That’s it. Hope you didn’t expect more.

Saturday January 14, 2012

Made the rest of the drive today to Vail. It was only just over an hour. I am feeling somewhat better today after a good, long night sleep last night. I’m still sick, but living with the problem. We got into town around noon, parked, and got oriented with the town. We are staying in Lionshead, one of the mountain villages in Vail. Our room is about 100-yard walk to the center of the village and the main gondola. Pretty sweet location. I walked around with GMB for a while, talking about the town and skiing, and answering his boyhood questions. GMB has never skied or anything even close to skied before. Everything he saw today he was seeing for the first time. It was pretty cute. Probably what it would be like if I had a 50-something year old son. I can only walk around a mountain village for so long knowing that all my gear was just around the corner not being used. It was a gorgeous sunny 30-degree day, so I excused myself from GMB and put my Epic Pass to use. I am really glad I purchased the Epic Pass. A 1-day pass for Vail is $116! I did about 6 or 7 runs this afternoon, all were good. Vail Mountain seems huge. They claim, “there is nothing like it on earth.” I didn’t see much of the mountain but I worked my way from one side to the other in a couple hours. It was late and everything was choppy. I plan to be out there first thing tomorrow morning. Nothing to report for snowfall here in Vail, but the extended forecast has just recently changed to snow showers for most of this week. Fingers crossed, but it is hard to have faith. Apparently there is no god or Jesus, Tebow is down 35-7 at the half.

The room we are staying in is something else. This is the smallest room I have ever stayed in while I am staying with the largest person I have ever roomed with. GMB is about 6’11” and there are no beds in this room. There is a pull out sofa and what GMB is calling a ‘murphy bed’. It is a bed that folds up into the closet?!? What the eff is that? I feel like I am in an episode of The Three Stooges or Laverne & Shirley. Both unfold toward each other and they touch each other at the end of each mattress. It is like the 2 beds are bumping helmets. There is not enough room for both beds to be out. One of us will be sleeping at a slight incline all week. I am pretty sure I know which one of us it will not be.

I have felt so rushed, hurried, and on the move for the past few days. I guess I have been all of those things. I am hoping now that I am here and settled in, I will be able to relax into this trip and enjoy what I have set out to do. The Snowboard Gypsy is searching for Zen.

Friday January 13, 2012, yep that’s right. Friday the 13^th.

Wow, what another hell of a day. So many things, so many stories. Did about another 850 miles today. Currently west of Denver somewhere, about an hour from Vail. I think that is the current plan, head to Vail. Take a couple days to settle in, slow down, and adjust to everything. I got some help from my close friend and travel assistant Bradford today. He pointed us in the right direction. And he did it in typical Bradford fashion, while making everyone laugh, yoinks. It was smooth steady driving. Once again, no traffic. Seems odd, but there was no traffic. I can’t decide if there is just nobody that lives in the areas we are driving through, we are in places that nobody cares about and want to be at, or just getting super lucky. I saw gasoline today for as low as 2.79/gallon. It was 85 octane, but whatevs.

Friday the 13^th started early for us today. We ran out of gas, yes, 2 adult men ran out of gas on I-70 westbound at exit 85 in Kansas. Here is my version of the story. GMB was driving, I was taking a nap in the passenger seat. Next thing I know we are sitting on the shoulder out of gas. That is my story, and I am sticking to it. If GMB has a different version you can go read it on his website. Luckily we only sat still for around 10 minutes. A cop and a service station guy both showed up and sold us gas within 10 minutes. We were pretty lucky. Before they got there GMB and I got out of the car, started Tebowing on the shoulder of the highway, nothing happened, then we realized we had not crossed into Colorado quite yet. But then shortly after we were! Colorado!!

Before we left the hotel this morning we had their continental breakfast. Everyone has seen a continental breakfast before and we are all familiar with how dreadful they always are. The one this morning had something neither of us had ever seen. It had an individual pancake maker machine. It was pretty cool, and completely new to me in the world of things I have seen. I was somehow able to take the coolest thing that has happened so far on this trip and make the most boring video in history out of the event. It’s here unfortunately.

We were at dinner tonight in some hole in the wall local diner. Probably my favorite way to eat when I travel. I made a few personal revelations about myself during that dinner. First, and most important, I am probably going to be wearing a cowboy hat before the end of this trip. Next, the town we had dinner in is probably the kind of town I would like to ultimately move to. The lady at the table next to us paid for her dinner with a check…a paper check. If you are not sure what that is, Google it. Since I fell in love with the town I took the liberty of grabbing some real estate papers. I think I might put an offer in on a spot there, but please don’t tell Wife, she might be upset. I think her one rule to me when I left was “don’t buy any land”. Seemed like a weird rule when she said it, but I guess I get it now.

Today was Amber Alert Awareness Day. There were signs about it all over the interstates flashing nonstop. Once GMB and I saw them we decided we better be on our best behavior. Seemed like an odd thing to have an awareness day for. Is there really someone that would see an Amber Alert on another day and think to themselves, “I’ll call tomorrow, it’s awareness day.”

Somehow in the past 24 hours I have gotten deathly sick. I feel like hot buttered crap. Everything from my shoulders up is wrecked. I hope a good night sleep fixes this. I went through 2 boxes of tissues today. I just drank some Nyquil and waiting for that to kick in while finishingggggggg12wsxde3frvbghnm,?,kjukl,.l/

Speeding tickets that is. Thanks a lot Ohio.  Other than that today was a successful first day of cross-country driving. Right at 1000 miles and a 15-hour day. Not quite sure where the destination is yet, but it is either Vail or Jackson Hole. Sleepy time now. I hope Ohio is swallowed up by a tidal wave that somehow magically skips over the entire right coast.
More nonsensical rambling about today HERE.

Last night Wife and I went on a dog sled ride and dinner at a place in Snowmass called Krabloonik. It was not quite what we expected, but ended up being quite a fun and unique time. I don’t think us or any of our dog team will be winning the Iditarod anytime soon, but we did set a world record for number of running dog deuces. George Carlin has an old bit about how you never see anyone “Taking a shit while running at full speed”. The late and great Mr. Carlin obviously never went on a dog sled ride.

It became obvious during the picture sequence when and where I spotted the camera guy. If you watch the pictures in sequence you can see where I first spotted him, then I tried to act natural for the camera, then it simply turned into an uncomfortable staring game between me and the cameraman. What a weirdo I am.

Last night made me examine exactly how we treat our dogs and just how lazy those mutts are. As soon as we get home they are either going to have to get jobs or enroll in community college. Roller coasters.[nggallery id=2]

No, it’s not a dwarf telling you that your hair smells nice. It is waking up in the morning, flipping on the news, and seeing this image flash across the screen:What is happening to me right now is the equivalent of Jeff Spicoli heading over to the Australian and Hawaiian internationals only to find out that the ocean has dried up. Then winging on over to London only to find out that Keith has finally died of an overdose. He would be one sad stoner. I think I have made it pretty clear how I’m feeling right now. A snow drought? Really? Is that even a thing? If there was a god I’d swear he was smooting me…smiting me…either way, something bad. Luckily I live in the age of hot chicks giving out the weather.

I guess if you order a dessert called a “snowman”, you shouldn’t be surprised if this is what you get. It might just be the cutest dessert ever. It seemed like a tragedy watching him get eaten. Unfortunately this is the most snow we have seen in one place our entire week. I swear I heard him scream out in agony as the spoon knocked away his corncob pipe, plucked out his eyes of coal, bashed his button nose, and dug into his snowman brains. Thank you Jimmy’s Restaurant in Aspen!

PS-all the boring stuff is not located under “The Daily” tab

Can you believe this is the same person in all of these pictures? In the top pictures he looks to be the smoothest, most hip fella, soaring through the air with the grace of an eagle. However, in the other he looks like an absolute degenerate with no table manners and the common sense of a bag of burnt dog turds. I promise you though, this is the same human being in all pictures. Somehow he has invented the long sought after spaghetti sandwich. I have no idea how we have existed this long as a species without the creation of the spaghetti sandwich. He has somehow taken the cumbersome act of eating spaghetti and made it even more of an awkward, clumsy hassle.

This young man’s name is Nick, he is a fine upstanding democrat. Wife and I both agree that he is one of the nicest kids we have ever met. Knowing him partially negates my experimental concept of abolishing all burdensome children from the planet.

www.nicksspaghettisandwich.com

The Carnival is officially under way. Made it into Colorado yesterday unscathed, without delay, and arms full of caramel apples. Needless to say, I’ve got a sour belly. But that is not going to stop us from dashing to the slopes this morning. We are about to brave some of the worst and most dangerous conditions the locals have seen in years. Because of the lack of snowfall there are bare spots and rocks jutting out. Then we told them we are from the east coast and they said we would be just fine and feel at home.