Comin around the mountain

After a pit stop in Taos for pizza, shopping, a peek at the Gorge, and a drive through the Greater World Earthship Community, we started to worry that we'd miss Dave's rehearsal dinner. Thanks to some serious napping on the monkeys' part and Warren's determination, we made it to Crested Butte just in time. We checked into our fabulous hotel room, changed clothes quickly, and walked to the restaurant just a hop, skip, and jump away.



The wedding was an intimate affair with only about 45 people in attendance, so the dinner was very laidback and friendly. Even though the boys knew where we were going they both seemed surprised to see people they knew. "I just saw Dave!" Satchel reported. "And Courtney!"

While I was busy mingling and getting my plate together at the buffet, I came back to the table to find Satchel holding my camera. Much to my amusement he was taking a picture of his dinner (chicken tenders and fried macaroni and cheese squares). "It's for your blog," he said. (How precious is that?)



After dinner we did a little exploring around the town and then went back to explore the hotel. Not surprisingly, we ended up going to the half-indoor/half-outdoor pool and hot tub.



Then we went back to the room, made (complimentary) popcorn in our microwave, turned on the gas fireplace, put on our hotel robes, and watched a movie on the flatscreen TV in the livingroom.

The next day, Saturday, we decided to take a ski lift 1000 feet up Mt. Crested Butte and then hike another 1000 feet to the summit, which was 12,162. The ski lift was SO freaking scary! I really couldn't believe that they even let the monkeys get on! I kept imagining on of them slipping through the space between the bars or flinging himself over the side. "I think I'm going to puke," I said at least 100 times.

Once at the top, the hike was nice and scenic. At first anyway. There were tons of people milling about and Satchel loved the swarm of chipmunks that seemed to follow us around. There were even super friendly pikas (which were obviously the inspiration for the character Pikachu in Pokemon). Jiro was not feeling the hike and kept convincing Warren to carry him. I had a hard enough time getting myself up the mountain, so I have no idea how Warren did it with a 48 pound monkey on his back!

Several times Jiro and I discussed just waiting at a certain spot for Satchel and Warren to summit without us, but somehow we kept going. (That whole journey of a thousand miles quote was going through my head.) Due to the altitude we had to stop and rest several times...well all of us except Satchel. "I'm like a mountain lion!" he marveled as he easily scaled the steep rocks. It was pretty awesome to see him be so naturally talented at something.

In the end, I was really happy that I persevered and made it to the top. The view was amazing! It took us a really long time to get there, and we had to hustle to get down the mountain so as not to miss the last ski lift down...or Dave's wedding!


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Going down was exhausting and really hard on my quadriceps. By the time I was in my high heels and fancy dress I wondered if I was going to make it through the ceremony and reception. However, the fact that Dave and Courtney had hired a babysitter just for us (and the one other little girl in attendance), kept me motivated. The spot where they got married was absolutely breathtaking. (Of course I failed to get a good shot of it.) It had been raining off and on for most of the afternoon, but during the ceremony, it was all sunshine. The monkeys, who were in desperate need of a nap, were so incredibly jacked up before the ceremony started, I really worried that they might do something crazy. However, they managed to behave *almost* perfectly. (I will say that by the time we dropped them off at the hotel with the babysitter, they were in full insane monkey form. Luckily the babysitter was not scared. God bless her!)

The reception was actually just a really nice dinner at a local restaurant called The Noodle. (Short for Marchitelli's Gourmet Noodle.) Dave and Courtney aren't into dancing or any of that stuff, so they rented out the whole restaurant. It was fabulous. We had five courses, all paired with a different wine. My favorite dish was the elk, which I'd never had before. There was lots of toasting and picture taking and it was just fantastic.

Sunday morning there was a breakfast for everyone where we said our good-byes, and then we hit the road for Kansas. We had hoped to make it to Wichita, but we only got to Dodge City. And as you know, that's where we had the Jiro Incident. Thankfully we were the only people at the ER at 12:30am, so the entire ordeal lasted less than an hour. Monday we started driving early and ended late, the only thing of note was lunch and bicycle shopping in Tulsa.

It's good to be home!