Creede, CO: home of the Wild Beaver

Hi 3D

Ben and I started work at Broadacres Ranch today, and then were promptly told to take the weekend off to have fun. This is a good sign.

Since I left Hanover, I spent some time at home and in Key West with my family. On our first day in Florida, this guy crawled up onto our table and tried to eat our lunch. We also went snorkeling and saw one of these . Ok not really, but I did see a huge (non man-eating) shark, which was still pretty cool.

Last weekend I flew into Denver, and Ben and I spent a couple days in Boulder at his aunt and uncle's house. They took me on my first mountain bike ride in years, and Ben and his 9 year old cousin left me in the dust. Boulder is about 20 minutes from El Dorado Canyon, world renowned for amazing climbing, and the weather was beautiful so on Monday we headed out into the mountains in search of skiing. We hiked up to Arapahoe pass towards some snow fields, and managed to connect enough of them to get a pretty continuous line down. Then was the schwack out, where we ran into (1) a river, (2) an old abandoned mine, and (3) back on the trail, about a mile from the start, a mountaineering instructor with a group of 12 kids, 4 of whom were already puking either from altitude or bad food, still bravely on their way up to a campsite.

Tuesday we skiied Grey's Peak, a fairly accessible 14'er. There were lots of hikers, and they all felt very bad for us as we laboured up with skis and boots, until we got to ski back down. There was another 14er, Torrey's peak, about exactly the same height as Grey's along a saddle, but a nasty thunderstorm started to come over the ridge just as we reached the top so we decided to leave it for another day.

On Wednesday we drove down towards Creede, aka "huh never heard of it," Colorado, and stopped at a whitewater park in Buena Vista on the way. We got to the ranch in the early evening, and we were shown around and told "come into work tomorrow if you want, or not." Ben and I arrived at the same time as Nick Edwards, and the three of us along with Kat ('09) went into town in search of food. The only place still open at 9pm was called the Saloon, sort of a Wild West themed Molly's. They had pizza, burgers, and rocky mountain oysters. Not seafood. Google it. We'll be buying our alcohol from the Wild Beaver, purveyor of "hooch and fine drinkables."

Today was our first real day of work, and I spent most of the day at the Lodge helping the cook (flown in from London and/or Paris) prepare for a 24 person banquet that's happening on Tuesday. Despite the mountains of things that supposedly have to get done before our boss arrives, in his private jet, either sunday or tuesday or whenever he feels like, we have the weekend off and are going to check out Penitente Canyon tomorrow morning. There have been daily afternoon downpours so far, but we're hopeful they'll hold off until afternoon. If we do get rained out, there's always the axe and tomahawk throwing competition, happening all weekend long in town.

I'm sure Ben will have things to add, but I hope that's a taste of life in Creede so far.