best runs of the trip. Even on the drop from the last old logging road, I found a nice open slot through the trees. I didn't do it justice and nearly fell but it was so much fun. All to soon we were at the bottom.

The ski back up was good and I enjoyed the great views. All too soon another Eiseman Hut trip was coming to an end. On the way back up, I noticed 2 snowmobiles parked on the road quite a way down from the hut. It looked like someone had skied up our up track with a dog. It only took 45 minutes to ski back up. The night before it took a little over an hour when I was tired.


When I got to the hut, the cleaning and maintenance couple were there and they had 2 search and rescue dogs in training with them. Normally dogs aren't allowed at the huts but they were trained to lie down and stay in one place. Outside they were supposed to be under control and be taken away from the hut to do their "business" because we melt the snow for drinking water. David said the dogs were running around outside and didn't look very controlled.


The cleaning couple told us that they're having problems with the hut because so much snow piles up on the backside. They said it is pushing the hut over. One year it moved so much one of the windows broke and in the summer they had to bring in a front end loader and push the hut back. The vertical walls were out of level by an inch per foot! They are working with the architect to possibly extend the woodshed back into the hillside to help anchor it. They also said this winter the snow piled half way up the windows on the deck and they had to bring in extra people to shovel the deck. Normally people staying in the hut keep the deck pretty well cleared but there's been so much snow this winter they didn't keep up on it.


Matthew and I had pretty much packed up before we went and skied so it didn't take long to pack up when we got back. We enjoyed hanging out on the deck for a little while before heading out. As we dropped down, the snow got pretty heavy and wet. We had an uneventful ski out to the trailhead and thankfully the drive home was much better than the drive up.

Eiseman Hut Trip - Day 3

Tuesday was another beautiful day. It was about zero degrees when we got up. After eating Jaime, Tom, Matthew, Dave, and I headed down from the Eiseman Hut to the saddle to the ridge to the southwest. This is one of my favorite places to ski at the Eiseman Hut. The northwest face of it doesn't get much sun and the trees protect it from wind so the snow is almost always really nice powder. As you get down toward the bottom of the drainage, there are a lot of big, old trees and it's just a really pretty area.


After a run or two, Dave decided he wanted to go ski where it was more open. Jaime couldn't stay the 3rd night. He was going back to the hut at noon so he didn't want to drop too far down and have to cut an up track all the way back up so we stayed on the upper part. When he went back to the hut, Matthew did too to eat lunch but Tom and I just kept skiing.

Once it was just Tom and I, we dropped all the way to the bottom of the drainage. The last part of the drop is pretty steep and the trees are tight. It actually is a little hard for my skiing ability. It's so pretty down there and the only way to get better at skiing is to push what you're comfortable with. The first time back up to where we had been skiing was hard and slow since we had to cut a new up track.


Matthew came back looking for us and he left his initials and when he was there. It turned out he had been about 10 minutes behind us at the top of the ridge. We took a 10 minute break and ate some and kept calling for him but never got a response so we dropped down again. He ended up going and skiing with David up high in a bowl. Tom and I got back to the hut a little after 5. There was still some daylight left but we had been out for 8 hours and had only sat down for 10 minutes so we were really tired and called it another day of skiing.

Eiseman Hut Trip - Day 2

Monday morning was cold but beautiful. It was -3 degrees but it's been as cold as -20 degrees when we've been at the Eiseman Hut. We spent the morning skiing off the ridge behind the hut and our up track brought us by the hut every time around. We stayed more in the trees than the night before so the snow wasn't as packed and was faster. We spent 3.5 hours skiing and then since we were close to the hut we took a nice break in the hut for lunch. After lunch we skied another 3 hours from the ridge and more directly below the hut. Tom and Jaime took one last run about sunset down toward the saddle to the southwest but I felt like I was too tired to enjoy it so I headed in.


Two couples skied out on Monday and one couple had another night so we knew we'd have a smaller group at the hut. The 10th Mountain Hut website showed the hut being full with 16 people but our group was 2 people short. This meant that a group of 2 should be coming in. I hadn't sleep well Sunday night because I forgot to get my ear plugs out of my pack before I went to bed. The guy in the bunk above me came to bed after I had gone to sleep but he woke me up when he came to bed. He kept shining his light around and wasn't quiet. One of the couples that left had one of the bedrooms. I went in during the middle of the afternoon and moved my stuff into it since I figured there was plenty of room. I slept much better the next 2 nights. Anyway it turned out that only an OR nurse from Vail came in by himself since the person that was supposed to come with him couldn't.

Eiseman Hut Trip - Day 1

I got up early Sunday morning on February 5th because David was meeting at my house at 5:45 AM to drive to Vail for the ski in to the Eiseman Hut. We were also picking up Matthew at the Red Robin at the north end of town at 6:00 AM. We were there a minute or 2 early but Matthew was 10 minutes late which gave use time to fill up on gas since I hadn't gotten it done. Tom and Dave took another vehicle and Jaime drove from Boulder.

It was pretty windy when we left and it got worse as we drove north. I had thought of taking the bike rack and Thule box off but didn't. I wished I had. At times I was struggling to stay in my lane with the wind gusts. When we got to the water ski ponds along 470, the wind was spraying the water onto the road. There was a construction message board on a trailer that had blown over. There was no construction there and they sometimes use them for high wind warnings but it was a little too windy. There was construction at 470 and I-70 and there was stuff blown into the traffic lane. I was having visions of trying to ski into the hut in white out conditions.

By the time we got farther into the mountains the wind calmed down but the skier traffic kept us going slow. We made a couple stops in Dillon since Matthew had new skis and he had forgotten his leashes. The last thing you want in deep power in the backcountry is to lose your ski. We were planning to be at the trailhead around 8:30 but didn't get there until after 10. I almost expected the other 3 guys to have already headed up the trail but they were still getting everything together. They soon took off and had a 20 minute head start over the rest of us.

It looked like it had just stopped snowing and the sun was peaking through the clouds. It was perfect weather for skiing uphill. The trail was broken out of the parking lot by people doing a short morning ski. About the first hour is up a road along Spraddle Creek that has a pretty steady climb. You then cut across the creek and take a winter only route that goes over the ridge and drops a little into the Middle Creek drainage. I'm not sure but I'm guessing the trail wasn't broken on this route since people that are just out skiing for a few hours seem to keep going up the road. If it wasn't broken, the 3 guys wouldn't have had to break trail long because I could see them on the hillside above me and it wasn't long until I meet the first 2 people skiing out from the hut.

I passed Dave a little before getting to the Middle Creek drainage and I saw Tom disappearing into the trees as I dropped into the meadow where the route drops into the Middle Creek drainage. I stopped for a few minutes and had a snack. It wasn't long before Dave showed up and also stopped for a snack. I took off before he was ready and after while caught up to Jaime and Tom. I skied with them for a bit before continuing on by myself. For a couple miles the trail is mostly gentle uphill in the trees along the creek. For a while there is a ridge to the left with some cliffs but then the trail goes to the right so you can't see the ridge anymore.


After a while the trail turns back left and this means one thing, it's about time to tackle the "wall". It is a steep, open section up the ridge and for me it comes about 3 hours into the ski so I'm getting a little tired. I know that from the bottom to the hut takes me about 45 minutes and it climbs quite a bit. This year I was the first one up the "wall" and with the new snow it was extra hard. People headed out from the hut and come down it but their tracks were too steep for going up. Once over the wall, it gets easier but still keeps you working hard. The sign that you're almost to the hut is an extra steep section that's probably only 30 feet. Most years I have to side step up. This year the snow was still soft so I was barely able to get enough grip with my skins to get up it without side stepping.

I made it to the hut in 3:45 which I didn't think was too bad of a time since the trail wasn't as hard packed as normal. The fastest I've done it was in 2003 when I was really fit and the trail was very packed. That year I did it in 3:20 and the last couple years I've been around 4 hours. Jaime showed up at the hut within 5 or 6 minutes after I did and Tom wasn't too far behind. We hung out for a little while and then Tom, Jaime, and I headed out to try out the snow. David and Dave had made it to the hut and Matthew came in a little after we left.


We went up the ridge behind the hut to where it drops to a saddle. We skied down from there. There are a few trees but it's fairly open. Even though there was nice, new snow it had been packed by the wind. Not enough to get a crust but enough to make it slow skiing. It didn't take many turns to keep our speed under control. Once we got down to where it wasn't steep enough, we put our skins on and cut a track back up to the hut. By then David and Matthew had come out and done a short run down from the hut. There was enough new snow that the whole time we were there I only saw a couple mostly buried old tracks. By the time we left, there were tracks everywhere. Jaime and Tom went and did another short run but I thought I should save a little since the only skiing I had done this winter was a couple hours on High Drive and Captain Jacks 2 months before and that was just cross-country.

Pictures of Eiseman Hut Trip

I now have the pictures from my trip to the Eiseman Hut on my website.

Today it was cold, windy, and snowy. It was a good day to stay inside. I don't mind skiing or hiking in the cold but I'd rather not be on the bike. When I was in college, I rode 10 miles each and didn't have a vehicle so I rode whatever the weather was. The coldest was -10 degrees and the most new snow was 7 inches. Now it's too easy to be lazy when the weather isn't nice. There's a reason my friend never talked me into doing the Iditasport Extreme although I think he finished twice. It doesn't seem it's being held anymore. Now there's the Susitna 100 held on part of the same course. It's on February 18 this year and Jill is doing it and writes an interesting blog.

I'm going to go hop on the trainer and spin for a bit now. My legs are still pretty tired from skiing so I'll take it easy. Tomorrow I'm supposed to do 7 hours on the bike but it's supposed to be around 30 with winds gusts up to 35 mph. There's ice and snow on the roads but it may melt off tomorrow afternoon. I think I'll do a shorter mountain bike ride tomorrow and then do a long road ride on Sunday.

Tired Arms and Legs, Great Memories

We had a great trip to the Eiseman Hut. I think this was my 7th time in and there was more snow than I'd seen there before. Hopefully in the next day or two I'll have pictures uploaded and a write up on the trip.

One thing a trip like this is good for is dropping some weight. At night we were eating until we couldn't eat anymore but I still lost a couple pounds. Lots of times my weight will spike back up a couple days later and then drop back. I'm not sure why but someone said it might be because of my body storing some extra muscle glycogen. The B-5 Challenge update as of February 1 has been posted. I managed to rank 2nd by a small margin. I just need to keep burning the weight off.

Today I was scheduled to just do a recovery spin on the trainer but the temperature peaked out just above 60 degrees so I couldn't resist going out on the bike at lunch with a friend for a little over an hour. I really didn't have much left in my legs after all the skiing. It was breezy in front of a cold front. We just made it back before the wind really picked up and the temperature dropped quickly. Tomorrow's forecast is for a high of 28 degrees and 70% chance of snow.

Off Skiing

Here are a couple pictures of me from my 2003 Eiseman Hut trip

Installing Remote Car Starter

Here are the details of installing the remote car starter on my wife's van. We got it last fall from some 80 year old woman that had put 12,000 miles on in 4+ years. The only thing about it was that it didn't have remote door lock/unlock. With 2 little kids this turned out to be a pain. Also the beginning of December it got down to -16 degrees and we don't have a functional garage so the vehicles sit out in the cold. The one we have is in pretty bad shape and one day the 1 piece swing up garage door came off it's track and if it hadn't caught on some boxes I would have been flattened. As it was I only was doubled over and got my back tweaked a little.

I can never come up with good Christmas gift ideas but getting a remote car starter that also did door lock/unlock seemed like a great idea. I was in the parts store near our house and they had a deluxe remote starter for $80 and they only had one left. On the package it said it was the world's easiest to install remote car starter. I got it but also checked one other place but they had sold out of them. My wife had called about remote lock/unlock and just that was $250 installed. I figured I had the Monday off after New Years and I could get it put in and be done with it. My first hint it wasn't going to go well was when I went to the wiring instructions on the web and a lot of the links were broken. I couldn't even get it to print out because they had put the wiring info in a scrolling table. They had another link to print it but it was broken. I hate when people get clever with web pages and make it hard to use. They had buttons for pictures but they also were broken. They also had buttons for notes. Now these worked but referenced other documents by a number. The web is about linking not references. The documents are by title not by a number so it took some looking to find what I needed.

I found diagrams for the 2nd start wire, the door locks, and the parking lights. The one for the door lock/unlock was for older vans but it was the same except the resistor values had changed. Monday morning I figured I'd just run over to Radio Shack and get the resistors and relays I needed. The relays Radio Shack had were 4 pin and a few of the ones I needed or 5 pins. I was also going to need to solder 5 resistors together to get the 180 Ohms for the 2nd start wire although I may have been able to get by with 2 100 Ohms. At some point I decided to call tech support because the package says they have 7 day a week support. They had a message saying they were closed but still put me on hold for the next operator. I held for a while since I was searching on the web but as I expected no one ever picked up. I spent most of the day trying to get parts but did get a few wires run.

Tuesday I did get the resistors I needed at Centennial Electronics since they were closed on Monday. I think it was Wednesday when I finally found an installer at one of the local car audio places that had a personal stash of 5 pin relays and sold me some. I then turned the bi-fold door I was painting for the basement remodel project into a work bench for wiring up all the relays and resistors. I talked to some of the hardware guys at work and they said I should shrink wrap the resistors to reduce the chance of the solder connections getting broken. These are guys that find it no big deal to design circuitry to measure the length of a network cable by the signal reflecting off the other end.


I put off actually connecting everything to the vehicle so that I could get training in on the weekends. Since I wasn't supposed to do much last weekend after having the flu, I started back into it on Saturday. Everything seemed to be going smoothly until it came time to initialize the unit after hooking up the 2 start wires, ignition, power, brake sensor, and ground. I went through the steps they said to do and it didn't initialize. I gave it one more try and all the gear indicator lights came on, all the dash lights, and the windshield wipers started going. I turned the remote unit off and disconnected some wires. I then tried starting the van with the key but it only clicked. Now I was really freaked out thinking I had fried some $500 computer chip. I had noticed when I had run to get something first thing in the morning that the battery had seemed a little weak. I thought of jumping it but was scared to if something was fried. I took the battery over to the parts store and after about 10 minutes the tester showed the battery needed to be replaced. Once I put the new battery in, the van started right up. What a relief!

I then tried to initialize the unit again but it wouldn't. I then remembered I'd seen somewhere that the start wire had to be connected directly to the remote start unit for initialization instead of through the relays. Once I connected it that way it initialized just fine. I then reconnected the relays and tested it. It actually started! I then hooked up the horn so it would honk just before it started the van and can also be used as a panic alarm. It can also be used for door lock/unlock. The horn and the brake sensor were the only easy wires that didn't require additional circuitry. The door locks went pretty smooth except it didn't work at first. It didn't take long with the multimeter to figure out the wiring diagram had a couple wires tied to 12V when they needed to be to ground. I found a diagram on the12volt.com that confirmed it. I also found when I hooked into the wire for the parking lights that there was a wire shown going to 12V that needed to go to ground.

It was very satisfying getting everything working but I'm not sure I want to do it again.

Getting Excited for Hut Trip

The beginning of December I spent 2 hours skiing High Drive and that's the extent of my skiing so far this year. I was going to try getting out last weekend but I still wasn't feeling up to it after the flu. Sunday I'm skiing in to the Eiseman Hut for 4 days of skiing. I know I'm going to pay for not doing any other skiing this winter but I'm still getting excited. Sleeping at 11,180' for 3 nights should boost my oxygen uptake though. The out there blog had this picture of Vail in a post today. Yes, there is a skier in there. The Eiseman hut is just across the valley from Vail and at night if it's clear you can see them grooming the runs.

I haven't been up to Breckenridge this year but the Snow Sculpture Championships were recently. Other years I've happened to see them when I was headed somewhere. Check out the pictures. In the background of some of the pictures you can see buildings to give you some idea of how massive the sculptures are.