US Handcycle Racing

As a few of you may know, I have been spending a lot of time lately with Jake.  We're in the process of packing up all of our belongings and moving into a sweet little 3B house in Sandy, Ut.  We have already removed all of my stuff from Crested Butte, and are hanging out in Southern Colorado, where Jake has lived for a few months.  We need to pack all of his stuff up as well.  Luckily, he is the proud owner of a fairly large pickup truck, and a trailer for hauling all sorts of power tools and sports equipment.

Yesterday we took a break from packing and planning to attend a handcycle race in Conifer, CO.  Jake's friend, Seth, stayed overnight and we all went up together.  Seth happens to be the World Champion of Off-Road handcycling...and a paralympian.  Jake is a recreational handcycler...but does compete on occasion.  It's a new world for me, and they did a lot of technical talking about bikes, and construction of bikes, and geometry of bikes.  Oh, wait, I mean trikes, since handcycles tend to have three wheels.  I've shown a few people pictures of the kind of cycles I'm talking about but, basically, they are cycles that are pedaled with ones hands.  They have two wheels on the front and one in the back.  You can steer with your chest or with the handles in the front.  They're pretty complicated, and to my shame, I have yet to try one out.

Anyway, so, we went to Conifer and met up with a fairly large group of wheelchair athletes for this race.  There must have been about 30 competitors, which is a large group, especially for a first annual event.  And it was pretty impressive.  The most impressive thing, however, is that Jake came in second place, with Seth coming in first place, of course! 

 

Meanwhile, I got a chance to talk to a bunch of the guys and gals competing.  And, the rehab hospital in Denver had some of their staff members at the event.  Therapeutic Recreation is huge part of rehabilitation for people with injuries.  I actually worked with a program in Crested Butte, called the Adaptive Sports Center, which provides equipment and lessons to people with a variety of disabilities, and I learned so much about the importance of adaptive sports.  I also realized that my years of being a ski bum could be useful in helping other people.  And, at this race, the most impressive athlete was one of Jake's neighbors, who Jake had been hanging out with recently.  This guy Ryan was in a pretty bad car accident about 8 months ago, and began talking to Jake about his injury, and about handcycles.  Jake has two of his own handcycles (one for mountain biking and one for road biking), and had been letting Ryan use them recently.  Ryan ended up coming to this race, and as far as I knew, couldn't manage extensive amounts of time on Jake's bikes, but managed to complete the course in a little over an hour.  With such a new injury, it's amazing that this guy could do that course, and It'll be great to see what he does when he gets his own One-Off (handcycles used for mountain biking).

A weekend of thinking

This past weekend my friend Emily and I went camping in one of our National Park. I had no idea that we had a National Park so close to where I've been living for the past six months. But, as it turns out, the Black Canyon National Park is about a 2 hour drive away from me. Emily lives in Aspen, and I live in Crested Butte and we decided to meet for a girls camping extravaganza somewhere between our two towns. Oddly, Crested Butte and Aspen are about 22 miles apart, as the crow flies, but, because of mountains, Em and I had to meet 80 miles away from both of our towns. But I digress.

I am currently nursing a very bad case of tendonitis or tenosynovitis in my elbow. Basically, it's very severe tennis elbow, or, as I now call it: "mopping elbow." I'm not even allowed to lift a coffee cup with my right arm. So I decided to go camping.

Anyway, as I was driving to meet Em, I started to think back on the great things I had the opportunity to do as a kid. Before I turned into a Goth, I did spend some time in the outdoors, and apparently, those things I did when I was younger remained in my soul so that one day I would return to the outdoors again. I understand that the outdoors are not for everyone. But, I do think it is important for an individual to spend some time camping, or hiking, or skiing or something, so that they can decide for themselves how to enjoy the outdoors. As sad as it sounds, I personally would not be able to cook for myself if I hadn't ever camped. I still cook as though I'm cooking over my portable camp stove (use one pot for the entire meal, reuse the pasta water to make hot cocoa later, or as a hot water bottle at night). And, as much as I love to surround myself with nifty things (music, ipods, down comforters, snowboards, skis, my car, objects of art, etc), it wasn't until I had to carry everything I needed for day to day survival on my back that I realized how much of the stuff I own I didn't actually "need." Of course, this is why many of us opt to have a permanent place to call home. I myself will soon be living in a 3B in a nice little suburb of Salt Lake City, with a white picket fence (no joke) and a peace garden. And, I can't wait to have the garage to fill with all of my ski gear, and eventually maybe a printing press and typecases. Oh joy! And maybe a little garden with tomatoes and basil and cucumbers and lavender so that I can have fresh herbs and veggies to cook with, should I ever learn to cook like a normal person...

But, the reason I say all this is that I had a lot of time to think about how much I would love to be available to all of my nieces (an nephews?) and take them out camping, or teach them how to ski if ever any of them wanted to. So, I'm advertising my services as an Aunt-for-Hire. And, if any of the mothers or fathers or grandparents of these wonderful nieces of mine ever wanted to join me in my outdoor pursuits, you are all more than welcome.

just putting that out there.

Alex Austin with Big Train at Hurricane Patty's

This weekend I went to Florida with Jake to celebrate my birthday and to go to my dad's CD release party. Dad has been playing regular gigs at venues in St. Augustine, Florida for awhile now. He has been spending the past few months recording tracks with a group of amazing musicians that he met when he moved down to Florida a few years back. This weekend he hosted a CD release party, which featured many local musicians and his own band, Big Train.

The weekend was great. Dad invited his friends, Jim and Barbara, to stay as well, so we all spent a lot of time listening to music in the local honky tonks (well, restaurants and bars really) and hanging out by the ocean, soaking in the sun.

Maryanne picked up a Carvel Ice Cream cake for me for my birthday, which was great. Jake, who is a Colorado native, had never even heard of Carvel, so I felt like it was an important step in his life. There is no better cake in the world. But I digress.

Dad's party was fantastic. He packed a fairly large restaurant with his friends and acquaintances. He started performing with Jim, the mandolin player. They play mostly country and bluegrass. Big Pineapple followed dad's set. Big Pineapple plays Hawaiian-style music, complete with ukelele and slide guitar. The ukelele player and slide guitarist (who also dabbles in the pedal steel) are both featured on dad's CD as well. After Big Pineapple, Big Train got up. Big Train is a pretty large band, and also quite impressive. Later in the night, other musicians were called on stage, and at one point I was persuaded to sing along with the band, which was fun, although I'm still pretty shy about performing in public!

Essentially, the whole experience made me extremely happy and proud of my dad and Maryanne. They have been fortunate enough to meet up and collaborate with a great community of musicians down in Florida. Everyone in the crowd was so excited about everything dad has been working on, and they were extremely welcoming.

A Ski Bum Moves On

I'm very excited about my new job, but I have to admit that I'm a little sad to have to leave Crested Butte. When I first decided to move to Crested Butte, I had a very strong feeling that this would be my final move. I had visited the town a handful of times before making the decision, but I knew that first day, at the 7th Annual Kickball Championship, that Crested Butte was a place I needed to live in. I met some of the greatest people on that fateful day in August. And, what started out as a group of strangers joking that I should just leave Aspen and move to Crested Butte because, "Crested Butte is way better than Aspen" according to five guys who had never even stepped foot in Aspen, turned in to a seemingly knee-jerk decision to relocate to "the last real great ski town."

Crested Butte is fantastic. I'm sure there are other places in the world that are just as fantastic. It's not the most beautiful Colorado mountain town. Telluride and Aspen have prettier scenery, in my opinion. And, CB doesn't have the greatest variety of skiing (although it does have arguably the most extreme terrain). But, of all the places that I've lived so far, Crested Butte certainly has the greatest community events. Yes, this sounds a little ridiculous. But, it was the Kickball Championship (which was a fundraiser for the Historical Museum) that got me to visit in the first place. Then, the appeal was increased by the Crested Butte Ultimate Hat Tournament (for Ultimate Frisbee), only to be enhanced by the promise of even better events: Vinatok (a pagan CB celebration in which the entire town gathers to burn the "Grump" which is a collection of scraps of paper on which it citizens have written all the worries and negative thoughts of the previous year, which they hope to let go of), the Townie Takeover (a bike event where everyone grabs their beat-up old bikes and ride around the town for 24-hours straight), the Red Lady ball (a fundraising event that not only celebrates the famous prositutes from the early days of CB, but also raises money to prevent the proposed mine that is threatening to ruin one of our favourite peaks, the Red Lady), and the Al Johnson Memorial Uphill/Downhill Telemark Race (which deserves its own blog, and which i will write about soon).

This is the type of community I have been searching for for a long time, and so I'm very sad to have to leave it. The problem is the lack of viable jobs. Most jobs in towns like this are seasonal. It is expected that most of the workforce will only be around for a few months at a time, so many companies that need year-round employees end up going somewhere else. The cost of living in such a glorious place is also unreasonably high. Rents are comparable to NYC, and food is even more expensive, since most restaurants (and, oddly, the local grocery store) know they can charge more because tourists will pay more. But, the wages here are lower than NYC, and also Aspen and Summit County, Colorado.

Really, the only way to make money in a place like this is to own your own business or to become a realtor. No joke.

And so I move to Salt Lake City. It's a city, yes. But, it is supposedly a great city to live in if you're Mormon, or if you are an outdoor enthusiast. There are six ski mountains within 30 minutes of downtown, and there are more opportunities to own houses (joy!), and to have jobs that would allow one to own said houses (double joy!). So, we'll see.

And, if I am to end my ski bum story now, I can't have chosen a better "final season." We had so much glorious powder. I am at a place in my skiing/snowboarding where I am more than happy with my abilities, and I can say that I had an epic season. Also, I got to travel to Ecuador to go whitewater rafting, and I have seen and learned a lot about what I want from life.

Really. I can do this.