Packing it in

October 29, 2006

 

I'm guessing that if I don't write now, more time will just fly by and I won't even remember what all has happened over the last several weekends.

Let's just say that I've been packing it in, and this is kind of a drive by entry just to remind me of what all I'd like to write about, if I ever find the time.

3 weekends ago my friend/collegue flew in from Michigan during my 2 day fall break and we hit the trails on Wed afternoon.

Originally this whole trip was thought up when we were sitting in the hot tub in Telluride back in July. He said to me something like, "you know, if we would both lose some weight we wouldn't have so much to carry up the mountain."

I told him he was on and while I got serious, he didn't. I dropped 12 pounds, he gained 3 and I tried to walk some of it off during the 5 days we hiked. All in all we did 22 miles, and 8,000 plus feet of elevation gain, including one trip up the big mountain, 8 miles up, tram ride down.

We also did balloons...

Night balloons, including fireworks

Overcast Saturday moring balloon. . . and then after a late morning hike we got in a side trip to Santa Fe to check out some of the galleries and grab dinner with Mrs and my daughter's in-laws who had driven over from Phoenix to see the whole balloon thing.

Insert school week here, including mid-term on Friday morning at 10:30. Thursday afternoon, just before my class at two, I was checking my school e-mail and noticed that a classmate had just posted something for sale.

Since she was sitting next to me I asked her if she had sold the goodies yet and she said no.

I looked at the clock, noticed I had about 3 or 4 minutes before the start of class so I called the Mrs and asked if she was in the mood for some satisfaction on Friday night.

The response was something like "are you kidding, of course I am."

So I asked Sarah if she would take a hundred bucks when she was asking 150. (I have this thing about deals).

She said yes, and all of a sudden it all fell together, why Sarah had gone to the trouble to get the exam moved back from 2:00 to 10:30.

You see, El Paso and the boys who were going to be on stage is a good 4 hour drive south, not including parking and what ever else one encounters when trying to get into a stadium with 45,000 other folks.

I suppose you know it's going to be a production when the stage is 4 stories high.

Note the "runway" out there in the front of the stage - well that's for the center of the stage that moves out into the crowd so at the end of the performance, the boys were right there in front of us.

Unfortunately I got tossed out and sent back to my car for trying to sneak in a camera (imagine that) so the cell phone was the best I could do.

Dave Matthews opened, and the trip was almost worth it for that, but then...

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN

EL PASO TEXAS PRESENTS....

THE ROLLING STONES.

That whole stage is a computerized light show and when I get some time I'll post some of the videos that I recorded.

I swear though, using my high power binoculars (and with the help of that 3 story high video screen in the middle) you got to see kind of up close and personal, just how freaking old those guys look.

Geeze Louize, I thought that Keith Richards had been brought back from the dead just for this concert.

And Jagger, I want to know just what that guy does to keep running around on stage like he does. I got tired just watching....

but all in all, it was a premium experience.

Premium.

Since we were so far south we ended up visiting New Mexico's monster beach otherwise known as White Sands, had a disaster of a meal in Ruidoso and then got in a great hike on Sunday in the southern mountains.

Insert next week of school here.

A cold front came through in mid week and dumped some snow on the top of the mountain. Then the weather started to warm so that by Saturday morning I suggested that we take the Harley up to Santa Fe and check out the 10,000 waves thing (again for me, first time for her). Great day but a kind of chilly ride home. When the sun goes down, it can get really cold quickly.

Tomorrow (today actually) is supposed to be sunny and mid 60's again. My bags are packed, and because it's there, I'm going to climb the mountain in my back yard again.

Besides, supposedly Ross and I are trying to knock off another ten, but for some reason or another, I'm kind of stuck on a plateau.

Hopefully I'll climb right off of it.