Julia and I met in the Santa Cruz dormitory at UC Santa Barbara. We shared a love of art and hatred of the silly party culture at UCSB. Three years ago we connected after many years of not seeing each other and it felt like nothing had changed.
Last weekend I went to visit her in Denver. She's such a great influence on me because she is super adventurous! As the blog title notes, I'm really not adventurous. I am a software engineer, I go to work and I go home. I usually pick the safest route, no matter what. I can usually predict all the horrible things that could possibly happen before I start anything... it's my super power, that and falling asleep on command. So I've kind of taken on the life purpose of finding a more adventurous self because it sure sounds like a lot more fun!
So, back to my trip. We went to Steamboat Springs, CO, which is a lovely little ski town a few hours outside of Denver. It was 92 degrees in the afternoon and really super duper dry. I live in Seattle, our summers are cool and humid with really long days (beautiful by the way, you should visit!). So naturally we went on a hike. I tell you, this hike was easy and I exercise regularly. But man, the heat... I struggled a little bit. Needless to say, I survived! I think I drank (and sweat out) 3 gallons of water. Also, I got a phone call from my fiancée during this hike, informing me that my house might burn down, due to an apartment fire across the street. Luckily the heat and the hike helped to distract me from that. I'm so thankful the fire and sun gods spared me and my condo and my fiancée.
As we walked along the dirt trail, I noticed a little grey cloud move from beneath my feet with every step. They were grasshoppers! I think. So cool! Although, it was unsettling occasionally feeling them on my leg. There was also another other bug making machine gun noises. And there were so many beautiful butterflies! And ash white aspen trees with eyes (see the picture, these trees seriously have eyes!). Colorado had also recently experienced some rain storms, so things were unusually green.
After the hike, we went to a party hosted by one of Julia's friends. It was at a local museum, out in the country. What a gorgeous countryside and a beautiful evening! I chatted with an older gentleman who claimed there was an Osprey nest off in the distance. There was no way he could see it from where we were, so I accused him of pulling my leg (although he probably meant for me to walk a little bit). We didn't walk over, but we continued to try and see it as we were driving out of the parking lot. Also, for some reason, this museum has a live wild Elk. With a 12+ point antlers. It was so regal and gentle while eating carrots out of the hands of 3 year old children, yet he was also so very wild and most certainly untamed.
Oh the next day... Yup, we climbed to the TOP Thunderhead peak. Which is normally a ski run in the winter, with the gondola running in the summer for mountain bikers (crazy fast) and downhill hikers. Julia and I, we are adventurers, so we don't hike downhill unless we've hiked uphill! As I looked up from the bottom, I saw the halfway point where the gondola goes past a support pole and told myself that was the top. And when I huffed and puffed up to that point, I was so relieved that I actually celebrated! HAH! I said "Julia, don't tell me that this isn't the top". She said nothing and just kept hiking. Ugh. That was maybe halfway. Maybe 30 minutes later we made it to f*ck you point. Julia adequately named it such because you think you're almost done, but when you look up, the top is still so very very far away.
Needless to say, I survived! And the views were stunning. And we got to take the gondola down! Which I much prefer to hiking downhill. By the end I felt like I had scaled the Matterhorn. Later I checked the distance and elevation, it was less than 4 miles and just 2000 feet. It's amazing how I can look at something and make all these crazy assumptions that really color how I feel about the whole situation while I'm trying to tackle it. I saw the impossible Matterhorn, I complained about how hard it was... pretty much the whole time... but when I finished I realized that it was totally doable and I felt great. Julia, on the other hand, used run or hike up this mountain everyday and was perfectly content to walk in nature and talk to flowers. I thanked my dear friend for the challenge and the positive attitude and putting up with my whining.
Before the hike I asked Julia "what if I can't do it?", she told me "I know you can do it. And I don't usually think about whether or not I can do something until it gets to the point where I can't actually do it, and at that point I figure I can just turn around". How profound and simple. I have much to learn.
And for this accomplishment, we were rewarded with a blindingly bright rainbow, coloring the whole sky and showing us the way home.
The rest of our adventures were more to my comfortable suburban taste. They included elixers, donuts, a to die for breakfast sandwich, shopping, and of course, Julia playing with her food.
And now some flowers and other pretty pictures.
Last weekend I went to visit her in Denver. She's such a great influence on me because she is super adventurous! As the blog title notes, I'm really not adventurous. I am a software engineer, I go to work and I go home. I usually pick the safest route, no matter what. I can usually predict all the horrible things that could possibly happen before I start anything... it's my super power, that and falling asleep on command. So I've kind of taken on the life purpose of finding a more adventurous self because it sure sounds like a lot more fun!
So, back to my trip. We went to Steamboat Springs, CO, which is a lovely little ski town a few hours outside of Denver. It was 92 degrees in the afternoon and really super duper dry. I live in Seattle, our summers are cool and humid with really long days (beautiful by the way, you should visit!). So naturally we went on a hike. I tell you, this hike was easy and I exercise regularly. But man, the heat... I struggled a little bit. Needless to say, I survived! I think I drank (and sweat out) 3 gallons of water. Also, I got a phone call from my fiancée during this hike, informing me that my house might burn down, due to an apartment fire across the street. Luckily the heat and the hike helped to distract me from that. I'm so thankful the fire and sun gods spared me and my condo and my fiancée.
As we walked along the dirt trail, I noticed a little grey cloud move from beneath my feet with every step. They were grasshoppers! I think. So cool! Although, it was unsettling occasionally feeling them on my leg. There was also another other bug making machine gun noises. And there were so many beautiful butterflies! And ash white aspen trees with eyes (see the picture, these trees seriously have eyes!). Colorado had also recently experienced some rain storms, so things were unusually green.After the hike, we went to a party hosted by one of Julia's friends. It was at a local museum, out in the country. What a gorgeous countryside and a beautiful evening! I chatted with an older gentleman who claimed there was an Osprey nest off in the distance. There was no way he could see it from where we were, so I accused him of pulling my leg (although he probably meant for me to walk a little bit). We didn't walk over, but we continued to try and see it as we were driving out of the parking lot. Also, for some reason, this museum has a live wild Elk. With a 12+ point antlers. It was so regal and gentle while eating carrots out of the hands of 3 year old children, yet he was also so very wild and most certainly untamed.
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| F*ck you point! |
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| Almost the top |
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| Julia's "we just scaled the Matterhorn and there's a rainbow!" pose |
Before the hike I asked Julia "what if I can't do it?", she told me "I know you can do it. And I don't usually think about whether or not I can do something until it gets to the point where I can't actually do it, and at that point I figure I can just turn around". How profound and simple. I have much to learn.
And for this accomplishment, we were rewarded with a blindingly bright rainbow, coloring the whole sky and showing us the way home.
 |
| My predictably and somewhat humorously unadventurous pose |
The rest of our adventures were more to my comfortable suburban taste. They included elixers, donuts, a to die for breakfast sandwich, shopping, and of course, Julia playing with her food.
And now some flowers and other pretty pictures.
