Denver. I got to kick it with my sis Devyn in the Mile High City for a bit before heading back to Idaho. We managed to pack a lot into a week including a trip to the Corn Maze/Pumpkin Patch/Trashy Fair complete with the Bird Lady (how did Atze get to Denver?) and miniature cheerleaders.
We headead up to the mountains for a couple of days where we stayed at a "condo" in Copper Mountain. Turns out said condo was perhaps the nicest residence I've ever been in and was outfitted with a $12,000 coffee maker and dueling pinball machines. That combination made leaving the condo seem like an utter waste, but the onset of carpal tunnel syndrome brought about by hours of hyper-caffeinated pinballing and the allure of some Rocky Mountain fishing finally got me outdoors.
I was lucky enough to be in town for my pseudo-sister Steph Noodle Kaboodle Doodle's birthday and we made a night of it. We rode bikes from their house downtown and I got to laugh my tucchus off watching three young ladies dressed to the nines rip around Denver on their bicis. People had absolutely no idea what to think, but hey, that's life in the mountains. The highlight of the night was watching the show Cavalia, which is a strange combination of Cirque du Soleil, Rodeo and Opera. Maybe this video will help clarify things. My two favorite parts of the show would be the acrobatic agility of the riders (read backflip on a galloping horse) and the fact that there is a mullet requirement for all male performers. Maybe that's some attempt at horse empathy? I've also never been in such a dense concentration of horse people before, and that was almost as startling as the show itself. The whole shebang was shocking and new and I had a blasty. We had a quick snack of leftover pizza in the Cavalia parking lot (keepin' it classy) and then it was off to the clubs for a dance marathon. I'd offer pictures, but my moves are too fast to catch on camera and too provocative for this blog.
Idahome. I grew up in a small mountain town in Idaho called Ketchum. My parents still live there and no matter how far I roam I'll always consider Ketchum my home. This trip back I was lucky enough to have some visitors from Holland join me and I got to show off some of Ketchum and Idaho's finer points. So after an 11hr drive from Denver with my sis it was straight into tour guide mode to try to show Tim and Laura the best side of Idaho. Tim was scouting my hometown as a possible location for one of his international mountain bike clinics so he got in a ton of good riding. I tried to go with him the first day, but since it was the off season it was more like hiking while pushing a bike. We manged to do a little pure hiking, see some wildlife (moose in my backyard and deer in the front) before heading down to Boise for a little American Living 101.
It was Laura's first time in the US so I figured she should probably experience a real football game; one where you can use your hands and the goal is to physically harm players of the opposing team. We don't have any professional sports teams in Idaho, so people pretty much worship the BSU college team. We figured we'd better jump on the bandwagon and luckily my Dutchies felt right at home donning some bright orange threads. We did a little pre-gaming in a spot so full of spirit that even the port-a-potty was in team colors. After surviving a blowout BSU victory in temperatures that would have shocked even Shackleton we headed over to lay hands on some quintessential American cuisine: fast food hamburgers.
Tim and Laura are absolute gold, funny and easy-going, the best kind of guests and I hope they come visit again. The rest of my all too short break I spent hanging out with my oldest friends, enjoying some QT with my folks and mixing in a little CX racing and my first night of bartending. Yup, I'm now an experienced, professional booze jockey.
I'm back in sunny California now, soaking up rays and getting some saddle time. Life is good, very good. But more on that later, and more wacky action T&T style...
