april 19th: leaving a wintery copper mountain
april 20th: waking up to a very green minneapolis

these are the last of my photos from utah. on the drive home i stopped on the utah/colorado border to visit dinosaur national monument. i started off on a little stroll to stretch my legs and ended up hiking for almost two hours because it was so beautiful and so hot and so unlike home.

tomorrow is my last day in colorado. i spent today skiing at arapahoe basin with friends from the restaurant, getting in a few last turns before handing my skis off to a friend to store for the summer. now i'm packing my life into rubbermaids and defrosting my mini fridge. i secretly love packing, and after four years of vagabonding, i've gotten pretty good at fitting everything into my mini car. crank the "pretty lights" and getterdone.

on friday i drove down the mountain towards Utah and found summer. there were green buds and flowering trees and a few forsythia bushes along the way that made me should out loud. in Park City i bought armloads of easter goodies, and we drank wine and cooked food and decorated eggs and watched chick flicks and nibbled on cadbury cream eggs and sunbathed and drank schooners at O'Shucks and strolled in the woods and went out for sushi.

these are from our easter brunch at the Road Island Diner in very rural utah. i ordered a meatloaf sandwich and a hot fudge shake, and it was exactly right.

today is closing day in copper mountain, and after a completely snowless spring, today it's dumping snow. there is some serious partying in my future. and tomorrow begins my seasonal unemployment. no work until June. here goes...

on monarch mountain yesterday.

we made fast friends with the mountain staff, with our fannypack speaker system and our plethora of delicious beverages. the snow is soft, and the sun is warm, and i am finally learning to ski backwards! it's a damn shame spring does't last forever.

it's an EQUINOX!

the photos i snapped today are all pretty dreary, and there are definitely no leaves emerging in copper yet - this photo is in wisconsin, in some other spring.

i feel good about this rocky mountain spring though. i'm headed to Winter Park tomorrow to ski with some girlfriends, and hopefully drink some beach-y cocktails on a deck in the sunshine, and definitely work on my ski-goggle-tan. happy spring, folks.

this is how march began, visiting sister in southern illinois!

superbly warm weather, biking and roller skating and strolling in the shawnee national forest, new cat friends, a jam session, board games and wine, the hunger games trilogy, and delicious homecooked food for a change...

my last morning we drank coffee on the front porch in short sleeves, and it was very hard to drive that rental car back to the airport and fly back to the snow. but at least things are starting to feel springlike in copper mountain, and who doesn't love springlike??

we got a foot of fresh snow for the leap-year, so i climbed out of my slump to bid adieu to february appropriately.

and i have exciting plans for post-february! on friday i'm going to southern illinois to visit sister in her new digs. in april i'm driving to minneapolis for springtime in the city. in may i'm flying to austin to see my favorite texan get married. and in june i'm moving to wyoming for a new summer job in yellowstone. time to get a move on...

it's february.  ugh.   i'm thinking about spending money i don't have and going on a little trip somewhere...

(photo: once up on a time in minnesota)

Leadville, Colorado

"almost the whole world is asleep, everyone you know, everybody
you see, everybody you talk to. only a few people are awake, and
they live in a state of constant total amazement."

-joe versus the volcano

1) mumsey and pops come to colorado

2) some colorado-sports-love

3) our third family tent adventure (#two was last winter)

4) a sweet hotsprings and some january river-soaking

i've had montana friends in town for the last week and a half, and it has been a glorious whirlwind. so much skiing, and ice skating, and snow tubing, and wine-drinking and dancing...

now i have three days to get my life back into order before mumsey and pops visit. maybe a green tea detox and a few trips to the gym?

another summary:

2011 began with a round of Jim Beam in a dive bar in big sky. and then there were four more months of ski-bumming, a visit from my sister, a bar made out of snow, a dirtbag ball in a retro prom dress, a return to carnivorism, snowmobiling in yellowstone with mumsey and pops, beautiful new fat-skis, more snow than i have ever seen before and one little trip to the ER...

then there was my little cabin in the mountains, nine mismatched windsuits, a miraculous fort hidden in the forest, snowshoeing and snow-kayaking and costume hiking, a reunion with my very favorite texan, a trip to the Vortex, twelve incredible summits, a formal event in the forest, a visit from my uncle and a dive bar in whitefish, flag football and softball and capture the flag, a terrible goodbye...

and then there was a road trip east, tourist traps and greasy spoons and tacky souvenirs, six whole weeks in minneapolis, lots of biking and citywalking and even some dancing, dinner parties at the grandparents', kayaking at fort snelling park, some quality time with lake superior, a birthday trip to las vegas, a solo roadtrip through nebraska...

and it ends here, in my sweet new mountain home, with a few pitchers or coors and probably some debauchery.

happy new year folks!

bring it on 2012.

i found a little christmas magic.

cocktail parties plus beer pong, boys in sport coats and silly bolo ties, pond hockey and skiing in the sun, christmas stockings hung above the bar, homemade eggnog to make our christmas shifts at the restaurant a little more joyful...

these are from Longmont and Estes Park a few weeks ago.

i got to see my cousin liz after way too long. there were cats to play with. and food that did not come out of a dorm fridge. and cocoa and cookies in the park and a skydiving santa. it was such a good colorado weekend, and i'm looking forward to more of them.

and now it's christmas eve!

i'm off to play some hockey and drink some beers :)

cheers.