Northern Colorado Weekend

On Friday, after recording a Pluralcast episode with David Starr the evening before on GeekRoadTrip and GeekGive, I set off for Colorado. Before leaving Texas, I finally saw my first oil derrick, and then many more in Kansas and Colorado. Still no cowboy on a horse or tumbleweed though.

Leaving Texas I entered Kansas. I had folks tell me that Kansas is flat and while I believed them, I had no idea what that really meant until I saw it for myself. Wow, it’s flat. No, like really flat. Despite being billed as the most deadly boring stretch of road in the world, I found it entertaining seeing what life is like in the heartland and farmlands of America. I also passed within an hour or two or the geographic center of the continental United States.

Western Colorado was also very flat, but about an hour from Denver I caught my first glimpse of the Rockies. Central Colorado then became very un-flat and I am really enjoying the texture of the landscape with mountains, steep and rocky hills, rivers, and pine trees.

I arrived in Fort Collins where I’m staying with Kathleen Dollard and Don, and crashed; I had only about one hour of sleep the night before. On Saturday, Kathleen had a secret plan to take me whitewater kayaking. Little did she know that despite sitting in front of a keyboard more than any rational person should, I am an adrenaline junkie and a hydrophile (I love water). So we donned wet suits, helmets, and life jackets, and I put smokes and my phone in a waterproof pouch I bought at Outdoor World in Dallas, and drove a about five miles up the road where we put in. I was stoked. And while the wet suit I was wearing seemed overkill at the time, it proved totally worth it with the cool water.

Don and Kathleen gave me lots of instruction and I’ve done plenty of kayaking, but never on whitewater rivers. We hit the water, encountered the first rapid, and I took a swim. Kayak upside down, I surfaced and held the tip and ferried to shore where I took a quick breather. Even after taking a spill, I was stoked and having a blast. We continued down the river taking a rapid at a time, and they continued to teach me new skills and techniques. I didn’t spill again the entire day. In fact, I was even surfing an eddy or two and dodging numerous beer drinking tubers. We ended up doing two runs, and there was one class 3 rapid which I successfully navigated on both runs. I was beyond exhausted after the second run, but it was so much fun and I can’t wait to do that again sometime.

Heading into the current with Don.	Me surfing an eddy, which is upstream running water found behind an obstacle such as a rock.
Me chilling on the boat.	All three boats lined up after the second run.

On Sunday, Kathleen and I drove west for about an hour and a half. We ended up at 10,276 feet and the views were beyond spectacular. I really wanted to climb a peak, but we did a short hike instead. The trip was eventful too. At the Cameron Summit  pull-off, there were several emergency vehicles with ATVs and other Rangers. They then proceeded to block off the road and a helicopter landed. Apparently someone was in need of emergency attention in the wilderness and emergency personnel and volunteers were en-route to assist.

We stopped off here to check out the river. And so I could get a smoke.	My first glimpse of snow in quite awhile.
The Crags from the east.	We climbed via car over 5,000 feet in an hour and a half to get here.
More snow and all-around beautiful scenery.	Alpine peaks. This to me is Colorado.
A close shot of the Crags, I so want to climb that some day!	A helicopter touching down on the road next to the Cameron Summit pull-off.

Finally this evening I cooked Kathleen and Don my world famous Chez Etienne dinner, complete with specially marinated steaks, corn on the cob, Italian bread, garlic parsley roasted potatoes, rice, salad, and carrot cake for dessert. Yum!

On Monday after getting some much needed work done during the day I’ll be leading a session on TDD with Visual Studio ALM at the Northern Colorado .NET User Group.