Well staff training was nothing special, other than the fact that I got to meet to some awesome people. I cant even go on for more than a sentence about staff training because it was so crazy and compacted in to such a short time that I am still processing pretty much all of it. Our last day of staff training was Thursday and it took place at the climbing wall at Camp Hale. Camp Hale was the base where the 10th Mountain Division trained as well as Tibetan guerillas, it also housed prisoners from Rommel’s Afrika Corps. We were all checked off to set top ropes and belay. From Camp Hale I headed back to Minturn to pick up my laptop charger (that I leave everywhere). After picking up my charger I headed back to Leadville and took a shower at the hostel. The Leadville hostel is great; 20 dollars for a room, 3 for a shower and 1 for wifi. I ended up at Kristen’s house (one of my coworkers). My self Daphne, Jamie, Kristen and John S (or other John) sat around a bonfire and shot the shit all night we also explored her creepy, trap door in the kitchen, basement. We all ended up crashing at Kristen house. I woke up and busted out of there around 7 am to work a climbing day at Camp Hale. Sadly it was dumping buckets of rain when I got there so I figure it was canceled and took a nap in my truck to await word that confirmed my suspicions. While I was sleeping I heard a strange knocking in my dream only to awake to Mikalaya’s face in my window. Climbing was canceled so I headed back to Leadville.
I met up with Kristen and other John and we headed to Salida Co. for FIBark! FIBark is a whitewater festival sponsored by New Belgium. John and I got there just in time to see Jamie compete in the women’s freestyle expert category. She showed up with nothing, she was able to talk Jackson out of a boat and found a PFD, paddle and helmet somewhere. Not only did she kill it she won!
We hung for the rest of the day watching the freestyle comp. After the days heats ended I headed back to my truck to drop off my pack. As I was walking to my truck I felt an arm snake around my shoulder, a girl with dreds then stuck a bottle in my gut and said, “take a pull of this!”, sadly I did. The smell and taste was instantly recognizable, Canadian Club and Vodka. A trick broke ass college students pull to give their gas station whiskey a bit more kick. suddenly I was surrounded but people with dreds who swept me along the path to the parking lot. I recognized some of them from the comp that day. We sat in the back of their truck, and talked about the comp, as they swigged their nasty concoction. When I was offered a second pull I declined and excused myself. The night closed or started, depending on your definition, when Juneau What? Took the main stage. They were awesome, I even tried to dance but quickly saw that it was not working and stopped. After Juneau What? we hit the town. We found a sweet bluegrass band, The Broken Spoke, playing at one of the bars in town. After their set I waited in line to tell them how much I liked them. I mentioned I would love to buy their album, but as I was living in my truck I didn’t have it budgeted so the lead singer, Tom, just gave me one! We chatted for a bit, since he and I were the only sober people at the bar. As the collective intoxication of Salida increased, I decided that it was time for bed. I really don’t understand how people can get that drunk that fast, and I didn’t care to see how it turned out. On my way to the car I heard another band that sounded good, but the bar was really rowdy so I headed to my truck and went to bed.
The sun hit my truck at 7 and by 8 it was an oven. I was brushing my teeth as other John woke up and got out of his CRV. It turns out he was out way later than me, he confirmed my suspicions that the entire town was crazy drunk and I was glad I had not stuck around for it. Day two of fibark was really cool, we hit the New Belgium Parade at 10 am and it was awesome. Then I went and watched stand up white water paddling. Stand up paddling is a newish sport where you stand up on a surfboard and paddle through whitewater. I lost interest and wandered around town for awhile. Salida is a neat little town, but it’s pretty expensive. John, Kristen, Kirsten’s friend whose name I don’t remember and I headed to the Boat House for dinner. Then we headed down for the Hooligan Race!!!!
The hooligan race is where people make their own crazy boats and race down the river. If they make it through the two standing waves they must contend with the bridge. I’ll let the pictures speak for them selves.
After the Hooligan Race an all female AC/DC cover band called Hells Bells took the stage. Whilst trying to locate a vantage to watch the show from, I almost stepped in some puke. Thanks to a friendly warning I narrowly avoided it. Literally a second after jumping over the puke a dude walked up and complemented my moves and offered my mushroom chocolates. I am almost positive the two are connected. It was about then that I decided it was time to get moving. I have decided that this summer will be lead by my gut, no planning no reservations, just freewheeling. If that doesn’t sounds good to you then just stop reading now. I tried to get a hotel in Salida, I don’t know what I was thinking, with the festival, the whole town was booked up. I am ashamed of myself, I had a moment of doubt. For a minute I thought I was too tired and it was too late to sleep in my truck, I devotion to my summer plan was failing. Since there was no vacancies I headed back to the festival and camped. Again about 7 the sun hit my truck and by it it was an oven. I woke up and headed out of town. The plan was to head back to Buena Vista and go tubing, but the more I heard about the tubing the less I was into it. Heading in to Buena Vista I suddenly got a wild hair and cut a hard right on to route 285 towards Denver. It was a beautiful drive, it hit two passes and crossed high plains. In the heat of the day I pulled over to have lunch. I sat under a tree looking out across the great plains of Colorado. As I looked out over the flat expanse at 10,000 feet, hemmed in by mountains, I thought Colorado is alright. I used to hate it but I relized I had only seen the Denvers, Vails, and Winter Parks of Colorado, I could never live in those towns, never. I could however thrive in the Leadvilles, and Fairplays of Colorado.
By and by I pulled in to Denver and headed to the Melbourne Inn and Hostel. The price was much better than the Leadville hostel, $16 for a bed, $3 for sheets, and showers were free and had no time limit. I did some laundry in the Laundromat attached to the hostel. This is a Laundromat bus station, where all of the signs are in Spanish. I chatted up the woman behind the counter and found out that she would sell me a bus ticket for cash with no ID. So out two and two together on that one. While I waited an old Hispanic man approached me with his hands out yelling “ Todo su dinero, Ahora!”, I responded “No hablo espanol”, and looked at the woman behind the counter. She yelled at him in Spanish and as he puttered off she smiled at me and said “he wont bother you anymore”. Then I headed off on a mission to fill my craving for fish tacos.
I had also been told to go and help as the SOS Outreach (the company I am working for this summer) booth at the Denver Pride Parade. Yup. This is how ghetto SOS Outreach is, they did not have their own booth they were working the Barefoot Wine booth and a handing out SOS sickers and pamphlets. Since I stumbled in to Steven (a coworker) before I found a fish taco stand I helped them clean up the booth and rewarded with a free bottle of wine. I don’t really know what I am going to do with that since I don’t drink wine. I will probably hold on to it and give it to some one at work on Wednesday.
Finally I found some fish tacos! I bought one for there and one to go and headed back to the hostel. Where I currently sit reflecting on what a bizarre and interesting week my first week in Colorado was.
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