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.