Spring Slab

Today is the first day of Spring which means I officially survived my first real winter! I enjoyed every minute of it, especially since I never had to shovel my car out of the snow to leave the driveway. I didn't slip and fall on the ice and I didn't get any frostbite (though it felt like I came close a couple of times). Honestly I don't know what all the fuss is about, winter is fun.

However I have to admit that the Florida girl in me has secretly been craving some warmth. Luckily, Spring weather came early this year- it's been sunny with high's in the 70's for the past couple weeks. We took advantage by going climbing with Sean and Hunter at Red Rock open space. Drew got to lead his first sport route and I got to break in my new climbing shoes (yay for REI dividends!). We did some fun slab routes which is a type of friction climbing with minimum holds. My fingertips still hurt from clinging on for dear life so I'm going to keep the typing to a minimum.... here are the pics.

Drew's fun fact: The first known contraceptive was crocodile dung, used by Egyptians in 2000 B.C.

MLE in CO

This weekend my best friend Emily came to visit. She's a much better friend than me because she's lived in California for the past 5 years and I've never been to visit her, but within 6 months of moving to Colorado she booked a plane ticket to come see me. She flew in Thursday night so we picked her up from the airport after work and took her to the brew-pub down the street from our house. Friday we hiked Mt. Sanitas in Boulder which is fun because at the top you can see for miles east across the plains. As we were hiking we happened to notice some black smoke coming from the foothills north of us. Fortunately the smoke was downwind from us and the wind was roaring at 50 mph so we kept hiking (although I kept thinking about how the newspaper article would describe our death as another idiotic group of hikers who didn't turn around when they should have...).

After we escaped not-so-near death we took Emily to Pearl Street to shop and people watch. Little did I realize that Drew is actually in the group of people that are watched rather than watching. We had Bogey with us for the hike and you can't take dogs on the outside mall of Pearl Street so Drew hung back in a grassy area to soak in the sunshine and listen to one of the street performers. After Emily and I did a little shopping we went back to meet up with Drew. He then told us that while we were gone some college kid on a bike came up to him and asked if he wanted his lunch leftovers. Drew laughed and said "no thanks, I'm alright." The guy then said "what about the dog? It's a turkey sandwich." Drew turned it down again, but then later regretted it because he was pretty hungry from our hike.

Later that night Sean and Hunter drove up from Colorado Springs to hang out for the weekend. We made tacos and had our usual guitar/mandolin/awful singing jam session (think 20 minute long versions of The Weight and Wagon Wheel). The next morning Emily's college friend Crystal drove up from Denver to join us for snowshoeing in Rocky Mountain National Park. She had been up there last weekend to ice climb so she knew of a great snowshoeing trail along a string of lakes. The hike was only 4 miles round trip but we had a blast playing in the snow and being in the mountains.

Sunday was a little more low-key. We had lunch at Oskar Blues during their usual Sunday bluegrass jam session. Afterwards we spent the afternoon playing Bocce, slack-lining, and enjoying the spring weather.

That night Emily made us Shrimp Scampi and Tequila-Thyme Lemonade (which Drew called the Mojito's gay cousin). As Sean pointed it's awesome having such a talented cook for a best friend.

Today I went back to work while Drew took Emily to Denver to have lunch with friends and then to the airport. All in all it was a fabulous weekend, but I am exhausted and need a vacation from Emily's vacation.

Drew's fun fact: Kangaroos can't hop backwards.*

*Courtesy of Daniel Tosh