Pete's Log: breck-o-rama
Entry #763, (Life in General)(posted when I was 22 years old.)
Breckenridge! Woo! Woo! Made it out of CB at about 2:50 on wednesday. Gassed up in Gunnison, then picked up Rich (I'm pretty sure that's what his name was) on my way out of Gunnison. Rich is probably the coolest hitchhiker I've ever picked up. But the journey out of Gunnison didn't start out too well. Within a few minutes of picking up Rich, I got pulled over for the first time in my life. For going 77 in a 65. Doh! Rich commented that having picked up a hitchhiker my karma should be better than that. But karma turned out pretty good, I only got a warning. Woohoo! Thank you kind cop lady. So onwards goes the journey. Rich was much fun to talk to. He was born in Britain, lived in Belgium a few years, and moved to the US when he was 13 or so. He lives in north carolina, but had hitchhiked to arizona to visit his daughter for christmas. He was on his way back east when I picked him up. I was the eighteenth person he was driving with on his way back east. He rode with me all the way to Breck. He used to live in Silverthorne, apparently. The drive to Breckenridge took about three and a half hours. Breckenridge itself was crazy, mad traffic all over the place. I had to drive more agressive than I did in Albuquerque. But I made it to the Hagale's place fine. They've got a nice place here. Met Tony's family, they were quite good to me. Brian, one of Tony's brothers, asked me if it would be ok if he killed me. I told him to wait until after I skied on thursday. The Hagale's and a whole bunch of their friends took me along to this place called Bubba Gumps. Had a good salmon there. Then we returned to their home and I played Tekken Tag Team or some such on their playstation 2, Tony and I versus his two brothers. I think I did alright for having never played before, but I've never been good at any of them combat game things.
Woke up the next morning at 7 only to discover that somehow during the course of the night I had managed to pull or strain something in my right groin. I was worried it'd make skiing impractical. But it turned out not to be a muscle I really use for skiing, so it didn't bother me too much. Went to the rental shop and picked up skiing gear for me. Tony definitely qualifies as my hero of the day and as the coolest person alive. Not only did he get me a free pass for thursday (one of the benefits of his ski instructor job), I also got a 10% discount at the rental place because Tony is a ski instructor. So made it to the lifts by nine or so. The mountain was pretty empty at that time. So I started off cruising on the blue and black runs off the colorado and rocky mountain lifts, since the lines weren't too bad at the time. Once lines started forming I moved on and began exploring the rest of the mountain. Breckenridge is pretty big. And kinda confusing, it's got several peaks. But I figured out my way around. But by 11 or so, the lift lines were getting pretty bad, so chair E became my friend. This is a small chair that goes to the top of peak 9 from somewhere in the middle of the mountain. It had some fun double black terrain under it, and never had lines. So that's where I spent most of my day. Finally returned to the Hagale's at about 3, feeling a bit tired. My lips hate me, I forgot to take chapstick to the mountain with me, and it was quite windy, so they got horribly chapped. Since I was skiing alone at Breckenridge, I rode the singles lines in the lifts. That's always fun, you get to meet people on the lifts. Had various interesting conversations. Unfortunately, I didn't meet any skibunnies. Tho I did see quite a few on the slopes. mmmmm... skibunnies...
After dinner Mrs Hagale drove Tony, Brian, and I to Keystone for some night skiing. We only got in two runs, but they were relatively long, and I was already pretty sore, so that was probably enough. We took the "flying dutchman" down both times, since some guy I rode up on the lift with in Breck told me it was the best night run at keystone. The runs on Keystone were really kinda icy, though. Then we watched U-571. But I fell asleep during the movie. I was quite worn out.
Overall, I'm content with how I did skiing. I caught some good air, and I handled the doubleblacks well enough. But my legs are definitely not nearly in as good as shape as they were in high school. I need to work on that. But they were also in better shape than when I went skiing last year. Whenever I have gone lifting over the past semester (not particularly often) I've done mainly upper body exercises. I should forget about those and focus more on leg strength. The only parts of my upper body I need to have strong are my abs and my back. My arms have always been weak, but none of the sports I really enjoy doing require arm strength...
Woke up with a very sore back this morning. The rest of me feels ok. Left Breckenridge shortly before 10, made it back to CB in slightly over three hours. In Gunnison I picked up three mexican hitchhikers. Two guys and a woman. The woman sat up front, but after about a mile or two she got kinda agitated and was saying stuff I didn't understand. The guys finally told me she wanted me to stop. So she got out and walked back towards Gunnison. After she had left the car, the two guys explained to me she wasn't a friend of theirs, she just worked with them. The two mexican guys were George and Mike. Mike spoke decent english, George didn't. So Mike and I were discussing various things, such as music and movies and mexico and Mike would translate the interesting parts of the conversation for George.
I'm very happy with how K2 did on the trip. The odometer now reads just over 1300 miles. My main reason for getting a standard transmission was that they're more fun to drive. But standard definitely was nice to have going over monarch pass. And it's nice to have in general for winter driving in CO. Like hitchhiker Rich said: "automatics suck!"