A Goal from 30+ Years Ago
Jul. 13th, 2022 07:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerColorado Travelog #21
Ouray, CO - Tuesday, 5 Jul 2022, 5:50pm
As we wrapped up our hike at Box Canyon Falls a few minutes ago I asked Hawk to remind me how we planned this trip. "A few years ago we were looking up waterfall hikes in Colorado, saw a cluster of them in Telluride, and decided to go," she said. Indeed, we built a trip around the kernel of spending a few days in Telluride. But visiting Telluride isn't the only thing in Colorado that's been on our list. There's a place that's been on my list for more than 30 years. 😨
I got on the Internet for the first time in 1990. Yeah, I know, a long time ago! One of the fun things to do back then was scour public ftp sites for cool digital pictures to display. There was no Google back then; Google wasn't founded until 1998. Even Yahoo didn't start until 1994. Early internauts exchanged lists of site addresses in text mediums like Usenet News groups and then visited them one-by-one, browsing through their file subdirectories, to see what they had.
This is where a lot of wise-asses would say, "I bet it was porn!" And they would be wrong. Porn online wasn't a big thing back then. (Why? Frankly, because it was several years before a scalable e-commerce mechanism was constructed to profit from it.)
Here was one of the first pictures I downloaded online in 1990:
I was entranced by the beautiful mountain scenery. I made it my desktop background image for a while. At the time I'd only ever been on the east coast of the US (and an evening in Canada) so I'd never seen a sight like that in person. I knew I wanted to visit such places some day. But where was it?
The photo was identifiable only by its filename,
It turns out the file was misnamed. The scene pictured in it is Maroon Lake. Its name in 8.3 format should've been
I forgot about it until today, that is. And that's why I prompted Hawk to recall how we planned this trip. "Lake Maroon, which I've wanted to see for more than 30 years, is near Aspen," I explained. "What do you think about planning a trip to Aspen next year, or maybe later this year."
"Why don't we see if we can go this week?" Hawk responded.
As I was literally driving on a city street at that moment I pulled over to a parking space, dug my computer out of a bag in the back seat (I'm glad I brought it with me today!), and started checking if we can still change our plans. We can!
Get ready, we're about to call a massive audible.
Update: It took a few hours of wrangling to line up all the reservations, but we did it. We're now rebooked to visit Maroon Lake on Saturday!
Ouray, CO - Tuesday, 5 Jul 2022, 5:50pm
As we wrapped up our hike at Box Canyon Falls a few minutes ago I asked Hawk to remind me how we planned this trip. "A few years ago we were looking up waterfall hikes in Colorado, saw a cluster of them in Telluride, and decided to go," she said. Indeed, we built a trip around the kernel of spending a few days in Telluride. But visiting Telluride isn't the only thing in Colorado that's been on our list. There's a place that's been on my list for more than 30 years. 😨
I got on the Internet for the first time in 1990. Yeah, I know, a long time ago! One of the fun things to do back then was scour public ftp sites for cool digital pictures to display. There was no Google back then; Google wasn't founded until 1998. Even Yahoo didn't start until 1994. Early internauts exchanged lists of site addresses in text mediums like Usenet News groups and then visited them one-by-one, browsing through their file subdirectories, to see what they had.
This is where a lot of wise-asses would say, "I bet it was porn!" And they would be wrong. Porn online wasn't a big thing back then. (Why? Frankly, because it was several years before a scalable e-commerce mechanism was constructed to profit from it.)
Here was one of the first pictures I downloaded online in 1990:
I was entranced by the beautiful mountain scenery. I made it my desktop background image for a while. At the time I'd only ever been on the east coast of the US (and an evening in Canada) so I'd never seen a sight like that in person. I knew I wanted to visit such places some day. But where was it?
The photo was identifiable only by its filename,
lkmarron.gif. "Lake Marron", I thought. I searched various times over the years for Lake Marron but could never find it.It turns out the file was misnamed. The scene pictured in it is Maroon Lake. Its name in 8.3 format should've been
maroonlk.gif or lkmaroon.gif, not lkmarron.gif. That could've saved me years of wondering. But eventually search engines got good enough to show near matches, and I found the place I was looking for. Then I forgot about it.I forgot about it until today, that is. And that's why I prompted Hawk to recall how we planned this trip. "Lake Maroon, which I've wanted to see for more than 30 years, is near Aspen," I explained. "What do you think about planning a trip to Aspen next year, or maybe later this year."
"Why don't we see if we can go this week?" Hawk responded.
[sound of needle scratch]As I was literally driving on a city street at that moment I pulled over to a parking space, dug my computer out of a bag in the back seat (I'm glad I brought it with me today!), and started checking if we can still change our plans. We can!
Get ready, we're about to call a massive audible.
Update: It took a few hours of wrangling to line up all the reservations, but we did it. We're now rebooked to visit Maroon Lake on Saturday!
