Cha-Ching!

This post is far overdue, and I apologize for that. The last two weeks have been crazy! I spent last week in Utah to watch my friends compete in the Dew Tour Championships in Ogden, UT and spent a few days riding at Park City Resort. Oddly enough most of my close friends live in Utah. They come out to Colorado in the early season (which is how we met) to shred before their resorts open.

It was an incredibly fun trip and I'm so glad I went. I can't explain to you how thankful I am that I get to take road trips like that. I have a lot of close friends out there that mean the world to me, and it means a lot to me that my parents support my traveling. I really got around to exploring Salt Lake City that week. It was fun to spend time there, but it made me realize how much I love living here in Summit County. I'm sure SLC is beautiful in the summer, but man is it ugly in the winter, ha! There's no snow on the ground until you get up to the actual resorts, and hardly any evergreen trees! It's very... brown. On top of that, it's way too city like for me, that whole area. I like my small little town, it's much more homey! I'd like to think I'm a people person, but that was way too many people for me! Or maybe just too many buildings.

I took a different route on the drive out this time. I usually go up through Steamboat and then over, but a section of that route is very, very, very desolate. In fact, there's a stretch of about 120 miles where there isn't one house, gas station, or building. I took I-70 over through Grand Junction and then up this time. It was still desolate, but not nearly as bad, and a lot more desert like which was cool. I wasn't far from Moab at one point. I also got to drive through some beautiful canyons. I will definitely be taking that route from now on!

I would love to show you pictures, but unfortunately last night my hard drive on my laptop died - I lost everything. It's quite ironic really. Just the day before my best friend spilled nail polish remover on her laptop and lost everything. I gave her the whole "you have to back up your stuff..." lecture, all the while thinking to myself that I should probably do the same. But I didn't, of course. And the next day my laptop died, abruptly and unexpectedly. I'm upset... but this has happened to me twice before. It's my fault for not backing everything up. So I made an impromptu trip to Denver this morning to buy a new laptop. Times like these make me so thankful for the unconditional support from my parents, and also made me realize just how important a higher education is. Life is expensive!

Right after I got back from Denver I had a doctor appointment. I have been having some pretty bad spine issue for the last few years that I am finally fed up with. Chiropractic care has always helped, but it has never been a permanent fix. I went to see a primary care doctor and he referred me to a Spine Specialist in Frisco. I'm really hoping for another solution.

So I apologize again for a lack of posting and pictures lately, as you can tell my life is a little chaotic right now. It happens to the best of us. I'm just going with the flow!

Oh yeah, fortunately I do still have all my pictures that I have posted to facebook. Here's a picture I took of the snowbank on my road before I left for Utah. That's a lot of snow!

And here's one picture I uploaded from my phone of Snowbasin, where the Dew Tour Championships were held. I'm hoping to be able to recover some of my photos from my hard drive. So maybe details on the Dew Tour will come in a later entry!

Park City

This post in long overdue, and I apologize for that. Time gets away from me now that the year is quickly ending.

This past weekend I went to Park City, Utah. I have been having some nasty health problems and was kind of stressed with school, so I decided a mini vacation would be nice. The drive was very long, and there wasn't much to look at for most of it. I never realized how interesting nothing could be to look at, ha! The 5th Annual Queens Cup was being held in Park City, which is an all female ski and snowboard competition. I stayed at my friend Ashley's house, and her father and his girlfriend were soooooo sweet to all 10 of us girls and 1 boy. They made us delicious meals and welcomed us like we were family. It was really cool to ride a new resort, the terrain was so much different than Breck. And it was even cooler that I didn't have to pay for any lift tickets because PowderCorp owns Park City and Copper, where I work. To say the least, I missed the greenery. The competition was awesome, and all my friends did awesome as well, but after 4 days I was very happy to be back. I wish I had taken more pictures, I guess I was just too caught up having fun!

My friend Ashley in black and my friend Maddie in pink coaching their team before the competition.

Papa bear Mr.Bill Battersby cooking us some breakfast!

Gus, the only guy of the group, hanging in their even in the wee hours of the morning to cheer on his girlfriend Eli! Awwww, what a guy!

The sunset just outside of Steamboat on the drive home. So beautiful!

As you all know yesterday was April Fool's Day, which for Breckenridge locals means "Gaper day". Gapers are what we call tourists who dress, ski and act funny. April Fool's Day is our day to make fun of them. I was in school and had tons of homework, so I didn't get to participate... but I have some awesome photos my friends took. It looked like it was a blast.

From left to right: Kaitlin, Ethan, CJ, Derek, and Ian in their gaper gear! Too funny!

As school is coming to an end I'm realizing how fast this year went by. Most of my friends are moving back home for the summer in a month, and I don't know who is all coming back. It was by far the most fun year of my life, from cliff jumping, to longboarding, to skiing, hikes, and going to the Dew Tour and X Games. This year was way more than I ever expected it to be, and I'd like to thank CMC for that. Our youth goes by so quickly, so why spend all day in school wasting it away when we're going to work the rest of our lives? CMC gave me the freedom to do what I love during the day and go to school in the evening. It was the perfect balance.

I will for sure be coming back next year, because I can't see myself living anywhere else. As the commercial says: "Colorado is the only place you'll see a $2,000 mountain bike on top of a $200 dollar car, and it's the only state where people will drive 2 hours to ride 12 inches of powder, but can't get to work when there's 4." The people here believe in slowing down and enjoying their lives, and not sacrificing that for work. It's no wonder we're the skinniest state in the U.S. And speaking of skinny, I started this new 40 minute pilattes work out, I'm so addicted I do it twice a day! 

As much as I love skiing and school, it will be nice to get a change of pace. I skied all last summer too, so after doing it for a year straight, I'm ready for a break. I'm excited to get home and see my dogs, and my extended family, and get up to our family's summer house for some fishing and jetskiing.

Man, I sure do live a rough life... Ha!