This is the trip report for the weekend I spent in Colorado in April of 1998.

This is Karen getting off the plane in Phoenix

Friday afternoon I boarded my plane bound for Colorado Spring, by way of Phoenix. In Phoenix, I met up with Karen Goldman, and we took the same plane from there. David picked us up at the airport and we drove into downtown Colorado Springs (or "The Springs" as they call it there), to get some dinner. There was a nice brew-pub still open. From there we went back to David's house.

Saturday morning we stopped for breakfast in Colorado Springs

Notice the snow in the aisles

and then drove an hour and a half to Denver. We had six tickets for the Rockies-Braves game for the three of us. After failing to sell the spares, we went into the stadium, but had to wait an hour for the start of the game because the grounds crew was still cleaning up snow. First we wandered the stadium. Then we found some seats in the sun which were much warmer than our own seats in the shade. We were comfortable, but eventually, the Rockies got clobbered 11-4.

Ellis Burks about to hit a home run. Really.

David enjoying the game.

After the game, we wandered a little in LoDo (Lower Downtown?) around the stadium, an area that has apparently cleaned up nicely. We stopped in another nice brew-pub. We wandered through a cool bookstore. We eventually found a nice Italian restaurant in which to eat. The food was good but the service was slow. We got back to David's house after midnight.

Sunday morning we awoke before 5:00 a.m. and were on the road

Karen about to ski for the first time ever. Doesn't she look confident?

by 5:10. Our destination was the Eldora ski area near Boulder. We stopped once for breakfast and made it there in three hours. I signed up for a beginning snowboarding class, which was mercifully separated into adult and childrens classes.

"Which foot do you want forward?" they asked me at the rental counter, "have you ever surfed, skateboarded, waterskiied?"

"No", I replied.

"If you were to slide across a floor in your socks, which foot would you put forward?"

"I'm 34 years old", I said. "I don't ... oh my right foot, I guess."

"You're goofy."

"I wasn't trying to be."

Four of the six people in my class were goofy, which just means we put our right feet forward, so it seems to me that that way ought to be called regular and the other way goofy, but what do I know?

During the morning, I learned everything there is to know about snowboarding, which is not a lot since you only have one board, instead of two skis and two poles. It seemed to me a lot easier to learn to snowboard than to ski, mainly because you can reverse direction on a snowboard without ever pointing straight down the hill. By lunch time, I was able to go down the beginner slope without falling, except when getting off the lift, where I fell almost every time.

Of course I did my share of falling during the morning, and I really only went all the way down the slope one time without falling, but it seemed like an accomplishment to me. Especially since it was the last time it happened.

After lunch, things just kept getting worse. At lunch I changed boards because one of the straps kept coming loose, and after lunch the snow was a little more slippery, and my legs were more tired. I suspect the last point was the key one because I kept trying to shift my weight but the weight just wouldn't do what I was telling it to do. I fell twice the first run and probably ten times the second.

I fell on both shoulders. I fell on both elbows. I fell on both thumbs. I only fell on my left hip, but I fell on it twice. In a row. I fell on my back and my nose -- thankfully I only have one of each of those. And of course I fell on my butt. By the time I quit, everything hurt and my calves were sore and my arms had no strength left (from pulling and pushing myself up to a standing position). Oh yeah, and my nose was a little bloody.

I would have to say the morning was more fun.

When I finally quit for the day, I met up with Karen and David again and we drove into Boulder to meet David's cousin and her family (husband and four kids). We had a nice but loud dinner and drove back to The Springs that night.

David and Karen

Monday morning we got to sleep late (5:30 a.m.) and then we were off to the airport for our flight home. Karen and I flew together to Phoenix and then continued on our separate paths.

Fun trip; long weekend; hurt everywhere.