Canals without Venice

It seems a good bit of the flow of the Uncompaghre River is diverted to an agricultural canal system.   These shots are from a ride on Wed Oct 23.

This one is up on a mesa, above Montrose.

As residences creep out into farmlands, the canals, and irrigation rights, can remain.

Here I am on the same bike ride, over a field of dried corn stalks.  I wonder what they do with them?  Up in Mt. Vernon, WA they would have been cut up for silage, or 'chop' as it's called there, when still green.  The San Juans are in the background.  It's incredible scenery, which my little point & shoot can't capture well.  I have a solution coming for that; more on that when I get it, next week.

The sun is bright here in CO, even though the air is cool (note the long sleeves and gloves).  I'm using real sun lenses, whereas in WA I used ones with about 50% filtering.