tired, bored, and feeling depressed

Well, it's nine o'clock right now. I went to bed at eight, cause for some reason I was really tired. Then I decided to get up and write some about my week. I'm listening to "Nobody's Home" by Avril Lavigne right now, and it matches my mood perfectly. My friend John came up from Texas this last week with his mom. They used to go to my church back in 1999. Wow... that was seven years ago. I had an awesome time, I only hope John can say the same.

We went skiing at Keystone, although we had to jump through some hoops, actually a lot of hoops, but we did it just the same. It was awesome! John hasn't been skiing since he lived here– seven years– so naturally he was a bit rusty. Although I have to admit I thought he would be a little bit better than he was. It was a blast though, staying on greens and easy blues, which I normally don't do. And I'd have to say I improved on keeping my edges parallel. It just so happened that it was night ski date at Keystone that day, the twenty-third of November, so we got 10 and a half straight hours of skiing in. John was really doing great by the end of the night. He only biffed (sp?) twice really, one of which was pretty seriously (His legs were facing opposite of him wrapped snuggly around a downed pine tree, and his head was resting on a jagged stump! We found a ski pole sixteen feet away.) We ended up going back up the lift 5 more times after we "decided" that we would make that our last run. It was great. My Camelback froze stiff on the last run down, so it was pretty cold, but it didn't hold a candle to what we would experience later that week.

On the way up to the ski resort, it brought back very strong memories of months earlier, driving around East Texas in his '69 Chevy Custom. Wow. Although the squealing Toyota half ton hardly is the same, mostly in the audio and horsepower arena. But still, the freedom! We both burned a hundred dollars that day.

The next day was spent at my Aunt's house, celebrating Thanksgiving Day. That was pretty much boring except for the food, just like every thanksgiving. I did get to play my Mandolin with my Dad and John for a bit, good times.

Then Friday rolled around. That night we would be leaving to go on a long weekend hunt up north of Dillon, in unit 28. This was John’s first Rocky Mountain big game hunt. What an introduction! I'll tell you right off we didn't get anything. Before going up there we checked the weather and as luck would have it, there was a winter storm advisory in effect. But we press on, prepared (most of us.) I forgot to bring a thermometer, so we had no definite say on the temperature that weekend. But Sunday was an especially cold morning, my Dad argued that it wasn't much below freezing, while Daniel, John, and myself contended that it was closer to the mid teens at most. Anyway, my feet, clothed in wool hybrid socks and insulated boots, were without feeling. I hate to use the word "numb" because it doesn't contain the feeling (or absence of feeling.) I took my foot out of the boot while I was in the truck, in order to put on hopefully warmer socks. When I took my sock off, it hung it the air, stiff, in the shape of my foot. I slapped my foot pretty hard, all over, didn't feel anything. My feet did warm up about two hours later while we were "park-hunting" in "the beast" Ford Explorer (equipped with front and rear posy traction, and heavy duty chains on all four all-terrains.) There was nary a road that truck couldn't ride easily on. We did stop at a promising looking road to hike up, because we had gotten a good seven inches of powder snow since yesterday's hike, and the woods were too dangerous. We hiked about 2 miles up, and two miles down. That just about killed John I think, literally, because he's used to 235 feet above sea level.

The next morning I heard tales of a second ice age in the trunk where John was bunked. He still hadn't recovered from last night's trauma, so my Dad, Daniel and I set out without John to hike up a road. I was wearing my dad's over-sized work boots, because I couldn't get my foot in my boots, because the leather was slightly damp when I went to bed the night before, and those boots had froze hard as a rock. I couldn't budge the leather. When I left our car camp I had no idea that we'd be out all day (our last day). I really got nothing seriously hurt except for my pride, because I had been dusted by two people older than me. ohwell.

Well, we got to Dillon and stopped at Arby's to grab a bite to eat. On the way back out to the car we noticed that McDonald's had a giant thermometer display. What it read partly settled the former arguments. It read "7º F" Sorry, that's cold! We had to stop several times on the way down to fix Daniel's car, because his thermostat was stuck open, bringing the cab temperature down to the outside ambient temperature. That was pretty much the coldest part for me, and I was suited in ski clothes. I figure it was a bit colder ambient temperature than down in Dillon, and there were high wind warning sign all over the place. That wind was going right through my ski jacket. brrr!

The next day was John's last day here, as he had to return to "business." (heh!) So we went to Bass Pro for a couple of hours, basically he thought it was pretty cool. Overall I'd say I learned one thing– when I'm down in Texas I get a kick out of tormenting John, and when he's up here, he got a kick out of annoying me. Even though we might not of had a tree fort to work on, or a truck to sneak girls out to the movies in, we still had a lot of fun. I'm gonna have to say though, until I get my Duster 340, I'd rather go down to Texas, and I'm pretty sure John would like it better also.
now it's 10:30