12/18/21
I had a very early (6am) flight to Denver. Mom picked me up, and she took me to a big breakfast in Denver. On our way to Boulder we stopped by Nate Dub's house to say a quick hello. In Boulder, mom and I went to the Buffs basketball game at Coors Events Center
12/19/21
I took a hike up to some of the frozen lakes in RMNP (Mills and Loch Vale, and made it home in time to head to the Stanley Hotel for happy hour drinks with mom and dad. After visiting the Stanley and checking out their Christmas decorations we went home for a delicious meat fondue meal. After dinner, I took a night hike with Lisa up to Gem Lake in the Twin Owls area. She was leaving the next morning at 4am for the midwest, so it was my only chance to catch up with her.
12/20/21-12/22/21
I worked remotely from home (finished my draft report for the threatened and endangered species along the Bill Williams watershed). I did go ice skating one evening at Dorsey Lake out by the Y. And mom and I watched various Christmas movies each night, with the exception of 1 night where we watched 'Hamilton'
12/23/21
We left Estes Park to falling snow. It would then continue to snow the rest of my time at home (past the time I flew back home). We drove to Crested Butte and managed to find some take-home Covid tests in Gunnison (they had been completely out in Boulder, Golden, and Bailey). Zach had mentioned that he wasn't feeling the best, so we thought it would be good to take precautions, especially since my parents are at the higher risk age, my dad's health isn't the best, and they needed a negative covid tests in a few days in order to catch their flight to the Caribbean for their long winter vacation.
We arrived in CB to heavy snow. We were staying at a quaint little European style hotel. The kind with very tiny rooms and no TV in the room, which promotes conversation amongst guests. It also had a yummy breakfast with fresh-baked goods in the morning, various fresh-baked cookies in the afternoon for aprés ski, and tea, cocoa, and coffee available 24 hours by the fire. After arriving, I went out for a quick xc ski.
Zach tested negative with the take-home test, so we all decided to hang out for dinner. We had shrimp bisque at Zach and Mary's house for dinner and watched my dad's favorite Christmas movie: 'Love Actually'
12/24/21 Christmas Eve
After breakfast, mom and I took a nice walk through the snowy downtown. There was so much snow, that it was like a living Christmas Village! I then used bro's season pass to ski the powder at Crested Butte.
Zach started feeling worse that day with his sickness. He took another take-home covid test and was still negative, but my family made the tough decision not to eat dinner with him and Mary. (The take-home tests aren't super accurate during early stages of being sick). It was obviously a tough decision that didn't come without tears. So Zach and Mary had the cheese fondue and champagne at their house, and mom, dad, and I had take-out Secret Stash pizza. A 'blue blue' Christmas as my dad would say. We then watched 'Home-alone' on the TV in the lobby. When mom and I went to pick up the pizza, we did a nice Christmas light tour of Crested Butte.
12/25/21 Christmas Day
We did a pass swap so that Bro, Mary, and I could all ski the mountain today. Because of the fresh-air, skiing is a covid friendly activity. Normally we would have done some backcountry skiing while in CB, but with Zach not feeling very good and the avalanche danger being rather high, we stuck to the ski area. There are of course avalanche safe slopes, so the main factor was that Zach just wasn't feeling very good. He and Mary only skied a portion of the day--again because of not feeling good--but I skied the whole day. Mom and dad went cross-country skiing
That afternoon Zach tested positive for Covid, so of course we couldn't hang out for Christmas dinner. But at least after he tested positive we felt better that we weren't getting together without for sure knowing whether he just had a cold or not. We had take-out Sherpa Cafe (Nepalese/Indian) from town. And we did a zoom opening of the gifts that night with Zach and Mary
12/26/21
Mom, dad, and I drove up to Mt. Crested Butte and walked around the base area looking at the ice sculptures and going into some of the fancy hotels. It was a very blizzardy day! In one of the hotels we played some ping-pong and cornhole.
After lunch I headed out to the CB nordic center to do some xc skiing in the blizzard conditions.
We had reservations that night (for 5 people) to the magic meadows yurt for dinner. It's a yurt that you have to ski several miles up to by light of your headlamp. Once at the yurt, they have a roaring fire, live music, and unlimited cocktails to warm you up, not to mention a 5-course meal (appetizers, salad, soup, main, dessert). Unfortunately, Zach and Mary couldn't come because of covid and dad also decided not to go b/c of the blizzard conditions. But mom and I decided it would be an adventure, so we of course were game to go.
It was actually a pretty nice ski in, and we had a lot of fun that evening, eating and drinking for 5, haha. We asked to have some of the extra meals (for example, I had Mary's salmon, and we ate everybody's appetizers). So the wait staff was funny b/c they were always asking if we wanted extra food. The singer was good and he played the whole night without a break. After the dinner, the storm had died down to a light snow, so mom and I decided to take the long ski back to the car. It was such a great ski with the fresh fallen snow, being more downhill than up, and a warm cheer in our bellies.
12/27/21
I took one last walking loop around the snowy town, before we loaded up and drove to Estes. But, actually, first we had to go pick up 1 ski and pole of mom's that we had accidentally given to the nordic center the night before. Mom had to do a blood test in Longmont that evening, so dad and I went and got fancy tea/coffee at a local coffee shop. That evening, the 3 of us had cheese fondue since we had missed it for Christmas Eve.
12/28/21
It was very blizzardy condition, but I still decided to do a couple of backcountry ski laps up at hidden valley. Really good skiing with all the recent snow. It was then off to Longmont so that we could all take covid PCR tests (my parents needed one specifically to go to the Virgin Islands). Luckily we all were negative. After a quick taco bell, I was off to the airport.
When I landed, Elisha picked me up with a surprise of 'gangsta' lights under my Subaru. It was pretty funny and a good gift! We then went out to Mod pizza for dinner
12/31/21
We had a rather boring New Year's eve compared to what we have been used to over the previous years (McMurdo and ski resorts). We took a hike in the rain near Piestawa Peak in Phoenix and watched Hamilton on Disney. We then rang in the New Year watching a Will Smith nature documentary. The episode we watched featured the Yasure Volcano in Vanuatu that we had visited right after he filmed there, and even had our guesthouse owner, Jackson, in the show.
1/1/22
For the first day of the year, I did a really nice, about 50 mile mtn bike ride out at McDowell Sonoran Preserve. There was even fresh snow on the peaks in the distance
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Christmas Poems redux
When I had read my Christmas poem at the branch meeting, our branch chief had really liked it, and bumped it up the chain. So then I was asked to read it in front of a green screen with fancy cameras and microphones so that they could make a presentation of it to share with everyone. If you want to see it, this youtube link below will take you there. Skip ahead to about 4:00 minutes where it starts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
And when I arrived home, I found out that Elisha's poem had won the grand prize ($500!!) at her company.
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