Breaking news: this just in...

Just a word to let everyone know that something is seriously awry in the high country. Now, one would have to have spent time with us to know this, but every time it snows, Bobby D gets grumpy. No, not the dwarf. Nobody's out to get Grumpy. I mean Bobby D. wakes up, looks out the window, and says unsavory things in an unsavory tone of voice. Bobby does not like the snow. He does not like the cold. He likes the beach.

But this morning, he awoke to snow. And he was happy. Giddy. Excited. It has been a long four years in Summit county, before he had snowmobiles. He has dreamed of the day we can own a lake house, a beach house, a house somewhere warm. But today, he loves Summit County. Nothing wrong with it. Where else can you snowmobile like you can here, after all?

It is ironic that the year that Bobby has decided to embraced winter instead of fight it, it has chosen not to snow until nearly December. Last year, the ground had been hidden for two months by this time. But on Vail pass, the snow last night drifted deep, four to five feet in places. We wound up the sleds and let the two-strokes whine, and shot down the trail to Shrine Bowl. The bowl is a popular spot for high-markers (hill climbers) and consequently, a popular spot for avalanches. Even with this first snow, there was a fairly good slide already. Not to fear, we do not high-mark. Bobby's sled has a giant track on it, it could do it, but mine is strictly a trail sled. Too strictly. Just past the bowl, the trail got lost, I got into powder, and sunk it. We spent a half hour grunting, sweating, and heaving the sled around and lifting it out of the hole. As soon as it was unburied, Bobby decided to let me ride the machine with a bit more flotation and power, in the hopes that neither of us would get stuck again. Ummm... it went fine for a while, the sheer power keeping me from burying it, until I got all sidehill and 118 pounds of me pulling against 600 pounds of machine plus gravity did not do much to turn the sled out of the deep powder. Again, we dug. Again, we sweated. Again, I sheepishly climbed on my own sled, having proved that if I could get stuck, I would, no matter which machine I was on. The rest of the day, I made very sure to pick the path of least resistance, and managed to not get stuck again. But Bobby... that's another story. I think I'll let the picture tell it.

We got back to Frisco tired and hungry, and stopped for Taco bell, the longest we have ever had to wait for a grilled stuffed burrito. It didn't bother Bobby D. He's happy (no, not the dwarf).

Finally, hello to all my people. I don't mean finally as in this is my final post or anything like that, although I know I have had you worried... but I am finally back! Back to working late into the night (ahhhgh), back to getting a paycheck (oooohhh), back to excersizing indoors (oof! one...oof!two... oof! three...), back to the slopes (swish, swish, scrrrrr.... AAACK! thud. (that would be the sound of a happily carving snowboarder hitting a patch of ice, by the way)) back to holiday food (uuungh) icy walkways (oooww!) and tourists who can't drive (what the...?). And back to an abandoned blog (ah-hah!)

If you notice the word excersizing is spelled wrong in the above paragraph, it is because the computer is quite gleeful to tell me it is wrong, but can offer me no suggestions as to how to spell it right. It thinks I am trying for apotheosizing, of possibly metathesizing. I suppose it makes sense. The word probably isn't in the vocabulary of someone who sits for hours adding words to the computer for Microsoft to try to recognize later. At least not in present tense. Yeah, I know. My wit amazes me as well. And did you know (I did not just a moment ago, when I googled it) that you are metathesizing when you "aks someone for a mazagine"?

My goodness, digression might be the curse which keeps this post from being posted for quite some time.

We have been crazy busy, like twelve hour days busy, until thanksgiving. Now, we are taking a breath before Keystone's 36 hours. The 36 hours is a (you guessed it) 36 hour skiing, snowboarding, drinking, music, and videogame marathon that keystone hosts to kick off the season. All day, all night, and all day, until eyes are bloodshot, Redbulls consumed, arrests made, injuries patched, property management exhausted. This year, it may not be so bad because of the age profiling being done by reservations. We hope. We have been having about a dozen units recarpeted at the last minute, which means racing to them after a guest checks out, pulling all the furniture into uncarpeted areas, letting the carpetlayers in for a day, then racing back to vacuum all the little fibers that pop out of new carpets, and put all the furniture back in place just in time for the next guest to check in. And in the meantime, do several complete refurnishings, several paint jobs, a new tile floor here or there... these units have been ocupied all summer, so now is the only time we have had to do these upgrades. Every time we turn around, there is someone with a trailer and a furniture dolly in need of assistance. And the curse of this particular job is those heavy, polished aspen log beds that some people find so beautiful. Just a bed is one thing, but those of you who know a few of Dick Seymour's fetishes know that he loves bunk beds. If a room can hold a queen sized bed without rubbing the walls, it can hold a queen/queen bunk bed, which doubles the room's sleeping capacity. And those beds are HEAVY. they simply cannot be moved without being disassembled. And because of the nature of log beds, they must be disasembled by breaking them down into individual logs. A giant set of lincoln logs that takes three or four people to hold up all the pieces to keep it from collapsing once a few vital supports are removed. We have fit so many log ends into holes, and stacked so many of them, and heaved so many matresses around, it all seems like a giant blur of bruised ankles and splinters, late nights, take-out food in condos, ratchets and drills, bedskirts and pillow shams.



But thanksgiving day, I found my snowpants and put them on again. My parents were out to help us with a few remaining deep cleans, and we had Scott and Anthony Nichols from Alpine here for the afternoon and evening. Anthony and I hit the slopes for a few hours. I let him talk me into renting skis. Sort of a disaster, since the slopes were nine tenths ice, but i still had fun falling. I put my snowboard on after a few runs, since Anthony wanted to ski a bit faster than I was capable of. And yesterday, I escaped work for three hours, pulled on clothes still wet from last thursday (they had been in the jeep, too frozen to dry out) and went up again, on much better conditions. The snowblowers have been transforming the slopes into a moonscape, giant alien spikes of snow in front of them, waiting to be spread out by the snowcats. Icy knobs begging to be ridden. I have been working on a casual, mid-cruise 180, reluctant to try it on a big jump until I can do it flatfooted. it was a day for riding slowly, riding backwards, taking jumps and riding bumps. I am feeling muscle groups in my lower body that I have been wondering how to target.
















And finally, a picture not from our life, but from a bit of the heritage that is ours. Anyone recognise this guy? that would be Grandpa Koehn to me, Jim to the rest of us, in front of majestic Mt hood in his glory days.

Hello to my peoples, of whom not one, not ever, has told me about the dangers of microwaving a hard-boiled egg. One would think, in my 24 years, four months, one day and seven hours, someone would have told me how to explode an egg. But no, it had to wait until this very night. My sister in law spent the evening in the kitchen, scrubbing and de-cluttering and bemoaning the fact that this was the very most lame way she could spend a Friday night. B and I spent it at the rec center with every one else who have nothing better to do of a friday night. I got home after my workout and a session in the steam room, followed by a swim, all rejuvenated and if not hungry, at least with an appetite. Something high protein, I tell myself, opening the fridge and locating two week old hard boiled eggs. The perfect dinner. A plate and a fork, nothing else to mar the sparkling kitchen. A minute and a half in the microwave, then I grab my fork and plate and start for the living room, preparing to mash my two eggs into a yummy protein pulp... when POUF! I find myself standing stupidly in the middle of a ten foot radius of pulverized egg. Egg on the fridge, egg on the stove, egg on the walls and into the living room and in the basket with the few leftover halloween candies the trick or treaters did not take. Egg on the floor in a perfect circle around me. And only a few bits of shredded egg white left on my plate. It took a moment of staring about me at the bits of clinging egg to fully realize what had just happened to me. Everyone here seems to think I should have known that is what would happen. Should I have?

Keystone opened today. The last day of an easy left hand turn was yesterday. The skier parking lot was full today, far too full for one run. I am tempting myself with going tomorrow, even though it might be to crowded to really enjoy it. Of course, we will work tomorrow as well, and go to church in the morning. And I am tired. A full eight hours of work (brutal, i know...) two hours of running, rowing, leg presses and crunches, a dinner of unexploded leftover tuna salad, a half hour of egg removal in the kitchen, and an orange julius (of sorts) with a splash of coconut rum...and it is getting late, and I am warm under my blanket on the couch... and my eyelids keep dropping. Goodnight, my loved ones. I shall write more later, perhaps the next time I explode something.

Hello from the land of little crystallized water molecules that form high in the atmosphere, and fall on us high country folks in what we like to call snow. In a week, we have gone from balmy breezes to winter. I snowboarded last week for the first time. It was wonderful. Maybe the snow wasn't so great, and maybe it was just several runs down the "ribbon", but feeling the snow under my board is something I have missed all summer. It seemed like I was really kickin' tail, until I remembered that I had my edges sharpened before going up. No wonder I was actually able to carve out some turns. By the end of last year, my edges were actually round. Nary a turn could I make without having my board slide out from under me unless i was in enough fluff that dull edges did not make a difference. There was a day or two at the end of last season, I was beginning to doubt my abilities to even stay vertical. Doubt no more my friends. I am back. Back to the days of driving while pearing around the goggles hanging from my rear view mirror. Back to carrying my snowboard strapped to the rollbar of the jeep. Back to muddy boots in a box behind my seat. Fresh gray tape on my mittens. I love those gloves. They have a five-fingered liner snuggled inside roomy, yet flexible mittens. I found them between two couch cushions in a condo one year after a whole buss load of kids from the University of Austin had gone. They were almost new back then. Now, the right one has carried the knife-sharp edge of my snowboard through so many parking lots, the palm has worn thin, and finally shredded. It is through this inevitable fact that I achieve identification as a true local. The finger end of my right mitten has been wrapped round and round with duct tape to ensure that it remains waterproof. The guy who invented gray tape aught to be made an honorary shredder.

There are several reasons that mittens are a good choice for snowboarders. One, they do not carry anything, have no need for fingers except for strapping in, and that can usually be done without much dexterity. One can curl one's fingers up and keep them much warmer. And the last reason is a somewhat discriminatory one. There can be no obscene gestures toward anyone encountered on the slopes. Well, there can be, but no one will know it for sure.

Actually, that is just the reputation that snowboarders have. Disregard for the rules, dangerous, fast, rude, uncommunicative. Mostly because of the earbuds jammed against their eardrums. Not necessarily true. Maybe on a micro scale, just as many skiers can fit that same description. Mostly, they are an aggressive, flirtatious bunch. I slide my gloves off sometimes in a gondola cabin, when the testosterone gets too thick. The sparkle on my left hand is enough to turn aggressive into painfully polite. But while snowboarders own the space around them, many skiers can be equally unpleasant. These are the old-school snobs who look down on anything less than the purity of the sport. Who spend the entire ride up the chair huffing about how someone followed them through their powder stash, and who slam the bar down on my unsuspecting head, impaling my thigh, with nary a warning. But then there are those wonderful people in both sports. It is a real pleasure sometimes to just get out, on a bluebird day, and go spend the morning with people who are exactly where they want to be. Even the most grouchy old codgers can be coaxed into being jovial on such a day.

In the meantime, we work. I know, some of you thought that notion was foreign to us. We have been rearranging the office for the last week. Some of you who have spent time in the claustrophobic aisle between shelves that all of our laundry is stored in and all of our bags of clean linens are packed in know how tight and nonfunctional it was in there. And we have grown into a big enough company that often, two cleaning crews are trying to pack for their day at the same time. We opened it up, and rearranged it so that two crews could pack without climbing over each other. While we were doing that, we also went through our linens and threw away a couple hundred sheet sets that were getting too ripped or stained for our guests to use. We haven't broken that fact to the owner yet. He's going to be paying several thousand dollars this year for new linens. Now's when it's nice to just be an employee.

To add to the sudden frenzy, Keystone resorts has stopped providing card keys for our units. We used to order hundreds of dollars worth of keys from them, already programmed for the doors they opened. But the other day, we got a tactful letter from them saying they would no longer be providing this service. This means several thousand dollars worth of new equipment to be able to make all of our own keys, as well as a week's training seminar in Las Vegas, or else we will find ourselves indefinitely locked out as of November first. Hmmm... couldn't be all bad. No getting into units might make work fairly impossible, and we could spend a week in Vegas. I have never even seen the inside of a casino, except on our honeymoon, when I was sicker than a dog and crawled from our hotel to a pay phone in a casino in Lake Tahoe to call my mother to check in. I seriously doubt I would even be able to gamble. It is something that genuinely scares me. I lost a ten dollar bill to a Mexican restaurant once, when they gave me the wrong change, and that was so distressing I called them as soon as I noticed it missing. It was just unthinkable that I had paid twenty dollars for a black bean and shredded pork burrito. What if i just fed ten dollars to a slot machine and it swallowed it whole and laughed at me? That would haunt me every time I went shopping, and something cost ten dollars more than I was willing to pay for it.

But still, the lights of Las Vegas is something I have never seen. And nothing is more needed more after a vacation than another vacation...

The boys are all involved in watching the Indians and the Red Sox battle it out on the ball field for a chance at playing the Rockies in the World Series. It seems we picked a good year to become baseball fans. We went to a game at Coors field this summer, and have been following the Rockies in their 21 out of 22 game winning streak. We shouted advice at the tiny players on the TV screen as they were one pitch away from losing their shot at the post season in their wild card game against the Padres, and celebrated with them when they finally won it in the 13th inning...and kept waiting for them to lose (this is our Rockies we are talking about, after all) and gained faith in them as they gained momentum and swept the Phillies and the Diamondbacks, and finally, it sunk in- the World Series will be played in Denver. Denver! Nobody expected that one. Of course, the downside is, tickets we are used to paying four dollars apiece for will now be selling for four hundred apiece . No sliding into the Rockpile bleachers on a ticket that costs less than your hot dog during these games. I imagine we will be not going, even if the World Series in Denver is not something you see all the time, to say the very least.

And behind my laptop screen, the Bosox just won the game. Looks like it will be them and Denver. Good. Now I can finally go to bed. Goodnight to all.

A sunny “hola” to my peoples who are waiting for a trip report. I am in the land of no internet access, so my report shall have to wait to be posted until I get home, but that does not mean I have to wait to write it. Thank goodness for copy and paste.

At the moment, I am seated four floors above a cascading pool that must cover half an acre, fountains and falls making almost enough noise to cover the sounds of all the conversations in English being held pool-side. Juice Newton is pleading to be called Angel of the Morning, from speakers camouflaged in realistic plastic rocks under the palms. Americanized ambiance. No mariachi here. Nothing ethnic shall pass beyond the low stone wall separating the resort from the plebian beach beyond. The staff speaks English. Advertisements for the spa, restaurants, and gym show healthy, smiling blonde-haired, blue-eyed vacationers being massaged and pampered by equally light-skinned professionals. If one yearns for authenticity and local flavor, one would do well to avoid large resorts. But it was for this reason we rented a car. We can have a four-star resort setting, staff hovering, pool inviting… but we can leave the Zona Touristimo and opt for pocked highways through the jungle, crowded, unpaved streets, roving vendors nearly hurling themselves and their wares in our direction. I am delighted by the crowds. I am a master at “no…gracias”, and leaving mid sentence. Cracked, weathered adobe in flamboyant colors, cracked, weathered faces that bear the mark of a life spent in ownership of little more than self-respect. When minimum wage earners make five dollars a day U.S., the wealth of vacationers must be staggering. Mr. B, on the other hand, feels a bit obligated, and in the interest of preserving our few remaining pesos, wishes to stay away from any vendors hawking pareos, jewelry, serapes, sunglasses, henna tattoos, a hammock for an day… he tells me to roll up my window as we drive through out of the way villages so nobody has a chance to throw a menu in the car, making us have to stop and give it back.

It is an accommodating patio deck that I sit on. The same marble flooring as the inside of the condo, lights, a ceiling fan. Potted plants, table and chairs, lounge chairs. The pool below ends a few feet above the Bahia de Banderas, thirty feet of sand separating it from the gentle surf. Palms and bougainvilleas grow out of islands in the pool, lounge chairs sit in a few inches of water. We spent two full days just enjoying all the resort had to offer. Now, we hurt from making use of the fitness center after a summer without the Silverthorne Rec center. We have mild sunburns from a combination of books and pool. Bobby even finished a book. Bless him, that happens about as often as Halley’s comet. Not to infer that I married a nitwit who is not literarily inclined, but the man simply works too much to be able to take in more than an occasional movie.

We drove north today, to the tiny village of Punta Mita. The Puerto Vallarta beaches seem a little dirty, littered with driftwood splinters and trash left behind by the tide. The water seems muddy, as well. It is a bathwater-warm 90 degrees or so, and people do swim in it, but compared to the crystal blue-green water of Hawaii last spring, or South Padre Island last fall, it is rather murky up-close. But not so at Punta Mita. We found the beach by losing ourselves on the narrow, stone streets of the village. Deserted surf and dive shops and fishing tours manned by locals resembling in nature, eager golden retrievers. They saw us coming a mile away, and stood ready with their silver, their menus, something, anything they could offer us. At last, we found ourselves high above a strip of sand, a mile long, nearly deserted. A young couple and their naked baby. A few locals and their silver. A few surfers and boogie-boarders. And us without our swimsuits, when we finally found the packed white sand and crystal water we were looking for. The beach is so gently sloped that the foam from breaking surf carries itself thirty feet up onto the beach before it is finally swallowed by the sand. It is a beach made for jogging. Framed by the Sierra Madres, closer to the mouth of the Bay of Banderas where the water circulation does not encourage the muddy water of Puerto Vallarta and Nuevo Vallarta, we wondered why there was not the explosion of resorts that there are further south. Then we remembered that many people do not rent cars, and a taxi that far out would probably cost fifty dollars U.S. But we made a mental note to look for a bungalow there, the next time we come. In all of our exploring, it was the highlight find of our trip. Now that we know what to expect from local traffic, if we return, we will rent a car again. We are just too spoiled by our long-distance American lifestyle.

The guide books told us to expect stone streets in the villages. They were not joking. Not just stones, but river rocks. Rough as a cob. The water collects between them from afternoon showers, keeping the streets constantly wet. We had also heard mixed reports of the ease, or horrors of driving in Mexico, depending on who was telling the story. Other than having to get used to turning lanes defying all logic by being on the right side of the road, actually frontage roads separate from the road itself, accommodating both right and left hand turns, it seems less stressful than driving in Denver. Turn signals are deemed a sign of weakness, and merging is always happening around you, busses are always stopping, and two lane roads get turned into three lanes on the whims of drivers. Painted medians are a legitimate part of the roadway, it seems. If drivers drove in Denver with such utter disregard to traffic laws, some uptight citizen would call it in to law enforcement. There would be road rage. Fingers would flip obscene gestures. Not so here. Here, one can drive like a tourist, and nobody will notice. It is actually kind of nice. No need to learn about traffic laws in a foreign country, because if one did attempt to observe them, they would risk impeding the flow.

And there are the delights of cultural differences only hinted at by the Hispanics who live in the States, who have brought as much of their culture as possible with them. Much of it, I can relate to, because they are just things that happen in rural, un-covenant protected areas. Three fifteen foot aluminum ladders, lashed to the roof of a battered VW Bug. A dozen kids in the back of a pickup truck. Pizza delivery on dirt bikes.

We were also warned that it seemed impossible to get through a whole vacation in Mexico without getting sick. I was expecting it to be the stomache-ache, parasite variety. Instead, it is all in my head- literally. It feels like a balloon. My sinuses are on strike, my throat is producing gunk, my eyes burn. It seems the most memorable souvenir I will take home is a cold.

We are cheap. We rented a condo, because of it’s kitchen. We have eaten for five days on $600 pesos, about five dollars per meal. Still more than we had hoped to spend, mostly because we overestimated our appetites. For the last two days, we have been eating more than normal, so that we do not have to admit we bought twice as much food as we actually needed. We even bought Coconut rum and various fruit juices, and the blender in our condo has been whipping up some mean, frothy concoctions. There can be many variations of the traditional pina colada when one has on hand mango juice, milk, peach yogurt, coconut juice, and pineapple juice. They are guilt free, because we are on vacation and we are not paying $7.00 U.S. apiece for them, as we would poolside. The housekeepers are determined to tempt us with the well-stocked honor bar. The contents change daily. If we do not touch the beer, they leave soda. If the soda is still there, they leave us Snapple. When we did not touch the potato chips, chocolate was left. We refuse to touch it, cheap as we are. It must frustrate them. Someone willing to pay to fly here, to rent a condo, and then too cheap to buy everything the resort has to offer.

I am surprised to realize how many Spanish words have roots that correlate to English root words. I have not studied Spanish a lot, but I find it amazingly easy to navigate street signs and billboards. Ideally, I wish I could come to Mexico to learn Spanish. It would be much simpler if one were immersed in it, I can see, than it is to learn it from a textbook in a classroom. Of course, reading it and hearing it spoken are two separate things. I am lost in the staccato barrage of words when addressed in Spanish.

All in all, Bobby says he liked Hawaii better. There was more to do, the beaches were better. I am not convinced. Resort aside, Mexico seems much more authentic, and much less hostile. I get the feeling that if I knew the language, I would not be just another rich white tourist. These people would embrace me into their lives and culture. Hawaiians strike me as being too wrapped up in the loss of their supremacy, too immersed in their politics, to involved in their little island micro-culture, and too overwhelmed by the constant flow of tourism to be able to appreciate those who spend their dollars on what they have to offer in order to support their living there. Mexicans, on the other hand, recognize the american dollar as a life-force, something to be respected. Maybe the American people, in their eyes, are a lazy, overpriviledged bunch, but there is no denying the power of their money on the lives of the locals and their families. If only Summit County could look at it that way.

…And now we are home. It has taken me three days to even be able to sit down with my computer enough to post this, because we have had to hit the ground running. Well, we did take one day off after we got home, and spent it collecting B’s toys. Oh, yes, did I mention…? So one day three weeks ago, I spend the day in the house, doing wifely little duties. Nary a word from BBD. Finally, at seven o’clock, I call him, wondering if he would be making an appearance for dinner. He grows a bit sheepish as he tells me, “Sorry, I kinda need to work, since I didn’t work all day.” And what did he do all day, I ask him. “I went to Buena Vista and bought a snowmobile… are you mad?”

For the record, the wife wasn’t mad that he bought a snowmobile. Rather glad because for the first time, Mr. B has reason to look forward to winter. Finally, he can enjoy the mountains after the weather forces him to wear more than shirtsleeves. (He doesn’t necessarily share my manic love affair with frozen ice crystals and waxed fiberglass over a wood core.) But yes, the wife was still a bit “mad” because he had taken a road trip, through the turning aspens, through such essential, picturesque Colorado without her. Without even inviting her. He tried to make it better by explaining to her that the sled he bought was such an amazing bargain, and that it was small, just her size, and honey, it even has hand warmers! And he was only trying to spare her and her lingering ADD the boredom of sitting in a dealership for two hours while he haggled. And that if she would just tell him how long his leash was, he would never go farther than the specified distance from home without prior consent again. The leash was set at thirty miles, and he promised to take her with him when he went to pick the new sled up.

Four days later, his father called him from Kremmling, a little town between here and Steamboat Springs. Another bargain, a big boy sled. Pristine condition, and, oh, yes, hand warmers. This time, he cleared it with the wife. The wife thinks he may be catching on.

So the day after we got back from Mexico, we put 250 miles on his truck, chasing down his two new children. Now they are bedded in the garage, covers removed and folded, all tucked away, awaiting the first snow. Last year at this time we were buried in the stuff. This year we have only seen a few flakes. Figures, B says.

Where does one begin? After my last post... the tragedy. Even those who did not know Marlene and Clarissa have no words, silenced by the magnitude of the loss. Our hearts break for Clark, single after twenty two years, and for Caleb, and Mandy, having to grow up so fast after losing a mother and a sister in the same moment. We try to imagine losing our nineteen year old newlywed mate five weeks after we were married, and our minds simply refuse to go there, refuse to create a scenario in which we can even empathize with Garrett. We pray for them, and feel unworthy when we go to bed each night, with nothing awful having happened to us.

After witnessing lives altered in such a dramatic fashion, we skip on our way. It is what we humans do when we can. It is only those whose daily lives are turned upside down by such a tragedy who cannot do this. It seems harsh. But it is what happens. After a few deaths in our own immediate family, we have come to realize that cards, flowers, hugs and casseroles are as much for the closure of those giving them as for those receiving them. The family finds themselves as much in the position of comforter as comforted. For the flower and casserole and hug givers, closure can be found in doing, in being involved and helpful. But of far more meaning to the family is the card, the casserole, the flowers and hugs that happen long after the fact, after they begin to wonder in anyone even remembers their loved ones anymore.

The week before the deaths, B and I made a weekend trip to Cedaredge, where B's cousin lives. We spent the day with Wendell and Michelle. The guys played golf, us girls hiked Crag Crest, up on Grand Mesa. Sorry, I forgot the camera. But take my word for it- a breathtaking hike. In more ways than one, if you are a flatlander. The top of the Mesa is about twelve thousand feet elevation. The views are incredible.We did take the camera when we went to the Black Canyon the next day. The photo is of B and me, with a several thousand feet deep hole behind us.

On to more recent events, B and I did take our first portion of or vacation- two days, three nights in Moab, and a day in Fruita, the Western Slope's up and coming mountain biking destination town. In Moab, we dragged into town later than anticipated, courtesy of a tanker spill on I70, did our small part to help out one of the local fast food franchises, and stumbled back to the motel, hitting the sheets early in order to prepare for an early morning bike ride. Our first day in Moab, we did Slickrock Trail, all 10.5 miles of it, for the first time. Other times, we have dabbled, but we have never ridden the entire loop. A summer of biking actually showed, I was pleased to discover. Drops and ledges that I have hiked over other times, I was able to ride over this time. Part of it was being clipped in- it was not an option to bail, so it was fall or ride over it. Most of the time I chose to ride over it, except for the time I tried to bail on a wicked steep up the side of a mound of slickrock. The Stumpjumper is rugged, but all of me coming down sideways on the back wheel caused a bit of damage. I bent my rim, loosened brake calipers, and took out a spoke. Since we were several miles down the trail, I threw the spoke under a rock, so nobody could accuse me of littering, a helpful local helped me fix my brakes, and I have ridden with a wobble ever since. But it was a Ride. The trail humps, jumps, and winds itself through an optically endless field of petrified sand dunes, and swoops close to the edge of the Colorado river canyon, to provide an eagle's view of the wide, muddy ribbon of river far below, then follows the same rim as it curves around and towers over town. We stopped to look down on the distant roof of our motel, with it's rustling cottonwoods and aqua kidney shaped pool, so near, yet such a grueling, hot ride to reach it.

Back at the jeep, we endured a bit of well-earned taunting from the "old guys" who finished first, and rejected the idea of another ride until the next morning.

But the next morning, we were back in the saddle by mid-morning, grinding our way over the layers of the Morrison Formation's loose entrada sandstone on a relatively new trail known as the Sovereign singletrack. It was a fun trail, although not for beginners. A few of the climbs nearly killed us before we succumbed to walking our bikes. But the downhills were so sweet, if a bit loose.

The next day, we hit Fruita on our way back to Grand Junction. We blundered into Over The Edge Sports, a quintessential bike shop with worn hardwood floors, the smell of an old building, and bells on the door handle. I didnt see the gearheads with long hair, but I am sure they were about. The staff has been largely responsible for designing a major part of the trail system as well as, apparently, an ongoing sibling-type squabble with the Bureau of Land Management over multi-use trails in the area. They also print their own guidebook. Referring to it, we found ourselves in the Book Cliffs, on trails built for mountain bikes by mountain bikers. Banked turns, rhythmic flow so carefully planned that one hardly noticed one was climbing. And one scary, exposed downhill- a steep, harrowing ride down an eroded dirt ridge about two feet wide, in a howling sidewind. Yep, yours trulies put their feets down, the hundred foot rolling tumble in the event of a williwaw was just a bit too much of a threat. By the way, a williwaw is a sudden, unexpected gust of wind. Look it up. (Grandpa Jim would have just called it a "puffa wind", as in "must have had a puffa wind through here last night, to pull off the bin roof like that."...never mind that the wind was a consistent forty-fifty miles per hour, all was fine till the puff came along.)

We spent the night in Junction after salad, steak, and endless dinner rolls. I bought a hat. Forgot to shave my legs for the third day in a row. Fell asleep long before B did. Slept like a baby in a pillowy king sized bed. In the morning, we drove home, unloaded the jeep, loaded my bike back onto the rack, and drove to Keystone. Ahhh, loam sweet loam. The Colorado trail, damp, soft and cool under the trees, the smell of rotting leaves and needles, a breeze that carries the bite of fall. An hour and a half up to the top of West Ridge, a full hour of downhill. Cool off in the stream crossings. Such bliss, to be back. After a week of biking world famous desert trails, it is just so wonderful to be home, where it's ME that's the local, it ME that knows the trails. It's also ME who leaves the trail, climbs to the top of the ridge, and uses my cell phone to call B, who tells me to go north when the trail makes an unexpected Y, because that is the spur which will connect me with the trail which will connect me with my jeep in an hour. Funny how whole portions of trail can be erased from one's memory in between rides. At least for the directionally challenged. In case of disorientation, I always have a plan B. Because B remembers the name of the street corner on which the most insignificant things might be found, and can give anyone turn by turn directions.

I wonder sometimes if all is as it should be with that man. He can find anywhere, is never lost (and i am not even using sarcasm) and when he balances his checkbook, it comes out to the penny. I have a treasured memory from before we were married. I am perched on his tractor seat, a tea stain down the front of my white sweatshirt, tomato stain on the waist, and notice some grease under one of his nails, so I grab his hand to dig it out. He is nearly beside himself with adoration (it's my story, so i can tell it how I want) at this dirty creature next to him who seems not to care that her clothes bear witness to the fact that she gets more food on herself than in her mouth, and does not think twice about digging dirty grease out from someone's nails with her own. I am just so cute and unorganized, he tells me. He would rather have me outside playing in the dirt than in a spotless house, slaving for him, anyway. I take an evil delight in repeating those statements to him five years later. When I do, he says he would have said anything back then, but saying I DO significantly increased his freedom to be honest. And that he likes clean laundry much more than dirty. My mother was wise when she told me to prepare myself, because the very things that bring us together can just as easily drive us apart. And then, you've just gotta love 'em anyway.

jiggity-jig

hello again- must I apologize yet again for the fact that it has been so long since this poor blog was updated that most of my faithful readers have given up on checking it? And once everyone gives up on it, it takes a while to get my few and faithful back. I have a jingle in my mind that pertains to long absences- "went to the market to buy a fat pig... home again, home again, jiggety-jig." In my mind, it correlates with thundering over the cattle guards that, well, guarded the house I grew up in- my cue to wake up, sit up, and put my shoes on because chances were, my parents weren't open to being conned into carrying me inside. Not that that was all so pertinant, except to say- jiggety-jig, I'm back.

Excuses, excuses...no need to go into them. August can just be one of those months. We have had some company, even made a flying trip to Estes Park for a family reunion. Our job (once again) made it impossible for us to make it an overnight trip, so we left at 4:00 a.m., making our way between the eerily quiet casinos of Blackhawk and Central City at the crack of dawn, over the Central City Parkway, watching the sun rise over the foothills. It was so beautiful I slapped myself so i could stay awake for it. Why is it, before we left, we laid in bed for an hour, unable to sleep because we were about to leave. But as soon as we hit the road and the sun started to come up, we could have both fallen asleep.

Seymour Lodging is still treating us well, but it is getting slow for us. Shoulder season is that painfully long, but yet too-short time when the phone rings once a day (making it necessary for us to stay in the county) but other than that, we don't have to do a lot except watch the snow creep down from the peaks, turning the trails into mush. Long, drizzling afternoons, early evenings, sleeping in of a morning. Biking season over, ski resorts several months from opening. It is the end of August. Last year, it snowed a foot on September ten. (or was it the fifteenth? we argue about our differing memories, but it was in there somewhere.) The day before yesterday, we woke up to white peaks. A painful reminder that our idyllic summer with it's close sunshine, warm on our shoulders in spite of the fact that the air is cool, clean crisp air, ponderosa and lodgepole pines dripping scent-laden sap, slapping beaver tails and grazing elk and deer... it's all about to end. But then... I remember writing the same thing about winter one day... sitting cushioned in a me-shaped hollow in a feathery snowdrift, snowboard stuck into the snow under my feet, a solitary living thing in a white and blue world, I remember being sad that it was going to go away.

After this summer, Keystone is even more "my" mountain. At least on the frontside, Dercum Mountain, I know that there is a hidden lake in the closed area just off this run... i know that roller I attempt a backside board grab over everytime I hit it in the winter is actually a yellow-dirt, rutted road in the summer. I know that when you can see "the place where Donny broke his arm" you have forty-five minutes to the top, if you stand on your pedals a bit. I know that a family of marmots lives under the logs laid across the stream to make an uninterrupted run in the winter when the snow covers them up, and every morning at nine o'clock, I know exactly where a doe will be grazing. We eye each other as our morning routines cross paths. Oh, yeah, I also know that the trail known to the locals that leads into the trees and connects Flying Dutchman to Spring Dipper at the very top, and has that sweet drop, angled just so that you can grab your board and still land with a bit of finesse, well, that drop ain't so sweet on a bike. Doable, obviously, just not so much by me.

After this summer, I can also tell you just which scars will stay and which will hardly be noticeable in a month or two. A sprocket gouge always lasts longer than trail-burn, even though it is less impressive initially. A sports bra and a camelbak causes backne like nothing else, and coming unclipped from one's pedals is not as difficult as one might assume if one wraps their handlebar around a tree trunk at high enough speeds- the whole unclipping process pretty much happens all on it's own. A swimsuit is the one thing you will wish was in your back pack after your ride- especially on days you do laundry and leave it in the dryer. The liftie who saw you endo in a bike helmet, shapeless jersey, and dirt-caked face will recognise you four weeks later in your cutsie little sundress and high heels with all your makeup on...HOW? I wish I was that good with faces...and will make sure to inquire solicitously. Oh, yeah, and squirrels are no smarter about running out in front of a bike in the middle of the woods that they are about running in front of cars in the middle of the city. Neither are deer. It takes about the same amount of time to bike to the Pennsylvania Mine back in Shoe Basin as it does to jeep there, because the road is so rough, and half the time to bike back down, proving that distances here are relative to the time it takes to cover them.


In between learning all those fun facts, B and I have started our own little venture with a (almost) brand new travel marketing company. We are stoked, mostly because we have been in it a week and already generating income on it. Yes, it's multi-level marketing, something I have traditionally been a bit snide about, but even I cant deny the power of getting a check with your name on it every week just because you handed out a few business cards and told a few people to book through your website the next time they travel. Of course, little me can't seem to be able to take things like this slowly, and in the lull at the end of summer what else is there to do, so I have been out accosting perfect strangers with my little white cards which promise "wholesale and travel agent's prices when you travel, and earn commissions on your own vacations". Not only promise, but deliver, I might add. No, I wouldn't be so shameless as to use this blog, the purpose of which is strictly entertainment, to promote a business venture... and i certainly wouldn't use it to point my nearly and dearlyest friends and family to my very own travel booking website with the promise that the prices are very comparable to every other travel booking website available to the general public (or in many cases, cheaper)... or tell them that they should check it out next time they book a flight or hotel, or both, or a rental car, or a concert or event ticket, or even an entire vacation package or cruise, domestic and international, or the next time they reserve a tee time, or even a Keystone or Breckenridge condo (cheaper than Seymour lodging...shhhh!) because I get 60% of any commission generated from their booking... and I wouldn't even mention that you can also send flowers, set up a honeymoon registry, or buy cars (they are linked to Auto Trader and other such websites)... in fact, the only thing that I would tell them is that if it should happen to be more expensive, as occasionally happens, they should not harbor any undue obligation to book there while they are comparison shopping. Oh, and I would also consider it extremely unprofessional to post the link on my strictly-for-entertainment blog, for fear they might follow it to www.freedomdestination.com and check it out, and therefore generate another commission for me, or even contact me to find out just how to procure those killer travel-agent booking prices. No, that just wouldn't do. I had better stop, or I might find myself crossing that most sacred of lines between entertaining and regaling, and actually promoting.

Of course, playing the travel professional while I am not busy playing the hospitality professional has strained the wardrobe a bit, to B's panic. He says this business of ourn is only managing to cash-flow at the moment, because of the sudden need for clothing that demands the attention of someone who might be impressed by a successful young professional who is out and about, doing her job. The blue jeans and printed tees don't get worn much these days, and the impossibly comfortable suede wedge heels are nearly to fall apart from over use. Hair products to tame the curly mop, slips and trouser socks, and actual lip gloss instead of vanilla flavored lip balm with 15 SPF. One-piece dresses to impress the traveling class, who flock to our resorts to be offered deals by me. It seems to work for the people I meet, but not necessarily for poor Mr.B (Although he tells me I am pretty, these days, and even uses the words "what do YOU want, my love"... not an everyday thing when one climbs out of bed, pulls back the hair, and shrugs into a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. Men are so easily manipulatable, it would be sad if it weren't so tragic.)

As I have hinted at it several times, I may just say it- we are in a lull. If someone should happen to get it in their heads that a vacation is needed, and should wish to spend a portion of it just below the Continental Divide, accommodations are available in our suburban abode for the best price available- nuttin. After September first, all two roommies are movin' to Keystone, leaving B, Marci and I rattling about, using only two of our five bedrooms. We offer complimentary toothpaste, git-yer-own breakfasts, and your choice of double, queen, or king-sized beds in a friendly neighborhood central to hiking, fishing, jeeping or biking, or just relaxing in the backyard while we fire up the barbeque and cook us all up something filling.

I know... for the (admittedly) few of you who check this blog on a regular basis, it has been a bit of a dry spell. Mostly, the reason for this is that it has just been more of the same lately. The rainy spell ended a week ago, and since then, B has found himself waking up alone, because I have been out of the house and on the trails before sane people stir.

Actually, I encounter quite a few otherwise sane people out there at that hour. I have actually started getting up even earlier to avoid them. If I am alert, protein shaked, bike cleat clad, backpack filled with lemony fresh water (lemony to create an illusion of fresh long after fresh has gasped and died) music chosen and earbuds installed, and self-motivational speeches rehearsed and I am ready to pedal by eight o'clock, I am in good shape. I will be off the trails by the time the lifts open at ten. An hour and a half up, and a half hour or a little longer down. If I wait longer, I will find myself meeting downhill bikers, I will be slogging uphill, and they will be barrelling downhill far too fast to be able to stop and pull over for me, and eating up my tail on the way down. Downhill bikes have much more suspension and are made for the rough type of trails keystone has to offer, and can be ridden at much higher speeds than a traditional mountain bike. But they are also difficult to ride uphill, making them less versatile.

But if i start before eight oclock, I seldom see other uphill bikers. I do see lots of squirrels, chipmonks, marmots, and deer. Things that hide when the trails get busy.

B rode up with me last night. In the evening, we wait until after the lifts close, which almost runs us out of daylight. I had already ridden the 2360 feet up in the morning, but if the man offers to ride with you, you take him up on it. It was a good ride, but it was getting pretty dark by the time we got down.

The picture is of a trail called TNT, an overgrown mining road, that offers the fastest descent ridable on a mountain bike. One would be idiotic to take anything faster or more technical without a downhill bike. Yep, been tried. Just picked off the last scab yesterday. Wish someone woulda videotaped it. It was awsome. All the elements that sell- mud, blood, flailing arms and legs, rocks and logs, cheering spectators. Like they say, stupid should hurt.

But biking's not all we do around here. We work, too. After the biking's done, that is. One has to keep one's priorities straight, after all. Last weekend was busy, but it was the last one for a while. But it is mid-August. Summer is going to come to an end one of these times. Fall vacation time is coming up. Every day, b asks me where we are going to go. Every day, I have no idea. Moab for a few days, naturally, but after that... B is reading a guidebook at the moment. I trust him to make a good decision, to be the man with the facts. Bless him. At least one of us will have a plan.

And i am finding myself staring blankly at the computer screen for long periods of time while I accidentally type long lines of whichever letter my fingers happened to stop on. In the middle of summer, i have come down with a cold. Chapped nose, a pile of kleenexes on the bed next to me as I lay here and type. Bed sounds like a wonderful idea right now. love you all. later!

Aaaahhh! In the oft-quoted words of... I'm not sure who, actually.... "doesn't it do nothin' but RAIN in this here country?"

Every morning, we awake to a bluebird sky, and every afternoon, it clouds over, thunder rumbles, lightning flickers, and then it alternately drizzles, downpours in near biblical proportions, sprinkles, rains, rains, rains...

But the mornings are nice. After a freak crash a week ago, it hasn't made much difference to me what the weather was doing, I wasn't going out. No need to go into detail, let's just say that a short drop, a sudden stop, and a metal bar did a bit of damage that needed plenty of time to repair itself, and would not tolerate riding, running, or anything that might be qualified as strenuous. But this morning, the sexy little Stumpjumper found itself on the bike rack, riding to Keystone with me, as I drove to work. An hour and thirty-six minutes from the Mountain house base area up to Summit House, at the top of Dercum Mountain (the little-known name of Keystone resort's front mountain) thirty six minutes back down. A personal record. Not that it is a good thing, mind. Setting a personal record makes it necessary to break it. Of course, when one has pedaled up 2,360 vertical feet before reporting for work, one has need of a bit of freshening up. I cleverly become a guest at one of 10 condominium complexes that we manage units in, use my keys for access, and use the showers as though I belong there. This morning, after showering, I was supposed to meet B, to help him on a project we are doing for one of our owners, but he wasn't going to be in Keystone for an hour, so I even managed a swim and a near nap on a pool lounge chair. It can make one a bit reluctant to just get up and go to work after a vigorous workout, a swim, a shower, and a relaxing stretch in the sun.



Hidden along backcountry trails, local locos take time out from riding to create little challenges for future mountain bikers. A pile of lodgepole pines, stacked just high enough to ride over without dragging a sprocket, a turn berm aroung a tight hairpin turn, planks nailed to fallen trees, so one can ride up and over them. One of the craziest of these little works of art is found along a trail few people ride, because it runs parallel to a road. An old pine tree fell, and did not make it all the way to the ground. it's sturdy trunk angles up into the trees, and someone mounted a plank into it's branches, then nailed several boards sideways to the portions of trunk deemed too narrow to ride down. It's gonna take a realy long time until I get crazy enough to try it. I eye it, say, "Absolutely not... now or ever!" and pedal around it. But it distresses me that there are those so far beyond my skill level that they create just such an obstacle simply so they could ride over it. I will never be Good like that...

We are still in the lull before we have to panic about getting ready for winter. At the moment, we have two giant plasma TVs sitting in our entryway hall, waiting for the property they are to go into to check out, so they can be delivered. The front hallway of our house seemed safer than our garage or the office to store $4,200 dollars worth of TV. Of course, it was necessary to un-box one of them, just to see... since they will be installed on a back-to-back day, we needed to make sure we had all the right cords and such... and then, of course it needed to be tested, and the remote programmed... and a dvd inserted... and watched...just to see if the sound was good, of course... the whole affair evolved into an impromptu movie night, the "borrowed" toy all but filling up the living room. Nobody can accuse us of not doing our research.

In the middle of it all, the revolving door has continued revolving. Kansas people travel this time of year. Not that we blame them... Kansas in July is a good place not to be, we think. Blast furnace wind, dust a-billowing... although we hear this year has been surprisingly mild. We don't mind. We get to see them this way. Even though we are slow compared to winter, we still don't get to leave the county for more than a day or two, and only then if we cover for each other.



We took B's brother and sister in law jeeping the other day. We ended up at 14,000 some feet, at the top of Mt. Bross, above the town of Alma. The road passes a half-dozen long-abandoned mines, so high in such rugged terrain, one wonders how the miners did it. Sure, they were a crusty bunch, but still...

off to the races....

Hello to my people. It's been a while, or at least it seems like it. We have become much more active lately, both work-wise and play-wise. It's really, truly summer. We are loving it. It is almost hot some days.

Work-wise, it is the same old thing... the people come, the people go, they leave a mess, we take care of it. We as in Seymour Lodging. B and I have not cleaned for over a year. Managing the office and appeasing guests is a full time job for him. Inspecting is not such a full time job for me. I get up in the mornings, load my bike on it's rack on the back of the jeep, throw my backpack, helmet, jersey, and bike shoes in the backseat, and haul them around with me while I work. Then, as soon as I get done, i am usually in Keystone anyway, so I park at the Mountain House, change in the parking lot behind the open jeep door, clip in, and hit the service road that winds 2,360 feet up to the summit, over six miles. After the first few brutal turns, the steepest part of the whole uphill route, I usually jump onto a green singletrack. (Bike trails are rated the same as ski trails- green for easiest, blue for more difficult, black for most difficult, and black double-diamond for extreme expert.) I think taking the singletrack adds a few more miles, but it saves one from having to slog through the deep gravel that covers the surface of the service road until about halfway up. It also makes one have to watch out for downhill traffic. Uphill traffic has the right of way on singletrack, but most of the riders who pay to have their bikes hauled to the top on the chairlift posess a sense of entitlement about yielding right-of-way on the way down. Or maybe they just do not reallise... I don't know. I do know it is tempting to give in to the feelings of entitlement myself, since I am the one working my tail off, pedalling uphill... but then, I am just cheap.

Once at the top, there are several options. Keystone has about four blue trails, for intermediate riders, and they are accessed by greens. Greens are good for cruising, a few technical turns, a few rocks and roots, fun, but nothing to really hone one's skills on. The blues have bigger rocks and roots, often ledge or stair type drops that can still be rolled down without catching air, and the hairpin turns are much tighter, but feature turn berms, banked so one can slide around them at much higher speeds. I seem to be a fairly solid intermediate rider. Once I pedal all the way to the top, an hour and forty five minutes, I have a forty minute coast back down, so to make it worth the climb, I have to choose my route carefully, so I do not waste precious feet of vertical drop on the service roads.

The last time i was up, day before yesterday, the plan was to catch the newest blue trail, Eye of the Tiger, that opened just this week. But at the turn-off for TNT, a black that winds along the gulch that marks the edge of "Spring Dipper" in the winter, I was grabbed by a sudden urge to venture onto a black. Warm sun, the scent of pine, not another soul on the mountain, except for a few still-sleepy employees finding their stations (this was before the lifts opened), deer bounding away from my racket, I used the same line of reasoning on myself that gets me into a lot of uncomfortable situations- "If ya don't try it, you'll never know if you can do it, and if you don't like it you won't have to wonder if you would". And, just in case that wasn't enough, "what's the worst that could happen?" At the end, I was glad I had taken it. There were quite a few "babyheads" rocks the size of a baby's head), and the surface of the trail was looser, and it was steeper, but it was still a fun, fast descent down a long-abandoned, overgrown logging road. I was glad to have shaken out from under the stigma I was feeling towards the black trails, because that gives me about fifty percent more options for ways to get down. (Not that that ever was the problem... it's getting up that's the problem!)

I didnt even crash... which was a good thing, because by the time I got home, B was ready to leave for Denver, tickets in hand, to go see the drag races at Bandimere Speedway. We met his dad, brother Jay, Jay's friend Craig, and the Arriba locals Jay and craig are custom harvesting for right now, and spent the day in the stands, alternately baking or soaking and freezing, depending on what the clouds decided to do. Of course the real reason the boys wanted to go was to experience the top fuel and funny cars take off while sitting 150 feet from the starting line. Having never been to a drag race, let alone a nitro qualifier, I wasnt sure just when to put my earplugs in... until the first two cars demonstrated a quarter mile in four and a half seconds. It was a bit traumatic. The shock waves shook the stands, the hairs on my arm stood up and shook, my ribs rattled against each other, car alarms went off in the surrounding parking lots. And my eardrums were so jarred and jiggled they wouldnt stop tickling.

They were also qualifying stock cars and motorcycles for finals the next day. Not 315 miles per hour, more like 150 to 190, but not so bone-jarringly loud either. The stands emptied out for these events, we had our choice of seats, we could carry on an intelligible conversation. We had a several hour rain delay, and huddled on the bleachers, thankful for a respite from the unbearable heat a few hours ago, but now, shivering in the wet and wind.

I think it's something about us and Denver sporting events. We went to a Rockies game last saturday with some friends, and the same thing happened. Oh, yeah, I had never been to a baseball game either. The ADD tends to kick in long before the ninth inning, especially with a rain delay. B says i make him think twice about taking me to these things. The attention span is simply too short. And he is scheming about Nascar this fall. Oh, it sounds like fun, but he wonders if the combination of bleacher seats, ADD, and a four hour event is up to the challenge. I just want to hit fast-forward like b does when he is watching the races he records while he is at work. Two hundred miles per hour is just a little too slow, I guess...

Oh, what do ya do when the clouds get blue and the weather is bad in July? You come up with catchy jingles, apparently.You also sit, contemplate parts of your own body (my toenails have begun to fascinate me- I made them pearly pink on the day before easter sunday, and have not even pruned them since... I watched the last of the pink dissappear the other day, and marveled that I have now grown an entirely new set of toenails since then, and used them enough that they just wore off all by themselves! Ok, that was a rather disturbing peek at a disgusting bit of me, I know.) You scratch at mosquito bites you have been too distracted to notice until now, you remember what it felt like this winter to be cold, you marvel at how much faster the hairs on one's legs grow in the presence of goosebumps. You read, and comprehend nothing, because you do not want to be reading. You watch daytime tv, and decide that meaningless symbols on a recycled-paper page are more exciting. You work in slo-mo, intentionally becoming less efficient, to make it necessary to walk through the office twice as many times. You check your email a dozen times, even though nobody but the Word of the Day you have subscribed to loves you enough to send you anything. I would never use the word "heterodox" anyway- I'd probably say something like "oddball religiosity"... You paint your toenails with fresh polish, and make mental bets with yourself how fast you can grow a new set this time... you look online to try to find which vitamin makes your nails grow faster, even though you know if you just engaged your mind, you would probably remember that one on your own...and eventually, you find yourself staring at the picture of Hawaii you have on your computer wallpaper, sigh, and log onto Blogger to see if you can manage to squeeze any creativity from the vacuum that is your brain on a cold day in July.



I committed to a group bike ride with the Mountain Sports Outlet Divas this evening. Will I go? Dunno... not if it is this cold and miserable. It starts in an hour and a half. I am debating...



I shopped yesterday, while it was warm and sunny, almost downright hot. I should have been riding then. Instead I did what every good wannabe does- instead of playing in the dirt, I outfitted myself to appear as though i was a dirty sort, the kind who buys things to use in an ill-planned, unintentional attempt on one's health, if not life. Among other things, bike shoes with cleats. The bikes we got came with clip-in pedals, with a cheater clipless pedal clipped onto one side, for those who prefer to go clipless. A few incidences of having my feet slip off the pedals at innoportune moments made me want to ditch the wussy pedals and ride like the big girls ride, all clipped in and stuff. And everywhere, because of the holiday crowds in the county, was the allure of half-off, plus ten percent off of that, causing a regular frenzy. I came home with my sporty new purple and tan hard shoes, mounted the metal device to the bottom of them, and as a cold front was blowing in, drove to Keystone to murder a few trails.



In hindsight, I probably should have practiced clipping and unclipping in the parking lot before I hit the singletrack. As it was, I neglected to get the right size of allen wrench along to loosen the clips enough to get in them, decided to just ride unclipped, since I had come all this way, and accidentally clipped in while powering my way uphill through a menacing portion of trail I can hardly stay on my pedals for under normal conditions. Um.... yeah. Forgot I was joined at the soles with a metal contraption that is already at odds with the laws of gravity, tried to bale while in such a state... no bale-age happened, and the rocks gathered shavings of me. Happened several times, actually. I finally figured out how to force the cleats into the pedals, but since they were not beginner-loose (thanks to nobody but me) I could not get out of them, crash after crash after painful crash. You ask why I would do this to my self? because it really does ride better. Sure, it crashes harder, but after I get the hang of this, I think I will be very glad I am not still trying to ride clipless. In the meantime, the heels of my hands are dusky with not-yet-surfaced bruises, as are my hipbones, outer thighs, calves, shins, and ankles.

It brings to mind other things that have drawn blood and caused permanent bodily damage before they were mastered. Horses, skis, snowboards, street hockey, ice skates... Maybe I am completely screwed in the head, but the things that are the most rewarding for me are the ones that involve a huge learning curve, and pain. Does it make me sound sadistic that all I want to be doing at the moment is pedalling over singletrack, muttering at those stupid clip-ins that are trying to get the best of me? I do not love watersports nearly as much as "drop in" sports. Although the motion is much the same, the potential for pain simply is not. I wonder sometimes if there is actually something wrong with that picture.



Drop in... what does one find in common with people without the instant "in" one finds when they discover a mutual love of "dropping in"? (I know, too many "ins" in one sentence.) For those not fluent in Mountain, most sports that involve gravity and extremes have a "drop in"- the moment one throws concious thought to the wind, gives full rein to one's guardian angels, to allow or not allow whatever it is that could happen, and, well, drops in. Mountain biking, skiing, snowboarding, kayaking... it's the name they give to the moment one forgets their agreement with God and gravity, and shouts that irresponsible invitation- BRING IT!!! The moment one's board leaves the safety of the super-pipe approach and goes vertical. The moment one's head dips lower than one's butt on a mountain bike, on a dust and shale downhill singletrack. That last thought, crackling through the static, that this could be the last thought that ever crackles through the static.



And what does one do with friends who do not drop in? What do we talk about? Jobs? borrring! We are gathered together in the hopes of distracting ourselves from the thought that we have jobs in the first place. Kids? Plans for kids? That can be covered in about twenty seconds, and only needs to be covered once in the course of a friendship. Gossip about mutual friends? Not safe, if one has not lived here long enough to have everyone neatly placed. That leaves, Where-ya-from-before-ya-were-here, Do-ya-like-it-here, and the Weather. And the Rent-or-mortgage conversation, always useful in correct placement of one in one's mental file of social standers. But inevitably, it always swings towards, how was Quandary the other day, is Webster open yet, can ya get across the stream in Horseshoe gulch without getting wet yet, how bad did ya biff it. The Basin chutes, E-chair steeps, powder, corn, ice, corderoy. Bleed your brakes. Stretch your cables. Firecracker fifty. You're HOW old? Arch supports. Marathons. Dogs. Closed for elk calving. Forest service. Pine beetles. Check out the scar. ACL's, and lack thereof. When does the Tiki Bar open. Want another beer, how'bout a brat. Fruita. Moab. Poison Spider Mesa. Broke my sprocket. Dropped in, hit a rock. Gnarly scab, check it. The hum continues comfortably, words like couloir, strap, helmet, sideslip, mud, wax, carabiner, big slide... drift past each other in midair and in the middle of it, one glances at the couple with the newborn, new to the county, bikepath-only. They look wistful, outnumbered, bored to tears. One tries to draw them into a conversation, any conversation, but having already covered the topics one normally covers with the non-drop in crowd, it grows painfully stagnant. People who are "into things like that" can be such bores. They don't try to be. They have been having this same conversation with these same types for so long they don't know how to relate to the masses who's lives do not give them the opportunity, or who's inhibitions keep them from living in constant give and take with gravity. Someday, they'll grow out of it, but so far, no deadline has been set.

I have just recieved confirmation that the Divas will not be riding this evening, since the ride was scheduled for Breck and it has been drizzling all day over there. Good. (mooohaha) Now I won't have to wuss out, or shame myself into going, just so I can be miserable. I was only going to ride, anyway, since I havent put in a lot of hours at work lately and wasnt feeling flush enough to shell out the bones required for the apres-ride lasagne, salad, and beverages at Fatty's, which turns the Divas rides into a girls night out. Now I really should commence meal planning for the residents of our humble abode... Last night, the marinated, grilled talapia with a homemade "secret recipe" sauce (secret only because it was delicious, but I can't for the life of me remember how to duplicate it) was a hit, even with those iffy about fish. But I fear the last of the culinary inspiration was used up on it. Tonight may be one of the more forgettable dining experiences we have had.

So I shall scamper... one by one, the roomies have been trickling in. There is almost enough of a crowd by now I could entertain and be entertained. We are knocking on wood, because in spite of being one hundred percent booked, the phones have been remarkable quiet. I may jinx it by posting this...

Oh, well. Here's hoping everyone had a wonderful fourth. We did not even watch the fireworks, in an effort to avoid the consequent traffic jam. Sure enough, as we climbed into bed last night, we could see a glittering string of taillights across the dam, everyone trying to get home after the show. We were smug, although we almost wished we had gone anyway.

On a somber note, July five will always be an infamous day for my mom's family. Take a moment, if ya will, and say a quick prayer for Nancy and the kids, and everyone else who's lives were irreversibly changed on that intersection between the cornfields at sunset, July fifth, twelve years ago.

Ok, that was a bit longer than a few days. We got busy, preparing for the fourth of July, just doing our thing... we sold the boat, took it back to Kansas, the tranny in the suburban sustained a bit of damage, forcing a decision, fix it or get rid of it... we got no calls on the Honda, also for sale... and then one day, I came home to find both the surban and the car missing, and a few hours later, a shiny red Dodge truck sat in their place. We are FINALLY down to two vehicles in the driveway. Two that belong to B and me, anyway.

Our hike that I promised a report on seems a long time ago. Perhaps I can just gloss over that one. We dragged ourselves out of the forest after thirteen hours of hiking, with packs on our backs, much lighter with less than half the water we started with, bug bitten, scratched, sore... but I had fun, and I think B did too, from time to time. The biggest problem was the fallen trees, affected by the infestation of Rocky Mountain Pine Beetles that have taken over Summit County, killing all the trees too old to fight them off, and turning the area into kindling, just waiting for a spark to turn it into a conflagration. After a ninety mile an hour wind several weeks ago, dead and dying trees dominoed into each other by the hundreds, making the trail very tedious, around, over, and through all the fallen timber. We'll do the other half another day.

We camped at Scott Lake while we were in Kansas delivering the boat to it's new owners. A small glitch along I70, involving hot oil, a malfunctioning transmision, and a limping second half of the trip prevented us from doing the Cedar Bluff thing. We compromised by camping by the much smaller lake where a much earlier portion of our former lives were spent. Didnt even get our toes wet. It was nice, though, much warmer than Colorado nights. The mourning doves woke us at an unearthly hour. We thought we would never adjust to the ravens (I have been told they are ravens because crows do not live at this altitude... I don't know that for a fact) outside our bedroom window in the morning, but the mourning doves were actually a bit more annoying by now. The two of us have lived in Kansas for a total of about twenty five years, and neither of us have ever camped at the lake. It was time. I somehow went to sleep beside the fire, muttering things I do not remember saying, although b swears I said them, and he dragged me to the tent sometime after midnight.


Back in Summit county, the weather has been almost hot. Mid eighties, some real scorchers. I drive around with the top down and the top half of the doors removed on the jeep, and have eternally bad hair these days. I am happy that those big, wide headbands are in this year. they keep the flyaways somewhat in check. On Sunday, we finally went on a long-promised bike ride with the neighbors. We burned through the back ranch, on trails that finally have names for us. The most exhilerating portion of our three hour ride was the twisty, dark Blair Witch trail, trees barely spaced far enough apart to allow ones handlebars to squeek between them. Now that we know how to find it, we will be taking it again. But now... the hinder regions hurt. We have not had nearly enough time on the saddle to toughen up those areas.

I should be working...

Hello... I am sorry, this will not be the extensive report that my faithful readers have come to expect. I am in a bit of a hurry. I am supposed to be packing for two nights in Kansas, but instead, here I sit writing, because anything is better than packing and cleaning.



Ok, first photo is of your favorite blogger and her hiking pardner. Not that you can tell, but the cataract which gives Lower Cataract Lake it's name is behind us. This was the evening after I posted those pictures on my last post. I had 15 miles of running, two hours of wondering around the annual Frisco BBQ cook-off, a massive ingested smoked turkey leg, a brief reboot at the house, then a two mile hike and a five hundred foot climb over massive boulders, logged in the last ten hours. I am aware that I appear a bit bedraggled. B of course was still fairly fresh, having done it all with me except the fifteen mile run from dillon to breckenridge. Hey, I did it, by the way.(except for the few minutes I spent taking those pictures...) That was four days ago. Havent put on my running shoes since. I guess now I have to either fish or cut bait as far as the marathon goes. Ask me later how that's coming...

Anyway, that night, we forgot it was the weekend, so we packed the tent Uncle Leroy and Aunt Mary gave me when I graduated from eighth grade, grabbed some firewood, and fully planned on camping. We remained unaware that it was the weekend until we tried to find a campsite, and every single available flat spot of ground was claimed. By the time we got done with our hike, everyone was settled in. We settled for our big, soft bed. Kind of wonderful, actually, after my day.

The second picture is of Lower Cataract Lake, in those last still moments just before dark. For Bobby, I think it was in these

moments he became excited about backpacking, along the trail which runs from this point, at the end of the Gore Range, past our backdoor twenty five miles away, where the gore range begins. (Or begins and ends, vice versa, depending on which end of it you are on...) He's not quite so excited about it anymore. Why? Cause a day later, we did it. No, not the whole thing, just thirteen hours worth, interrupted by one night on the trail. But, my friends, that is a story for another time. I do not have the time right now.

In the meantime, we are preparing to make another flying trip to Kansas, first thing in the morning. We found a buyer for the boat. If we'd'a known we would sell it to a Scott Citian, we would not have gone to all the effort to haul it up here, for one several-hour session on the lake! We would have just left it in Kansas. But, hey. We dont mind, we'll probably take it out to Cedar Bluff Reservior in KS for the day tomorrow, ski and wakeboard like there aint no tomorrow (cause there aint), spend tomorrow night on the same lakeshore where we have spent some of the best summer nights of our lives, those nights of just being kids, with family, friends, flaming marshmallows and wine coolers, then we'll give it a few polishing farewell swipes, a full tank of gas, and drop it off at it's new home the next day. Hopefully it's new family has as much fun with it as we have.

So for now, bon voyage (did I use that right? I think you're supposed to say it to me, actually...), check back in several days for more reportin'!

rainy day musings

By the way... if you looked at this post several days ago, and did not see pictures, for reasons described in the post, these are from several days later. I ran the same route just this morning, the first time the sun is shining again since this post was posted. And this time, took the camera...

It's a rainy day in the Summit. Of course it is- yesterday was idyllic. Seventy degrees, windstill... I hopped out of bed as soon as I saw the blue sky through our bedroom's patio doors, determined to get a run in before the clouds built. The plan was just to run across the dam, and turn around when the rec path cuts into the trees. It's a little more than a mile, and I told myself I was feeling lazy, a two mile run would suit me fine. I got a new camelback, a much more comfortable one that cinches down tightly enough that the only movement is from the two liters of water it holds, and I filled it all the way up before I left, for the weight as much as anticipated hydration needs. Only when I got to my planned turn-around point, I found myself reluctant to turn around. "Maybe I can at least make it to Frisco" I told myself, tightened the backback straps and kept running. Naturally, I had left the camera at home, or I would have taken some killer pictures. The last time I was out, I took the camera, then the clouds moved in, and the pictures were not impressive in the least. So why would I take it out again, I asked myself, and left it at home.



But yesterday morning, the surface of the lake was glass, the water clear enough at the edges to peer down and watch the fish swimming amongst the rocks off the shore. Peak One hung perfectly suspended upside down in front of me across the surface of the lake, Mounts Guyot and Baldy, upside down in all their glory, to my left, details almost clearer in the water than on the actual mountains in their upright state. Aspen leaves hung motionless, waiting for only the slightest breeze to throw them into a quivering frenzy, squirrels crouched and watched me, not sure what to do with the silence. The air was cool, and scented with sun-warmed pine sap. It was far too lovely to turn around, and before long, I found myself in Frisco. One of my favorite portions of the path was ahead of me, a series of sharp turns and wooden walkways through and over a large wetlands. This time, I could actually enjoy it because I was not on inline skates... skating over a boardwalk will pretty nigh rattle ones teeth out and have ones feet and ankles buzzing for a few minutes after, much like mowing the lawn does to your hands. Just to the Marina, I told myself, and kept running, my steps echoing on the boards. The marina came and went, and I found myself on the far end of Frisco, and wondering if I should turn around. The ADD kicked in with perfect timing, reminding me that I had just seen that route, wouldn't I rather explore some new area? And there's all this nice recpath between here and Breckenridge... so I stopped, peeled off the backpack, applied sunscreen, stripped down to sports bra and running shorts to dry the sweat, changed playlists on my ipod, checked my phone for missed calls, reassembled myself and kept going. Just to the end of the lake, I told myself. Just to Farmer's Korner, home of Summit High, the water treatment plant, a gas station, and a sudden population boom. By now a plan was forming, to keep going as far as I wanted to in this direction, then when I get tired, find a bus to take me back to Dillon. I actually stopped at the bus stop in Farmer's Korner, but after reading the schedule and realizing I had just missed the bus, and it would be thirty minutes till the next one, I recinched the backpack and kept running. By this time, I had a half-marathon in mind, and thought that I would have surely done it if I made it to Breck. It was the toes that decided it for me. My heels never blister, I dont have corns or any weird protrusions that my shoes rub raw, in fact I almost never blister from my shoes. My toes take care of that all on their own. The pads on the bottoms overlap, and step on each other, mile after mile, until they start to rub off on each other, and actually blister each other. It seems like something that might only happen to an improperly designed mutant. (Aww, shut up, you there.) Anyway, by the time they had carried me to Tiger run, still five miles from Breck, they were sending urgent distress signals with every step, and finally convinced me to stop, two miles short of the hoped-for half-marathon. As the clouds gathered and the wind sprung up, I took the Summit stage home, still feeling like I had run left in me, glaring at my mutant toes that refused to cooperate. It is so frusterating when one cannot use up all of one's energy and stamina because one is losing one's skin in the process.



Oh, well, it still gives me something to work toward. I never have made it all the way to half-marathon, if I did, I would have to start working on marathon, which quite honestly scares me, because I am not at all sure I can do it. Actually, I am mostly sure I cannot. Maybe it's best to keep it at almost there, because we all know that if Susan fails at something, her world might just grind to a halt. A wise man once said, It is far better to never try, than to try and suffer the humiliation of failing. (Hey, it's my blog. My wise men can say whatever I tell them to say.)



By the time the Summit Stage dropped me off at the LaBonte Street stop in Dillon, B had finished his work for the day. It was only noon, and threatening rain so after a lunch of my sister in law's most innovative version of Ramen Noodles (cook the noodles and a handful of frozen peas together, dump off the water, add half the seasoning packet and a slice of cheese, and let the cheese melt into the sticky goo that holds it all together) I let B start the mower and mow the front yard before I felt guilty enough about sitting around that I offered to finish the back yard for him. The neighbor/landlord is out of town, so I mowed his lawn as well. This whole green-grass suburbia thing is kind of a drag sometimes. But then, nobody ever taught me that greenliness is next to Godliness. I spent most of my childhood crunching over dried-up buffalo grass, which turned emerald only after a gullywasher, until it dried out again.



I'll tell you something else that is a drag- Summit county housing market. Oh, not for someone that is in it, that owns a home, for them it is a regular cash camel. (More fun to say than cash cow, by the way. Comes from a movie.) People buy and sell homes up here at an alarming rate of speed, and to hear them talk, turn a tidy profit each time. Forty percent increase in twenty-two months. Must be nice, we say, as we earn our dollars one at a time and pay them to our landlord as quickly as we make them. We are looking at buying a place, to save ourselves rent. Oh, it certainly won't make us rich, but if we can just break even when we sell it, maybe we won't have to kick ourselves for buying a house for the man down the street. We can at least make payments on something that is ours, not his. And in the name of simplifying and downsizing, and turning a few of our more burdensome belongings into cash, both the car and the boat are for sale.



I guess that means no Lake Powell this September, if we have no boat. It somehow does not sound like as much fun to just have a houseboat, with no way to wakeboard, or ski, or tube, to maim, or otherwise kill, yourself. What could possibly be the fun in puttering around at slow speeds? But if we have no boat, that means we won't have to pay to park it when we find ourselves in some tiny economy condo with a minimum of two parking spaces per family and the laundry facility a ten minute walk away. Yeah, we'll miss suburbia, at least the two story single family home with two car garage, washer/dryer and a bathroom per bedroom, but look at it this way- no grass to mow. Only a geranium on the deck, if one feels a need to excersize one's green thumb. And solitude. No roomies. The american dream, baby. To live alone (alone can also mean "just the two of you") in far more space than one could ever need or want, while in other countries, several families exist comfortably in fewer square feet than your fat american selves would be willing to share with, say, a goldfish.



Oh, yeah, which brings me to the most appealing part of owning a home- pets. No more scanning the rental adds, and finding only np/ns. That would be "no pets/no smoking", by the way. I object. Not being a smoker, but a pet-lover, how could a faint whiff of litterbox ever be as offensive as the in-everything smell of cigarette smoke? And besides, this is Summit County. Nobody follows those rules except for us. Everybody knows that only a dog qualifies as a pet, and only tobacco qualifies as smoking. You can pet many things besides a dog, like a rat, or a cat, or a chihuahua or a toy poodle- those last two do not qualify as dogs, in case you were wondering, and everyone knows you can smoke things that are not tobacco. If ya get caught, you're gonna have bigger things to worry about than a security deposit, anyway...

Oh, well, it's alright. We'll figure it out, one of these times. In the meantime, till next time!