Of Peyote and Presidents

Perhaps the most glorious weekend of snowboarding this season!

The awesome pics!

Friday revolved around Denver International Airport, which is a funny name for an airport that is so far out of town it should have the word “Kansas” in it. I dropped Jen off so she could see her brother in Chi-town. In return, I picked up John Litten (fellow drummer and former neighbor) who flew in from the Bay Area (LA face, but Oakland booty.)*

Being President’s Day weekend, the entire country was converging upon Colorado for skiing, much like when lemmings run in droves into the ocean. To avoid this rush, John and I awoke at -3 am, injected ourselves with Pete’s Coffee ®, and hit the road. (We did not share a needle, since John is an unclean, dirty whore). We were rewarded with an 80 minute trip (new record!!) and short lift lines at Breckenridge (for a little while). The I-70 Traffic Gods even allowed two friends, Staci and Tyler, to show up soon afterwards. We rode till exhaustion, and retired to a local pub for two of my favorite cocktails: Water for rehydration and beer for dehydration.

Now the two heroes of our story enter the scene. Andy and Katie from KC. They win the hero award because they had the shittiest weekend ever, and still remained in remarkably good spirits. They had awoken at -27 am, flown over Kansas, rented a car, drove through traffic, etc. After learning to ride for hours, and thus falling on her ass 759 times, Katie met us at the pub, and refused strong drink because she is a Buddhist Monk. Andy did not show up until hours later, because he was on the trail of tears with two snowboards walking to overflow parking, 25 miles away. He accepted strong drink.

We then capped the evening off at the Inn of the Arapahoe. The only notable thing about this hotel is that they put peyote on your pillow instead of a mint. I believe we saw fireworks while sitting in the hot-tub. At least, I think I saw fireworks. And a coyote talked to me. In Spanish.

Next day was even better! Free breakfast and a WALK to the lifts at Keystone spelled awesome. Staci decided to “pay-it-forward” and use her beginning snowboarding skills to help young grasshopper (Katie) whilst the rest of rode triple-XXX-double-black-diamonds (without moguls ). After we made the mountain our bitch, Tyler inspired me to attempt the terrain park with stories of his shattered knee and state-of-the-art peg-leg. I landed my first sizable jump, in which I’m pretty sure I went 12 feet into the air. And then saw that damn coyote.

We then retired for two very important covalent molecules, H2O and PBR. Several PBR’s later, our heroes, Andy and Katie finally show up at the pub, and so does Katie’s broken wrist. Que terrible! Katie’s remarkable training held strong as she once again refused strong drink AND the Vicadin she was carrying. It was with regret that our tragic heroes left to return to KC.

The weekend rounded out w/ John and I facing the perils of underage hot-tub sirens (beeswax in the ears man!), sub-zero winds at A-Basin, and a sub-zero house in Denver. I then returned to our starting point, Denver International Airport, traded in John for Jen, and all was back to normal.


* First person to name who that quote is by will get an entire blog entry devoted to them