Hello and welcome to An Altitude Problem, the blog that's finally gonna just have to make time. I keep thinking that one of these evenings, I will have nothing else to do, the creative juices will be flowing, and I will not be distracted, and then I will write. I have been waiting for a week for yesterday, a day with no arrivals, so i could do all the things I have been saving, like write, clean out the jeep, give the dog a bath. Instead, I rode bike, then went to work anyway, and now today I need to do my work for today plus work ahead for Friday, so that tomorrow, another day with no arrivals, can be spent in Denver.

I did clean the house the other evening, but now the dog has dragged out...let's see, a king-sized pillow, a banana peel he (disobediently) grabbed off the counter when we weren't looking, my deodorant (ditto with the bathroom counter) a pair of underwear that he stole from a drawer left open, and a hanger (the kind from the dry cleaner with the cardboard bottom, which is now lying in slobbery shreds all over the floor). And that is just since he was released from our bedroom an hour ago. He can be so well-behaved at times, and at others...we wish someone woulda trained him better.

We have been wanting to get to Denver for a long time. It is amazing how hard it is to get out of the County, even to go to 55 miles away. We have to arrange for someone to take the phones, someone to be available in case of emergencies, make sure all the fires are put out and all the owners and guests are happy and all the maintenance issues are covered and all the contractors, vendors and realtors have their keys to units they may need to access in our absence. Most of the time, Marci can cover, as long as we have worked ahead, but we have to go on a day that is already extremely slow. And even then, since Bobby is the only one who can do any sort of technical or heavy maintenance, plumbing, door locks, heating, etc, we have to keep the phones close and be ready to drop what we're doing and race back if something or someone should fall apart. And when we go, we had better have a list ready, because if we forget anything, it will be a long time until we are back.

Anyway, high on my list is clothes, especially jeans. I have one pair that fits, and is not torn or painted. I am a bit puzzled over the fact that several pairs do not fit anymore. I haven't worn denim, or anything else not soft and stretchy for the last three weeks, until now, when the last of the scabs finally peeled off my lower back. And apparently, my week on the couch, followed by a week of limited activity was not kind to me. In hindsight, I probably shoulda adjusted the diet to my suddenly sedentary lifestyle. Not that I wont lose it again now that I am back on the trails, but I need new jeans anyway, and I may as well get them to fit me now, since I can always wear the jeans that fit my less-than-fit self, but there are no guarantees when I buy them to fit me at the end of summer when I have been manically biking for the last three months. By thanksgiving, I am hating life, because nothing is more miserable than being squeezed into tight clothes. And it doenst work to use that as incentive to keep the extra five pounds off, because as hard as one tries in the shoulder season to be as active as in the middle of summer or winter, it's just not possible. The mud, the rain, the cold weather, having to pay for gym memberships, then actually go to the gym, where working out becomes so structured and boring, the work schedule, setting up or shutting down the program, twelve hour days...it just doesn't work.

Next on the list is a stop at a bike shop that custom-fits bike saddles. Trek makes a decent full suspension bike, but their stock saddles simply leave a lot to be desired. Poor B now wears padded spandex (under a pair of board-short style outer shorts), but even with the added padding, he complains after a bike ride. I thought he was just being a baby until I rode his bike once. I thought my saddle was uncomfortable, but his is so much worse. So his will go to replace the bent saddle on my old bike, which I am trying to sell, and I will try to talk him into spending a bit of cash on his posterior, so that I can get him to come along on my longer rides (even though getting away for a bike ride is as hard as getting to Denver).

And, of course, eating out. It's always such a big decision, when we get away from our limited in-county options.

And Home Depot. Home Depot, then Lowes, if we have the patience for it. Home Depot has better light fixtures, Lowes has a better fireplace maintenence section. Just once, I would love to go to Denver and not have to go into that giant orange monstrosity.

And a super Wal-Mart, because our company always needs more shower curtain liners, more light bulbs, more kitchen towels and wash cloths, more $4.00 remote controls.

And Petsmart. Because Andy needs treats, shampoo, a new bone.

And, if we have time and are feeling abliging, a park. Because a yellow beast has spent all day in the car and probably needs to do some business, and we are feeling the effects of eating out. I am hoping that this time, we can even hit a dog park, and let the beast run off some energy with some other dogs, so that he can be good and mellow by the time we get home.

And last on our way out of town, ice cream, or a slush, or something cold and sweet, because we don't usually buy such things in the county. Even though we have a Dairy Queen, we never really consider it an option. That stuff'll kill you. Unless it's your or someone you know's birthday, or you eat/drink it on vacation. Nothing done on birthdays or vacation has consequences. And going to Denver is our mini-vacation. The something sweet is the punctuation that marks it as a bona fide getaway.

And that's pretty much what's up. I plan on writing a new post soon, a summit county trail guide for those interested, but I will make it separate from this one, so people don't have to slog through all things me to find what they're looking for. It is 9:15 already, but the phone hasn't rung yet, so we are both still in the house, trying to push off going to work as long as possible. Because after all, once you're there, no more leisure. And the day doesn't end at 5:00 many days, so you take the quiet when you have it. Andy had himself draped over my shoulders on the back of my armchair, snoring loudly, until a moment ago, when I leaned my head back and bumped him with it in an attempt to quiet the snoring, and he got offended and slid himself over my keyboard and onto the floor. A day at home is just what we all need, no biking, no working, no Denver, but I don't think that's gonna happen. Obviously, we want to play, actively remove ourselved from work on our days off, worse than we want R and R. Plus, if we are just at home, available for crisis management, chances are better than good that we would just end up at work anyway.

Hello and welcome to An altitude problem , the blog that's posting from the couch. That's right, other than two painful (for both dog and human) trips to the vet, lunch, and a teeny bit of work, another day has passed, and the me-sized indentions in the couch are deeper.

Bobby has had a heckuva week so far. He ran around, happy, then bummed, then happy again as he and his friends planned a day at the drag races, then those plans got canceled because of a longer than anticipated wheat harvest, then on again, then off again...in the end, everyone bailed except his dad, so they went...and got rained out. This has been one of those weeks for him. If it goes wrong, blame the manager. If a guest complains, blame the manager. If they don't like the view, blame the manager. It has escalated in the last few days, first one thing, then another. The other night, the police broke down the door of one of our units to arrest someone inside, then called us at 5:30 am to report an "unsecure unit". You try making sense of that, coming out of a dead sleep. After the third try, poor B realized he was saying the door did not lock anymore. Since the parts broken were custom, it won't be an easy repair. Then, today, we got that call we dread so very much, a call we have not gotten for two years- little biting bugs in a unit. I don't know if any of my readers are aware of how hard bedbugs are to get rid of, but take my word for it- nigh impossible. They come in, just a bug in someone's luggage, and they have to feed five times, then they lay their eggs, which are impossible to kill until they hatch, and start the cycle over. This means that it is a very slow process involving frequent extermination to kill them. Nobody is quite sure why there has been such an explosion of bedbug infestation in the Colorado resorts in the last few years, but there has been- even the most expensive, highest class, five star resorts have been known to not talk about the fact that they are quietly trying to exterminate the little critters. We are actually extremely lucky, we have only had three units ever infested, but it is a bit of a drain on the company, since they cannot be rented until the problem is gone. Needless to say, unhappy guests, free upgrade. All in all, it has not been the fun weekend hanging out with his buddies that he thought it'd be. Never mind that he came home early from getting rained out at the races to find me on the couch, hurting, bloody and still a little loopy from the biggest bike crash of my life so far, and has now determined that I am a...oh, let me count the names. Little idiot, little moron, little big stupidhead, and an array of nouns referring to my posterior, following the adjective little and an adjective referring to my mental capacity. Usually followed up with a pat on my head, his code for "I think you're cute." It is his own brand of sympathy, his way of expressing relief that I am ok, thinly disguised.

And the poor boy has been so sweet to me, all but swallowed up in the couch cushions like I am these days. He drives to town to get more margarita mix for me, lest my cup should run dry, brings me ice water when I get buzzed from the margaritas (Ok, that was just one day, but Jose Cuervo and his limey assistant had me almost forgetting I was in pain that day). He even brought me daisies one day, shoving them at me with a gruff, "Here. Feel better. And don't think I like you, now, just 'cause I got you flowers."

Okay, here's what happened. On Thursday night, I rode with the Divas, a great ride up Keystone mountain for five of us who were gung-ho to do it, a ride through the Keystone Ranch for the other ten or so. I've gotta say, I had a blast. I kept up with the leader, and burned down, and ended on a great note, then went for apres-ride margaritas and nachos at Parrot Eyes, in River Run, where, in a boozy glow, caught a great compliment from one of the gals I really respect for being one tough broad, concerning my future career as a racer. It was the third such compliment i had garnered in a weeks time, and I began to wonder to myself if it could ever be...? And decided that there was no time like the present to find out, the only thing I might lose was the race, twenty dollars and a little pride. The next night, while our friends were at the Rockies game in Denver, and Bobby was at the NHRA drag races in Denver, I copied the turn by turn directions to the next race course, over by Breck, clipped into my pedals, and headed through the ranch and up the road to the starting point. I sweated, climbed, pushed myself. Took the downhills fast, didn't let myself slow for the uphills, pushing myself as if I had twenty tough broads ahead of me on race day. Got rained on, my feet went numb after 15 miles, and, I'll admit it, I was feeling pretty darn bulletproof. I was even thinking I might not come in dead last, as long as I rode the course a few more times and had memorized where the tricky parts were. At last, shoes squishing from riding through a stream, I turned toward home, still pedaling strong. At 24 miles, I hit the highest point and started downhill, shifting up into 3-9 and still pedaling, still in race-training mode. Faster, and low, behind my seat, and then a giant crack as the back of my helmeted head slammed into the ground and I bounced and skidded off the trail and into the trees, my bike tumbling behind me. In retrospect, I probably should have been going a little slower, so the tiny gully washed at an angle across the trail did not yank my handlebars out of my hands and send me over them. I laid there, wiggling fingers, then toes, then arms, then legs, and finally eased myself into a sitting position, only to have dark edges close in on me, so I laid back down. At last, I could sit, and tried to stand with the same results. Twenty minutes later, I could stand in a bent-over position, so I dug my Allen wrenches out of my backpack and loosened my handlebars, straightening them from the 45 degree angle the crash had twisted them to. Slapped about a hundred mosquitos on my intact skin, and waved them away from the bleeding parts of me, and tried to lift my leg high enough to mount my bike. At last, I succeeded, and, head hung low over handlebars to keep the edges from closing in again, wobbled my way down the trail, braking the whole way. I rode, ever so slowly and drunk-looking, past the crowd of tourists enjoying their wagonride dinner at the ranch, and made my way up the hoofmarked gravel road to the entrance to the ranch, pedaling with the leg attached to my only functioning hip. I decided that mosquitoes sitting on my raw back would feel better than my bike jersey rubbing on it, so I hiked my jersey up and tucked it under my backpack. And then, just as I got to the top of the ranch road, oh, the irony, a big white and red SUV pulled up, light bar on top, Keystone Emergency Services emblazoned on the side. I wondered if I should ask for help, and accept any charges incured in the process, or if I should try to sneak by. I opted for sneaking by, fearing an inflated charge for medical services, since I hadn't thrown up I was pretty sure I didn't have a concussion. I probably should have remembered to pull my shirt down, because the medic caught sight of my bloody back and hollered after me.

Long story short, I didn't have a concussion. Nothing except my ego, my helmet and possibly my hip was fractured. I had dirt and gravel embedded in my helmet, both forearms, and a six inch high, nine inch wide portion of my lower back. The medic gave me a ride home, along with a lecture on what to watch for in case of head injury, refused payment, and made me promise to call Marci to be my babysitter for the evening, in case I got weirder than normal.

I have spent an innordinate amount of time between then and now on the couch. It is a long process to get up and down, a feat trying to keep from moving my left hip joint too quickly or putting weight on that leg, avoiding three large raw spots and numerous smaller bruises and scrapes, a towel under me to soak up all the nasties that drain from the now mostly de-gravelled arms and back. But I am on the mend. As of yesterday, I can ambulate about the house without the aid of a ski pole, walls, and countertops. Well, it's more of a sideways shuffle, but still. It's a huge improvement. I do not think the hip may be broken anymore, considering the rate of improvement. Just a deep bruise, a huge relief. Bobby says he hopes I remember the pain, and it slows me down. I believe it just may.

Andy, on the other hand, is as of today, no longer a whole dog. I eased myself out of bed and into the car this morning, and hauled him to the vet. He is now bumbling around the house wearing a giant plastic cone on his head, to keep his teeth away from the stitches on his nether parts. I picked him up at 3:15 this afternoon, still a little dopey from the morphine, and he has been taxing my patience ever since, not at all the groggy puppy that he should be after such a procedure. It may have made him worse, since obedience completely went out the window afterwards, and I ended up crab-walking through the neighbor's yard after him, using my scary voice, the one that usually has him showing his tummy and begging for mercy.

It is now Tuesday morning, another idyllic mountain day. I believe this is the first day I will not spend on the couch, and I am loving the idea. Although neither Andy nor I are fit for the trails yet, we are ready to go and get a little sunshine, do a little work, hang our heads out in the wind and smell the smells out there. We've taken our pain pills, had our breakfast, even removed the cone from Andy's neck, and hope he will continue to leave his nether parts alone. Bobby has been out doing damage control for quite a while already. He admits, these days, to staying up later and later at night, just to enjoy a few more hours before he has to get up and do it all over again. As of this morning, the latest is, the unit damaged by the forced police entry and the fight that got them there in the first place, now has an owner checking in in two weeks. No doubt Keystone Resort (the master of reporting to owners, if it makes their private-company competitors look bad) called them up and embellished a bit, and now they must come up and see for themselves that they still have a nice condo. Which means it must not be in the same condition they last saw it in, it must be better. While bookings are up, especially last-minute bookings, and it is a good thing for the company, it is stressing us out a bit that now that it is The Season again. Traffic is a nightmare, and summer vacationers can make such a mess of yards, hot tubs, and decks, something we don't usually deal with in the winter, and everyone wants a grill, and does not understand why we do not offer them to our guests (fire code and HOA rules). So I shall run along and go offer my invalid help (a term that Bobby has been using since Friday, with emphasis on the -val-, not the in-.)

Hello and welcome to An Altitude Problem, the blog that's housebound on some of the most glorious high-country summer days, and not liking it. I have actually saved posting to this blog for a time when the boredom really struck, and looked forward to it as a brief break from the monotony of the couch.

At the risk of sounding incredibly self-centered, I occasionally procrastinate posting to this blog when there has been a tragedy amongst our circle of friends, because I become a voice that stays online and can be referred to later, and even when I read over back posts, I sound a bit unsympathetic, devoting a paragraph to the life-altering happenings of friends and then telling my own adventures for the week. So in the past, when I have mentioned the deaths of friends (there seems to have been a bunch of 'em lately) I tend to skip over them because the rewriting of the details are just too taxing, and everything that can be said already has been. But it feels crass to not even give those who have left us, and their families, the slightest mention, so I do mention, and hope my readers can read between the lines. And this blog wants to be a happy place, the one place that can afford to be in denial of real life. It wants to be like a trip to the movies is for me- I despise realism in my breaks from reality. I want fantasy, and happy endings rarely found in real life, because real life is hard enough without having to empathize with fictional or semi-fictional character's heartbreak and tragedy.

So, for just a paragraph, I want to mention the Williams family, and the loss of their 16 year old son, Jamon, who had a fatal car wreck on his way home late Thursday night. Since Galen and Lori thought they heard him come home, they did not know anything was wrong until the following morning, when he was not in his bed. They found the accident, along with paramedics just arrived at the scene, the next morning. The report is that death occurred quickly, if not instantly.

I have been doing a good deal of thinking about people's response to tragedy lately, analyzing how people change in the face of it, how my own family and friends have changed in the last few years. I am not referring to myself so much, although I do include myself when I refer to us, but I do not want to minimize the loss of those who have buried spouses, siblings, parents and children by including myself in their ranks, I have not lost any of those. I am sure that if/when I do, I will find the feelings again that are supposed to be associated with loss.

When one is new to it, when it is one's first experience with death, it is so traumatic, and we spend so much precious energy screaming about how unfair, how senseless, how unimaginably wrong, how untimely, how could this have happened. For the first time, we realize what "simply not there" means, and we fight the awful reality of never being able to go back to how it was. We feel the incredible emptiness of a world in which our loved one no longer exists except in memory. Eventually, our tears run out, and in spite of ourselves, we begin tasting our food again, and laughing at a joke, even one that reminds us of our loved one and ends in a sob. We go back to work, we deal with problems as they arise, and we start to live, as much as we feel we owe it to them to stay in our grief forever. The wound, angered as it was by our raw emotions, will always be a little open, because every memory of the person's life ends in remembering the power of our emotions when we lost them, the emotions that make every memory bittersweet.

And then, when it happens again, we wonder if we are expected to go through all those emotions again, start all over, and give this loved one their due, as we did the last one. Or if there is something wrong with us, that we are not able to find the angry, hurt, devastated energy in the loss, like we did the first time. We wonder, for the first time, if we should have been expecting this, or if maybe we were expecting this, in some back reaches of our subconscious, because we are just not falling apart like the first time. So we go through the motions, and instead of expressing our grief, we read it in each other's faces, and we know. Whatever we could say, we know. We cry until we are exhausted, and then we stop, and we go back to work, and back to our lives, and feel guilt that the sky did not fall in, that we did not break down, that we kept on living and breathing and functioning.

And then it happens again. Even to summon the debilitating grief of the first time seems overwhelming, and we feel, to our horror, just a tinge of... apathy? Instead of feeling shock, we feel resignation. Instead of horror, depression. Instead of fighting the loss, we nod and rattle off the details of how it happened, the last time we saw them, what they said, the endearing details of their life, and see other's eyes widen, see them struggling to put themselves in our shoes, see them faltering because they cannot imagine if they had lost someone so dear to them. But we, ourselves, wonder if we have forgotten how to feel anything, we wonder if we will ever realize what we have lost and if maybe a total breakdown is in store for us when we do, or if maybe we have finally come to see death as an inevitable, unavoidable part of life, and stopped giving it the power it demands.

I am not on this tangent because it relates in any way to Galen and Lori's loss of Jamon, only in that their loss has made me a bit introspective about loss and grieving in general. Wendell spent the night here last night, and since I am mostly couchbound (more on that in my next post), he humored me and sat here and entertained me for a while this morning before heading home. It was a topic of discussion then, and a couchbound mind has a lot of time for thinking.

You tell me, I do not know. I do know that with my first experience with death, Lori herself held me, let me cry, rocked me through the endless hour between when I heard those words over the phone, and someone arrived to pick me up. She absorbed some of my incredulity, my outrage and shock that something like this could happen, that someone with a newborn baby and two little girls could die, just like that, under a flaming sunset, on a night just like any other. I hope that someone was there to do the same with her, when she lost her son.

And after that, I am going to have to start a new post to talk about all the crazy stuff happening in our world. I'm going to need to switch mental gears...

Hello and welcome to An Altitude Problem, the blog that's never wanting to work again. Sure, i have work to do today, but somehow, I just don't want to peel myself off my chair to go do it. I want to mountain bike. Or hike. Or go to the lake. It's not a lack of ambition that still has me glued to this chair, but rather, a severe aversion to getting in my Jeep, driving to Keystone, and nit-picking over little details that may or may not enrich our guest's vacation experiences. Besides, Andy just climbed onto the back of my armchair and draped himself behind my neck. I can feel his little heartbeat on the nape of my neck, my head tilting forward a bit with each breath he takes. He stinks.

It has been awhile since I last wrote, I know. Let's see...there was the World Music Festival last weekend at Keystone, which meant a crowd...and all the Porsche's rolled into town for their annual rally, which meant thousands of pint-sized sports cars everywhere one looked, and their owners. I'll just not say anything about that, since several pf those said owners helped put groceries on our table by renting from us. And then the weekend of 4th, which, after I had spend all week running around getting ready for it, went quite smoothly for me. It was a different story for Bobby, who had to run around like a crazy person, a plumbing problem here, a locked-out guest there, a non-functioning fridge there, a broken microwave there.

On the second, Jeremy of Another Blog arrived with his roommate, Davis. They had been making their way from Flagstaff to our place for several days, spending a night in Moab, then driving up here for two days over their Fourth of July break from school.

Jeremy and I hit the trails on our bikes first thing the next morning. We climbed Keystone, grinding uphill for six miles, 2,340 feet, before cresting the top, taking a breather and a few pictures, then pointing our bikes downhill for a fun, fast ride down Mosquito Coast, a trail that incorporates turn berms, bridges, roots and rocks into a fairly rough, fast ride. Jeremy rides a hardtail 29-er, which, for those not fluent in Bike, means that he has no rear shocks and 29 inch wheels instead of 26 inch wheels like most mountain bikes. His bigger wheels give him the advantage of a smoother ride, and a bit more speed, I think. He did kick my butt on the downhill, which was a bit humbling, since I have the advantage of full suspension and should have been able to coax more speed out of the little Stumpjumper, or at least a little less brake. We got back from the ride, had lunch, chilled out a little, then talked Davis into a bike ride, in spite of his being a bit iffy on the whole concept of riding off-pavement. We did the Mushroom Trail loop, forcing Davis to steer through the tight trees, around rocks in the trail, over the stream crossings.

The next morning Bobby offered to drive us to our trailhead, to save us four miles of uphill jeep road to get there. Bless his heart, it was wonderful. He even took us through the stream at the beginning of the ride so we wouldn't have to get wet so early in the morning. We rode over West Ridge, three miles of old mining roads and a short spur of uphill singletrack to the top of the ridge, where we connected with the Colorado Trail. We rode the Colorado trail down off the ridge, several miles of downhill, a smooth, loamy singletrack, tight switchbacks, cool shadows pierced by shafts of sunlight. As soon as the trail popped out of the trees, we took an intersecting trail that dropped into the Keystone Ranch, then climbed up to Blair Witch Trail. Blair Witch is a windey, twisty-turny trail that comes out on another section of the Colorado Trail, which we rode for only a few minutes before turning onto the Meadows Trail (at least that's what we call it) and descending through a few muddy meadows back to the bottom of the valley, then pointed our bikes toward home. It was about a 15 mile ride. We came home, had lunch, made a trip to the bike shop, then came back and met Bobby at home, jeep all cleaned out and ready to go. We all piled in the jeep, my three boys, Andy and me, and, even as the rain threatened us, headed up the hill to Montezuma. We drove up Saints John road, through the ghost town of Saints John, past the campsites of dozens of weekend campers, and topped out on Glacier Mountain, far above it all. We located the rocky outcroppings we skied off of in the winter, peered over the edge into the basin below, and took the word of returning fellow jeepers when they said the top was impassible because of lingering snowfields. On the way back down, we walked through the cluster of dilapidated cabins, all that is left of the Hunki Dori mine, then bounced back down to Montezuma, Andy trying, and failing miserably, to find a spot secure enough that he could sleep without being bounced onto the floor.

We rode to Frisco that evening for the 4th of July fireworks, 10 miles of pavement in 45 minutes, and got there as the last of the sunset was fading. We met Bobby there, parked on the side of the road for a quick getaway after the fireworks, when thousands of people are also making their way out of the marina and onto the highways. He had brought Andy, and the five of us elbowed our way through hordes of people, glowsticks, and dogs and found a spot out on the end of a dock, by the fuel pump. Andy had a tiny freak-out when the fireworks started, but it ended almost before it began, and he settled down between Davis and me and rolled over for belly rubs, basking in the reassurances I gave him. Before the fireworks ended, he had made friends with the people behind us, knocked over one of their beers, lapped it up like a regular little alcoholic, and still garnered hugs and ear-rubs. It was a good, if a bit cold, evening. The lake was calm, a mirror for the fireworks, and we had a front-row seat, out on the dock. The moon was bright, and I must say, it was a bit magical. We even escaped the traffic jam, thanks to our strategy of parking for a quick getaway and taking Swan Mountain Road home, instead of the Dam Road. As we were cruising home, we could see the string of brake lights across the dam.

And now, it is a day later than when I started this post. I am doing the same thing I was yesterday morning- procrastinating going to work. My bike is already on the jeep, I took Andy for a spin around the Mushroom Trail this morning, and now, if I can leave him with his daddy this afternoon, I want to go ride Keystone. It is already a warm day, just warm and humid enough that I may not get that done before the rain moves in. And I need to dismantle this house to find my sunglasses. I put them in the jeep console saturday night, brought them in the house (i think) yesterday morning, and haven't seen them since. Didn't need them all day yesterday, but today is a good day to generate a massive headache without them.