ColoRADo

So I've never been to Colorado apart from the hour spent in the Denver airport for some random layover. That has changed... Kelly and I spent a couple of days in the mountains with the ever awesome Barron of Blood Lord Johnifer Gerweck and the supremely pleasant dutchess of Crispin Lady Leslie. Off the plane (which was late) as we were gathering our packages John and arm candy jumped us and stuffed us into a casket that had a weird swedish name on it and in oxygen deprived environment I thought it read Mule but I'm not sure that's entirely accurate. I do know that it did not create a lot of wind noise and had significant carrying volume. After being subjected to the ancient torture ritual somewhat obscurely known as "starving" the nobles allowed us some pizza from a small Breckenridge joint but by then my head was swimming from the lack of oxygen. I didn't think I was going to make it, breathing became something I had to concentrate on and sleeping in said condition is nigh on impossible.

To Be Continued... I'm tired and want to go to bed.

After the reluctant refueling we were chain ganged around the town to ensure our nobles had sufficient equipment for the planned excursion up the mountian the following day. When we finally made our way to dinner (there was significant debate weather we were even up for dinner) another rude trick was played on us! We weren't the only ones in the town that desired a bit of the dinner meal, in fact there was no place to eat that didn't have at least an hour wait! In fact one of the options was really unforgivably rude in turning us away, literally laughing in the Lady's face when it was inqired how long the wait was to eat. The employee was chastised and sent on his way, I hope he doesn't have a job anymore, he certainly hurt the public perception of the establishment. We eventually sat down at a mediocre resturant "RastaPasta" yea I thought you might appreciate the name. After the dinner we went to our cabin for a nightcap of cookies, somehting that became a nightly treat. Once we turned in for the night I had the most active night in a while between the urination brakes (apparently somehting that happens at altitude) and then every so often I would wake up gasping for air, just not used to the low oxygen content.

TBC.

Take III

The next day was the first day we expected to go skiing and we attired appropriatly and John went and purchased a helmet by the time he and Leslie came back from breakfast. I'm a big fan of helmuts and was surprised when I found out that John didn't use one but I don't think it was cool (or even available) when he was shredding east coast so he is forgiven. By the way if you are worried that helmuts won't be comfortable and won't be warm enough you will be wrong on the latter and it takes a couple of tries to find the right style and right size for your knoggin on the former.

So we walked into town from our cabin (about 3 blocks) and picked up the free ski bus that took us to the gondola that ferries us up to the bottom of peak 8. We ferried ourselves up the mountian just following John like lemmings albiet I was very slow due to my new rub wax job I had done earilier in the morning. Actually it was the single most pain in the ass thing the whole trip was all the traversing we did on Sunday. These mountians are huge compared to what I'm normally on and to get where John wanted us to ride takes a while and involves many flats which on a sticky snowboard is not fun at all. We skiied until lunch and went to the lodge to find a packed lodge with no place to sit. After much bullying and a few turf wars we got a table and commenced re-neutritioning. Coming back out we really started to feel the cold. Actually mostly what we felt was the wind and all the snow it was carrying! It felt like your face was going to be burned off even with a balakva on! We didn't last much longer but even though I just complained about the various things during the day the snowboarding was quite rad and we had done a significant amount of it. So it was with a satisfied air we left the mountian and descended to our quarters.

Dinner went much smoother and we got a table at a BBQ joint (something I have just gotten into) which served up significant portions of exelent faire. Down the hatch! then it was off to the cookie joint for the day 2 round of icing cookie sandwitches. It's really disapointing when you buy $20+ of cookies and can't finish them, they are so good but there is only so much stuffing one can do. Other than dinner sleeping was the other huge improvement on our second night, I only had to get up once! I was so stoked!

The next morning we collectively decided instead of walking to the mountain that we had down the street we would drive 40 or so minutes to Vail. I know this doesn't sound very smart but in reality Breckenridge was calling for a COLD COLD day and Vail is the king (perhaps prince)of colorado skiing was looking pretty good weather wise. We were not dissapointed! First of all my board was much faster today (all the excess was removed by friction) The weather was way way nice and the Mountian was huge with tons of great terrain! John took us a couple of peaks into the behmouth know as vail and skiied a lot of ungroomed acerage. I have never seen so much open skiing, let alone available right from the lift. It was incredible and We all destroyed ourselves (yours truely especially) keeping the turns coming.

TBC

But before you get all upset check out some pictures HERE.