Colorado!

July 1, 2006

I opened my eyes this morning to the familiar mountain presence of Beaver Creek – listening as the steady stream of cars made its way up the main Boulevard toward the ski lifts. Without snow though, who knows where they were getting an early bird start to. I tried to sleep in longer but considering I went to bed at 9 pm last night, my internal clock was urging me to get up and hydrate. The air is dry here – perfect for producing massive boogers.

Yesterday we made the venture from Seattle to Denver. Mom called at 5am and I realized I had missed my original wake up call so it was a mad dash to shower and throw all my bike gear in the car. Things at the airport were moving slow and technically we didn’t have any time to dawdle so I had to buy some food out of the vending machine. Mmmm granola bars. And I’m usually so good about packing travel food!

We got to Denver, rented a HUGE Suv (mainly to hold my insane amounts of bike gear) and fought lunch time traffic into Lakewood, a suburb of Denver. The car temp read 113. It’s hot and dry here. Our other objective on this trip is to do some inspections so we headed to Gam’s Lakewood Starbucks and met with the store manager and our property manager. Both were super welcoming and super happy with the way things are run at that store. Easy trip. And a tax write off! I talked with the property manager about the doping scandal a little – both of us amazed at its implications but the sad reality of the situation – drugs run deep in the system. That’s too bad.

We continued on our way up I-70 West into the mountains, only to make it about 15 miles out of the suburbs when traffic came to a dead halt. When we finally made it to the scene, a Class A motor home had caught on fire and burnt all but the frame and fireman were frantically hosing it down with water. We turned on the radio and heard that all weekend traffic was stopped and backing up toward the 470 toll highway - boy were we thankful we made it out before it got crazy!

It’s a long ass trip up here to the mountains – definitely a full day of travel. But once you’re here – it’s beautiful and everyone is in resort mode. Smiles come easy and the service is amazing. Ryan and I came in December and spent Christmas skiing the slopes – to see it in the summer is such a contrast! Everything is super green – but much different than Washington. Not to mention your at about 8,000 feet. I’m happy to have a couple extra days to acclimate though.

We will spend another night here and then head down to the Springs to do some bike racing. Oh yeah – come to find out one of my mom’s old friends from Eugene called yesterday and her daughter Paige is dating Adrian! Small world!