Bike Ride

Ya'll are lucky (ahem) that I'm still writing, because yesterday I almost died.

If you haven't noticed already, Alejandro and I like to play harder than we work. And we work pretty hard. Give us a kid-free weekend and it's all over. We're bound to go get ourselves killed.

Yesterday we decided to go biking. We picked a kill-you-cuz-it's-hard (that's my translation of "moderate") trail that's 8.5 miles long with a 1000 foot altitude gain. The trail head is at 9,000 plus feet, so we were goners from the beginning. But then we got lost, so it was probably more like 10 miles and 1500 foot altitude gain.

This is me, feigning a smile as I huff my way up the hill.

 
And this is me holding my bike up my bike holding me up. 

Somewhere up in elk-hunting territory, after walking our bikes 500 feet because our lungs were exploding, we happened upon a hunter. He was a kind old man with white hair, camoflage, a bright orange vest and hat, and beer breath that would chase off any elk within 5 miles. He explained that we were up at the top of a dead-end road and needed to turn around.

I almost killed something right then.

Fortunately, the way back was all down hill, but I was not excited about the fact that we were lost in the middle of no where and the sun was descending behind the clouds. Then I remembered the technological marvel of my Blackberry and its GPS. Comfort came my way when I could check every 5 minutes to see that we were indeed getting closer to the highway (and therefore the parking lot where our Jeep was parked).

And then once we knew where we were again, it got REALLY fun! Because right about then, we hit a downhill, single-track, really technical trail. Those are my absolute favorite. (For all you non-mountain-bikers, that means a 3-foot-wide trail with lots of rocks, tree roots and such to maneuver over and around.) For me, the entire point of mountain-biking is going OVER stuff, and if I can do that going downhill (aka without any exertion on my part) it's even better!

This is your friendly Mary Kay beauty consultant shooting a snot-rocket.  It was just so funny that Alejandro caught it on camera that I couldn't resist posting it!

We had stopped in the middle of the down-hill single-track to take pictures of the amazing scenery.  

Our digital point-and-shoot definitely doesn't do it justice. 

This is looking down on Keystone (a ski resort).

This is my hottie of a husband. 

The very best part of the whole ride, though, was when we reached the very bottom.  We had rounded our 3rd or 4th switch-back and the parking lot was in sight.  I was zooming over some tree roots and around some rocks and feeling victorious about having survived the afternoon.  A crowd of people shouting woohoo at the bottom would've been perfect.  So I settled for my own cheer and shouted at the top of my lungs...

WOOOOOOOOOO-HOOOOOOO!!!!

Then, to my surprise, a group of eight or ten campers off to my right (that I hadn't noticed) joined in and shouted back,

WOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOO!!

It was perfect!  I laughed the whole rest of the way to the Jeep!

And that is the story of our biking trip yesterday.