Science and Nature Museum

Kristen, I, Maddock, Allison, Katie, and Jordan met up at the Science and Nature Museum on Saturday. There was a lot to see and do, and a few crowds to fight. Maddock seemed to enjoy it, although he fell asleep right away during the IMAX movie.

The rest of the weekend was really lazy. Kristen did a lot of cooking on Sunday, making raisin and challah bread, and home made strawberry ice cream. We cooked a big Easter dinner, and celebrated the holiday with the cats.

Since we don't have any pictures to share, here's a "Making of" video for Becky's birthday party. There's only a little cussing involved.

Quick Post

I'm falling behind on the posting, so here's a quick one. I took off Friday to head up to Winter Park for one last hurrah. Morrissey and I timed it well, it snowed over a foot while we were up there. We stayed overnight so that we could enjoy the snow on Saturday as well. Luckily the roads were clear, and the trip back was easy.

We were curious to see how the Silverton trip skewed our perception of the more advanced terrain at Mary Jane. It certainly made everything feel easier, although some of that may have been the excellent snow we were on. All in all it was a great snowboarding season, I got 21 days in, which is probably my record. On Friday we did 20 black or double black runs. I'm only recording this here so that when I'm well into my "crotchety" age, I can verify the memory of my snowboarding glory.

The Boulder area avoided the big storm that hit the mountains, they were claiming that over a foot of snow was possible in town, but instead only got a few inches.

Kristen did some baking, she's a big fan of the dough hook on the KitchenAid. I had warm raisin bread waiting for me when I got home. It also made for good french toast the next morning.

Sunday was really laid back, we didn't accomplish much at all. That was exactly as awesome as I hoped it would be.

Happy Birthday Becky!

Happy Birthday Becky!

Blizzard!

We had a bit of a blizzard on Thursday. Boulder got around 16 inches of snow within 24 hours. Kristen got stuck trying to get home early, which gave me and excuse to try out the four wheel drive on the Rav4. With the number of accidents and resulting traffic, what should have been a 15 minute drive took over two hours.

Even though most of the Denver area got hit hard, the ski areas only reported a few inches of snow. Oh well.


We're starting to get ready for the late April farm trip. I've ordered a stove and we've packed a box or two to ship there. Getting the stove up into the tree house will be a bit tricky, I've started making a block and tackle to help with the process.


I worked on the pulley system most of the weekend. We did manage to make it to a going away party for a friend who is heading to Alaska in order to be a bush pilot. She's planning on driving up, camping along the way. That ought to be quite an adventure.

We also did a bit of spring cleaning, the place looks a lot better. Kristen did a bunch of cooking, involving pancakes, popeye eggs, cabbage rolls, cheese grits, fancy sandwiches, etc. It sure is fun to eat!

I took off on Friday morning with Todd and Morrissey to Silverton. Kristen stayed home to hold down the fort. She made it into Denver to visit her Aunt Penny and Sister Allison, but otherwise had a quiet weekend.

I survived the Silverton trip, and had a lot of fun in the process. I thought I was going to probably die only once. I was more than a little scared many times.

On our first run, we hiked up to near the top of the "Billboard", the strange structure on top of Silverton Mountain. We then proceeded to snowboard down one of the smaller chutes.


It was quite a first run, luckily it was by far the most difficult of the trip. The hiking was arduous, starting at 12,000 feet, and going up to about 12,750 feet.


The other option was to take the helicopter, but at $150 per run, it was a bit pricey for us, especially considering how poor the snow was.


There were quite a few runs that caused even the most experienced in our group to pause before dropping in. Not only was the slope exceedingly steep, there were often large rocky obstacles to avoid.


The three of us did have a lot of fun, and will probably make it back next year. It certainly has made resort boarding seem a lot more tame.

I'm all packed up and ready to head to Silverton in the morning. In a fit of snowboarding excitement, I uploaded another video from the Winter Park trip. It's shot from a helmet cam, so the quality is pretty low.

This last weekend involved an early morning trip to the Train Museum in Golden. Kristen and I met up with Allison, Joni, and Maddock. We arrived to find the place overrun with children, all very excited to wander around the various trains.


Maddock was pretty excited himself, and would sprint off in random directions yelling "TRAINS!". It was an exhausting couple of hours, Maddock slowly lost steam, and we eventually got him in the car.


On Sunday Kristen went for a big run, I biked into town to grab some lunch and met up with Morrissey. I spent a lot of time setting up the new home computer, it was fairly functional by the end of the weekend.

This upcoming weekend for me involves the big Silverton trip. Silverton is usually discussed in hushed, revered tones. I've heard many whispered stories about Silverton over the years, and am finally going to get to experience it first hand. It should be a pretty big adventure. The "easiest" way down has a slope of 35 degrees, which is pretty impressive. We'll be doing a lot of hiking at elevation, hopefully making it up to the summit of 13,487 feet. We'll see if our lungs and legs can hold up.


Kristen's already rolling her eyes as I practice packing my backpack. Just wait until tomorrow night when I strap the board on in the living room in order to sight in the helmet-cam!