Deb goes skiing in Rocky Mountain National Park

Saturday I went to Boulder to run some errands and have a look around. The most important errand was to pick up some kick wax for my cross country skis. One would think that I would have stumbled across the box where the kick wax is hiding, but no ...

Deb taking a break from skiing

Sunday I headed into Rocky Mountain National Park to go cross country skiing. Since Isaac still has my back-country cross country skis, I used what I have in Fort Collins - skis that are really meant for groomed & tracked surfaces. So, I drove as far as the road was open, parked my car, and started skiing along the road. The conditions were klister conditions, and the warmest wax had red silver ... this means whenever I would go for a big kick, instead for moving forward, my ski would lose grip and fly backwords. This made me look like a complete jackass, but was funny none the less. Of course, this was all complicated by the fact that the surface was packed/dimpled by hikers, so skiing the uneven surface was tricky to begin with. For as much as I complain, it was really nice to be outside cross country skiing (even if there was no view because of the weather ... sunny in the plains, cloudy in the mountains when they get snow).

Along the way, I passed a really cute retired couple from Illinois who were out snowshoeing. She was excited to be on snowshoes for the first time, and he was proud as could be to be out teaching her. He wore a really fun old swiss-style hat that looked something this, and he had to bust the bugle out of his back pack to demonstrate how he keeps the bears away (I would have thought the silly hat would be enough, but what do I know?). They were also kind enough to take my picture (above).

Roadside Elk

Outside of the park and near town, there were elk grazing along side of the road. Traffic slowed down as people took a look, and most pulled off to the side of the road to get a better picture. I could have pulled off, too, but no .... that's the tourist thing to do. So I grabbed my camera and stealthily took a picture through the windshield. Who am I kidding ... I'm such a tourist!

Big Thompson - where I won't be paddling any time soon

On the drive back, I went slow and scouted the paddle potential of the Big Thompson, which ran along the road through the canyon that leads up to/down from the park entrance I used. There were parts that looked like they would be a fun class II/III creek with more water in them, but care would be needed to pick days/times when one is not likely to anger the anglers. Then I got to this section where the road really pinches the creek against the canyon wall. This is not a section I will paddle any time soon. When I got home and looked it up on American Whitewater, it didn't mention the class II sections that I saw, but I think it mentioned the section I show here as a class IV. Yikes! I will be asking the locals about the class II section of this river, and the etiquette that surrounds paddling where people like to fly fish.

That's a bummer of a bagel

One thing I always enjoyed about Vermont was the plethora of good bagel shops around town. The Burlington area was small as far as cities are concerned, but there were places all around town where one could order bagel and cream cheese delights. Even at the cafeteria where I used to work, they had a fabulous self-serve bagel bar with quite the assortment of flavored cream cheese (6-8!).

Fort Collins ... not so much. After driving around for more than a month, I had not stumbled across a single shop. Not even a Dunkin Donuts that might have bagels. The cafeteria where I work has bagels, but they remind me of the pre-sliced freezer selection variety, and no cream cheese bar - just 50 cents for a single serving packet of plain Phily Cream Cheese for that is too scant to properly cover a bagel. No thanks.

In desperation, I turned to the internet. I found Gib's NY Bagels and Deli. Looking on their website, I started getting really excited. They talk a good talk, and most bagel shops I had been to back east were good, so why would I think that a bagel shop that bragged about how good & authentic they were would be anything but exceptional?

The next morning, I woke up and went straight to the shop. I was too excited to take the time to read the menu, so I ordered by favorite: onion bagel, toasted, with scallion cream cheese.

Authentic bagel person: "We don't have scallion cream cheese"

Deb: "Really .... but, that's such a basic flavor"

Authentic bagel person: "We have lox"

Deb: "Thanks, but lox is fish, I'm looking for a vegetable"

So, I had to read their menu after all, and settled on the onion bagel, toasted, with spinach & artichoke LITE substance that is supposed to mimic cream cheese.

That's right, folks ... every single flavor of "cream cheese" that they had in the shop was lite. The only real full-fat cream cheese options they had in the shop were plain and lox spread. So, the choice was this: runny cream cheese-like substance that had flavors thrown in an attempt to mask the fact that the cream cheese-like substance lacked flavor of its own, or real cream cheese that didn't have any fancy flavors (or had lox mixed in).

To be fair, the actual bagel was tasty - I'd even say delicious. But, can I really enjoy a bagel to its fullest if it is accompanied by lite cream cheese? I always thought of the bagel as a vector for ingesting yummy flavored cream cheese.

*Sigh* ... maybe I should look into living/working out of the Longmont office. It's near Boulder, and rumor has it, they have good bagels.

I'd better check it out before buying property, though ...