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!