The Road to Shangri-la

The road has always had a calling to me, it has taken me to places that as a child I could only dream about. Those dreams would include trips into the mountains and to oceans in unexplored places far away. It gave me a chance to ski, or climb, ride a bike or surf a distant wave but for some reason I was always looking west. It may have something to do with the geographic location where I grew up in Texas. The land there is relatively flat. Endless fields of grass spread to the horizon but definitely none of those mountains I yearned to cross in those western states have. All my desires were for adventures in those distant places hidden by those mountains.
As I looked into my rear view mirror on the return from one of these Rocky mountain trips recently, I could see the pot of gold setting behind me. I pulled over on U.S. Highway 69 somewhere east of the little town of Gardner, Colorado to take a photo of that sunset. The wind was blowing across the scattered tufts of grass and sage. The fires around Los Alamos far to the south helped create the overly red scene I saw in front of me. The road stretched out to the horizon in an uninterrupted ribbon of opportunities. As I sat listening to the wild stillness, creating just another memory of a wonderful trip to go with the hundreds from years past, the solution to an un-asked question came to me.
Everyone has their own Shangri-la, but for me I will always be traveling to the west to find it.

Wrong Season Sport

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There is a reason that summers are more comfortable in Colorado than Texas, and yesterday I found out why. On Tuesday June 28th, a week after the official start of summer and I met a couple of brothers in the parking lot of Loveland Pass, Colorado on U.S. Highway 6. They were ribbing me about taking the kayak that was on the car for a slide in the snow.
Actually I had the same idea as they did, to go do some late season snowboarding. So the group of us hiked the ridge over Loveland Basin and proceeded to snowboard on a day long after most lifts in the area had closed. Someone did mention that A-Basin would be open the following weekend but we just used our own power to take a few laps.
This is definitely the latest day in the year I have ever strapped on the board, what a hoot it turned out to be and in shorts none the less. Just hoping I can store some of the chill from when the slush fell in my boots.

Cool Drink of Water

   As the Texas Summer really gets rolling and the heat hovers at the 100 degree mark, I just had to get out of the heat and find some cool water. I always forget how cool the water actually is in the creeks of Colorado. I spent a few days running some whitewater and mountain biking in the Boulder, Colorado area with my friend Marc Goulet. 

  After chilling my body to the core in spring snow melt, hopefully I can stay cool when I get home.

Western Sunrise

I spent a couple of days last week playing cowboy on a ranch west of Fort Worth. Up before the chickens and chasing cows with the help of a crew of really talented cowboys straight out of central casting. They had the walk, the talk and the tobacco spitting down. The really neat thing about being up at the crack of dawn is that you actually get to see the sun come over the horizon. In Texas, that can be even more beautiful than the sunsets. I just wanted to share for all the folks that slept in after watching the Mavericks beat the Heat in Texas.

Game Three Defeat

Ahhh, the NBA Finals return to Dallas and the American Airlines Center. Not a big name change from the venue in Miami where the Heat play, but the weather in Dallas is a little more appropriate.

Game three starts off with a bang and a really excited crowd, but in the end the Mavericks fall just short in the closing seconds to lose 88 to 86 in the onslaught of Dwayne Wade, Lebron James and the Miami Heat.