It's been a while ...

I admit it. It's been a long time since my last post. First I went to visit Isaac while he was in NYC, then Isaac made the long trip to finally move to Fort Collins to be with me. At this time, we were completely consumed with getting settled and enjoying so much that Colorado has to offer. We've been making new friends, hiking, climbing, and tubing on Boulder Creek. Somewhere along the way we decided to get married, so we had a wedding to plan and prepare. Job searches for Isaac, looking for a new home, moving into our new home in Broomfield, and getting married have also kept us pretty darn busy. I hope to write again soon with bits and pieces and pictures of some of the fun stuff we've done this summer and fall, as well as keep up with what we are doing in the present. In the meantime, here's a pic from our wedding photographer, Dave Russell.

Photo by: Dave Russell

More wedding photos can be found here, but you will probably need to establish a login with Pictage.

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 ...

Really?

Sunny in Fort Collins

Back in New England, we had our sunny days. They were nice. We also had our overcast rainy/snowy days. Plenty of them. Since moving to Colorado, I didn't experience any overcast days - pretty much bright, cloudless sunny days with highs in the 50's and 60's. They're the kind of days where it is impossible to be in a bad mood, and everyone is running around all cheerful.

That just ain't right.

While living in Vermont, I always took the overcast days for granted. It wasn't until I moved to Colorado and they were gone that I started to miss them. Really, really miss them. I'm not sure why, but I found the overcast days comforting. They were low-energy days. Days of low ambition. Days where I could be in my own little world. Days where it was O.K. to be grumpy. With it sunny all the time in Colorado, people don't use the weather as an excuse to be introverted. It's go-go-go, happy-happy-happy all the time. Makes me wanna smack someone. *smile*.

Until Thursday, when I woke up to this:

Snowing in Fort Collins

Sure, it wasn't the heavy snow that we got in Vermont, and it melted by noon. But, it was overcast, and it was snowing big, heavy flakes. It put me in a good mood. A genuinely, happy, peaceful good mood. When I got to work, everyone was pretty quiet and introspective, and I was really giddy. No one asked why, but that didn't stop me from thinking about the reason - with the overcast, snowy weather, it made me feel at home.

Deb takes a beating from the Beaver

Friday was an official holiday, so I went snowboarding. Thanks to a friend who is a ski instructor and gave me a couple of discount passes, I was able to enjoy a day at Beaver Creek for $40 (better than the regular price of $92 - ouch!). Boy, was this place ritzy - they weren't kidding when they advertise themselves as, "Not Exactly Roughing It". All of the buildings were super-fancy, the lift ticket purchase center confused me at first because I thought it was a coffee shop with all the interior dec work, and even the bathrooms were posh with the granite, nice lighting, and all the amenities one would find in the bathroom of a nice restaurant plus ski-specific amenities such as sunscreen. Of course, I didn't spend much time in the ticket lobby, dining establishments, or bathrooms - it was getting beat up on the slopes.

They had lots of really nice terrain, and it seemed well designed and laid-out. They had lots of beginner and intermediate runs, which was good because up until Friday I had only done beginner runs on a snowboard. My first intermediate run went really well, up until I got to the steep section with huge moguls that were solid ice on the back sides. That didn't go well, and I've got the bruises to show for it. But, I did make it down without any permanent damage. The next run I went on was another intermediate run, but I checked the grooming report first to make sure there would be no moguls. That run went well, but was exhausting. Speed control on stuff that is steeper than I am used to takes a lot of energy, and requires that I pull of to the side and rest regularly. There were so many nice/concerned skiers there, and they would regularly ski by to ask if I was ok. For a while I tried to tell them I was ok before they got to me by using the whitewater motion of patting the top of my helmet, but that just confused them. In the end, even though I had to rest a lot, it feels really damn good to be able to start riding intermediate slopes.

As for the rest of this weekend, I probably won't do much. My muscles are sore and it hurts to walk. I might take a drive to Denver to drop off some home cooking with a friend who just had a baby on Thursday. So exciting!!!

Isaac climbs the Black Dike

Isaac had a fantastic weekend, too. Ever since I moved to Colorado, he has been ice climbing up a storm. He's been climbing, well, like someone who won't be living in Vermont next season and needs to experience as much as he can before he moves out West. This weekend, Isaac climbed the Black Dike with his climbing partner, Chuck. The Black Dike is a classic New England ice climb, and Isaac had a blast. He told me that it was the best climb he has done, and was extremely giddy for days afterwords. I am so happy he got to climb it before he moves!

Isaac leading the third pitch

Chuck leading the Runnel (2nd pitch?). I guess the ice was so fat that there was no scary rock traverse needed.

A day at the slopes? office?

Friday was the day that my employer arranged to send our group (everyone working in the Northern Front Range, anyway) skiing for the day at Copper Mountain. We loaded the bus at the various offices (Fort Collins, Longmont, Boulder) and headed for the mountains. We spent the day skiing/riding, having fun, getting to know each other, and eating. It was a blast, and I really appreciated getting to know many of the people in the office who I don't work with directly. The snow was perfect, as they got 6" of powder the night before. Tired and satisfied, we took the bus back home. Looking back, I just realized something ... no one (at least no one I spoke with) talked about work the entire day. Lots of joking around, talk about families, talk about skiing ... but no shop talk! How nice!

I spent the rest of the weekend trying to recover from all the activity on Friday. I went to the Yoga studio, which was good. I also got a little more settled in my new home, and searched for some food that I was craving. I wanted to find a good Gyro shop in Fort Collins. I found Yum Yum, which won the local newspaper's award for best Ethnic food in Fort Collins. It was delicious, but not as good as Cafe Mediterrano in Essex, VT, and no where near as good as Ali Baba Grill in Golden, CO. Next, I wanted to find Bubble Tea. After searching online, I found that an Asian restaurant in town has some, so I gave it a try. The fruit tea part was ok, but they were really stingy with the tapioca pearls, and they put so much ice in the glass that it was hard to fish for the few pearls that were in there. Joyce made a mean Bubble Tea back in Vermont, and that will he hard to beat.

While unpacking boxes on Saturday, I finally found my cross country ski boots. I was really excited, because that meant I could go cross country skiing, finally, in Rocky Mountain National Park on Sunday. Or so I thought ... on Sunday morning, I woke up and realized ... all my kick wax was still lurking in a box somewhere that had not yet been unpacked. Dang.