Jul 2006

Ian's friend from high school, Lee came today! He lives in Denver, so he is going to hang out with us for a couple of days. He could be a professional mountain bike/adventure racer if he wanted to, so we shall see how it goes when we mountain bike tomorrow...
Other than that, today was a pretty quiet- I went trail running in the morning (SO much more fun and interesting than road running) and Ian rehabed. A visit to the pool was cut short because of more severe storms...
No pictures today, but tomorrow's should be spectacular, as we are going to ride the gondola to the top of the mountain!

White water kayaking is our new favorite sport. We took a three hour lesson this morning and are completely hooked. The first instruction we recieved once we were in the water, was "In white water kayaks, you really have to think with your butt."

These boats are very short (less than 5 feet) and you can manuever them quite easily with your hips and rotating your weight with your backside. We learned how to "eddy" "brace" and "surf." It was so much fun. The Yampa River is pretty low at this point in the summer, so it was a great time to learn how to navigate the rocks. I seemed to manage to ram into everyone in the river, while Ian expertly paddle down the river unscathed. I was also the only person in our group to flip over. It happened while I was trying to "surf" which basically means trying to balance the kayak upstream in the middle of a rapid. Ian surfed several times very well. I flipped on my only attempt.

Our visit to the natural hot springs was spoiled as four hours of fierce thunder and lighting storms rolled through Steamboat.

We are most definitely glad to be out of the DC heatwave and out west, where the tempreatures cooled to about 90 degrees today.

This morning we took a small hike to the Fish Creek Water Falls! It was very beautiful, peaceful and much more impressive than I imagined. Ian took some exceptional pictures.

The highlight of the day was most definitely the cinnamon buns from "Winonas" cafe in downtown Steamboat. They are world famous (featured in Bon Appetit and Gourmet magazines!) and possibly the most delicioius (and enormous) pastry we have ever tasted...

More pictures on the Flickr site!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/63163849@N00/sets/

While Ian spent the morning rehabing his ankle in the gym and the pool, I rented a mountain bike and headed to the hills. Heeding Ian's advice to take it slowly, as I needed to get used to the thin air, I started up at the base of the mountain, only to be passed by several groups of day hikers. I biked up hill for an hour and half, and it took me 10 minutes to come down. A bit depressing...as I thought I made more progrss than that.

So, these are the other things I learned about mountain biking:
1) It is just has hard to go downhill as it is to go uphill (alas, the only time I crashed was going uphill).
2) Mountain biking is a lot like skiing- you just have to point downhill and go. It is when you try to be cautious and ride slowly that you get into trouble.
3) Again like skiing, you have to look ahead of where you are riding- where you want to go, rather than right in front of you, because if you stare at that rock you want to avoid, you are sure to hit it.
4) It must be incredible to ski here.

I can hear my mom asking herself, "Where did she COME from??"
On the other hand, I bought pretty pink trail shoes and recieved three compliments for them on the trail!

After a visit to the pool, we are off to shop and eat downtown!

After spending the morning exploring some shops in the Cherry Creek section of Denver, we made the four hour trip to Steamboat. After a stop for lunch at the Smiling Moose Deli, we arrived at the very luxurious Steamboat Grand Resort. It is so beautiful here! There is a "breakfast balcony" that overlooks the mountains, a HUGE bathroom and a very comfortable living room and kitchen. We haven't had too much time to explore, but are very excited about the prospects of learning how to whitewater kayak, taking the gondola to the top of the mountain and swimming in the pool! (It is still hot...103 degrees today!!)
Be sure to check out the pictures on flickr!