The day after Christmas I headed up to Vail to meet up with Jaime, her husband, and her husbands sister. We were delightfully greeted with about 6-8 inches of new snow which made the conditions fantastic. We skied pretty hard all morning and headed in for lunch. After lunch the weather took a bit of a drastic change as the winds picked up and the clouds moved in which made the visibility in the back bowls next to nothing. We had the complete vertigo feeling going on and you couldn't tell where the ground was. You lose all of your senses and it is a pretty wild feeling. Jaime and I actually ended up above a cliff and couldn't tell how far down it was to the landing. We worked our way through it and when we looked back up at the cliff it would have been about a 15-20 ft drop which would have been interesting not being able to tell where the ground was. We took a few more runs and then it was time to head home. All in all a good day.
After a pretty lazy weekend and one day of work I flew out to Detroit for Laine and Caseys' wedding. Justin and Erika picked me up from the airport and we headed to the Hotel where the wedding would be and where everyone was staying. When we arrived we went and met up with all of the family members who were already there including one of my favorite parents Mike Gordon. He was excited to see me as well and I had a lot of fun with him over the couple of days. Some other fellow Eddies who were there included Kyle Bartosiak, Risa Zander, and Jason Ball. We all had a great time and rang in the New Year during the reception. During some of the reminiscing Mike brought up a point that he remember most about me in High School. It was the day we graduated when he was handing out our diplomas. He shook everyone's hand as usual but when I came up I told him to come in for the "real thing" and gave him a big hug. He said I choked him up with that which was pretty funny! He's a good dude! It was good to see everyone and a great trip over all. I spent the whole flight and the next day sleeping and recovering from the nights festivities.
The day after I got back I headed out on a muddy bike ride with my buddy Rob. The weather was nice and it felt great but a bit awkward to get back on the bike. Most of the trail was pretty dry but there were some muddy spots and eventually on the north facing slopes it go to be a bit much in the corners and we decided to turn it around.
Over the next several days I actually got on the trainer which made me feel a lot better. It's amazing what the bike can do for you. Even though it is sheer torture to sit on the trainer inside I just put a movie on and make the best of it.
This week was a busy full week of work. We are currently into our year end reporting with deadlines next week. Other than work we had an eventful week here in Boulder and the winds were absolutely crazy. There were gusts of 100mph recorded in Boulder which lead to power lines and polls getting knocked down which eventually sparked several wild fires. One of the fires burnt over 1,100 acres, 2 houses, and 3 out structures including a barn. Thousands of animals were evacuated as there were lots of ranches around the fire area. The fire was in North Boulder just beyond residential areas many of which had to be evacuated. I first noticed the fire from work out in Broomfield. We had a good view of the fire making its way up the mountains. When I got home I could walk out of my apartment look to the North and see the fire raging furiously. We had sustained winds of 40-60 mph hour which just fueled the fire like crazy. Below is a picture of just how close it got to the Dakota Ridge subdivision. The fire fighters did an absolutely stellar job of saving structures and peoples lives. Kudos to them.
Today I am going to get on the mountain bike down by Red Rocks with a buddy that lives down that way. I told myself if the mountains don't get more than 6 inches over night I wouldn't make the trip up. Vail and Beaver Creek got 8-9in but I didn't feel like driving out that far at 5:30am when I checked the snow reports. I am going to head up to Copper Mountain Tuesday night to stay with Rob Habicht and his friends to ski Wednesday and then we are planning to go to Steamboat next weekend so I am not to worried about heading up this weekend unless a storm moves in over night.
All for now.
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