Steamboat Springs

Steamboat Springs Colorado.....Beautiful Steamboat Springs.....how I wish I could stay there all of my days.....

I have wanted nothing more than to go to Steamboat since I was like 14 years old and old enough to know what good skiing was. Steamboat is in all the big magazines and TV shows and everything. It's right up there with Jackson Hole, Lake Tahoe, Park City and Mammoth.

Steamboat kicks ass.

So I finally got my wish to go to Steamboat. We loaded up the car a few days after Christmas and made the four and a half hour drive to Steamboat.

After getting settled in to the hotel room, we hopped a bus to head to downtown Steamboat...which is like, Rich Bastardville, or Peta's nightmare. Woman stroll the streets in full length fur coats, every store has something leather, sheepskin or fur. It's incredible. Downtown hasn't really changed much in the past hundred and fifty years. Everything is still the old storefronts and pubs. Down town is pretty nifty. Settled just behind downtown is Howelston HIll. Howelston will be featured later.

So our first night is ended early because we have to get up early the next morning to eat and be on the bus to the mountain.

My brother is possibly the slowest person ever. I was ready LONG before everyone else however because I was jonesin to get on the mountain.

We get our tickets and go up the gondola at the base of the hill. Now, it's WINDY so they warn us that the gondola ride time may be a little bit longer than usual. We climb aboard a gondola with two other people and prepare to go up when a dude in street shoes climbs on. He's wearing a cream colored ski suit with blue knee-pads....USA above the olympic rings on his shoulders. In his lap is a backpack and bright orange Technica boots. I owned a pair of technica's once....the most expensive boots I ever owned.....but his were solid, custom molded.....He looks familiar to me, but I'm not going to say anything because I'm the biggest fucking chickenshit in the world. That and the dude looked like he was trying to mentally prep himself for something.

So we get off the lift and head up to the backside of the mountain. Which as my father put it "No matter where you were, what side of the mountain you were skiing down, or even when you were riding up the lift, the wind was in your face."

Well, he wasn't entirely lying....it was windy...and SNOWING! Let me tell you that there is nothign else better in the world than skiing on freshly falling snow. We are one or two runs into the day and I am shutting my family down. My brother is a cautious skiier, my mother is OVERLY cautious and my father...well, my father isn't as young as he used to be.

I break away at one point to go ski some more while everyone else takes a break and I end up getting hopelessly lost...that's how big the mountain is. Of course it doesn't exactly help that I got stuck on the backside of the mountain with three feet of visibility. I"m not kidding you. Going down the mountain was slow and painful because I was afraid of what I would see pop up infront of me.

So I finally rejoin Matt and Dad and we head down to the bottom to meet mom 'for lunch'.

I am skiing....I am not hungry...at least not yet. So dad agrees to go back up with me because he too is not tired or hungry. We go to the top and wait around for ten minutes or so to ski with Billy Kidd. SOme of you are probably going "Yeah, so? Who's Billy Kidd?" WEll, he's the first American male to win a medal at teh olympics for skiing. Mr. Kidd puts on a ski clinic everyday at One for people to come and learn to be better skiers. He says hi to everyone on the mountain that he knows, introduces himself and asks the names of everyone in the clinic. It's really cool.
Billy is big enough at Steamboat that he's got a statue at the bottom of the mountain...and yes, he skis in the cowboy hat.

So then dad and I go out after this thirty minute long run with Billy and play on the front side of the mountain where it is less windy.

By the end of the day, dad is begging me to take it easy....he wants to find blues and greens to go down but I somehow manage to go down a blue black that ends on a black and he's got to go down it. I had no issue with it, I was still not tired (and my mom says I'm out of shape. Ha!)

So we finally get to the bottom where we meet up with mom and Matt who are sipping on Hot Chocolate and Hot cider which the ski ambassadors (read that staff) give out. I've been to a lot of resorts and Steamboat is the only one I've seen that gives out free hot chocolate and cider at the end of the day PLUS has free water in the lodges.....most places make you pay seven bucks for a bottle of Dasani.

We go back to the hotel, shower, change and prepare for another night downtown. I'm cranky because I'm STARVING because, as usual, it took Matt forever to get ready.

We wander the shops for a while and then go back to the hotel to prep for day two of skiing which is going to be the best.

Now when we wake up the next morning and go to get our continental breakfast from t he lobby we notice teh STeamboat newspaper on the table. On the front of the paper is a picture of Travis Mayer, who has been a world cup freestyle champion before and is currently in the running for it behind Jeremy Bloom. Travis was inverted, skis crossed, making a practice jump the day before. He's wearing a cream colored ski suit with blue knee pads....and bright orange single piece custom molded Technica boots.

I RODE KNEE TO FUCKING KNEE WITH TRAVIS MAYER!

How wicked awesome is that?

I'm excited. Today is the day of the US Freestyle competition.

So mom gives me permission to break off and ski by myself today. I go ski a black or two first thing in the morning before I get tired....but the view was spectacular.

So after a few runs I head over to where the competition is. THe winner of this competition gets an automatic spot on the olympic team.

Fist the women go, then the men, which is the real reason I'm there.

It loses something in hte picture, but trust me when I say freestyle is the coolest thing EVER!

However, it is not everyday that people get to see olympic athletes in action so everybody and their inexperienced cousins are on this mountain. It's insanity. THere are ski schools full of kids up on this very narrow section of hill. It's a BLACK DIAMOND hill! If you do not know how to ski a black diamond on a normal day then you should not do it when the hill is half closed and crowded. People were falling and tumbling, guys on snowboards that didn't have a clue as to what they were doing were coming down, falling and losing their boards....one snow board nearly killed three people before a Ski patroler dove on the speeding piece of fiberglass and stopped it. I"m not kidding you...this thing was FLYING!

I leave after the qualifying run to do a few more runs. THen I return in time for the finals.

Again, it loses a little something in the pictures, but it's still AWESOMENESS!

So I was there when Jeremy Bloom laid down a FREAKIN' AWESOME final run and made an insane score and then saw 'cousin Travis' lay one down that rocked everyone's world, but lost to Jeremy by only a few tenths of a second. IT was spectacular. And then I hear it....the announcement that will make my day.

"Jeremy Bloom will be signing autographs at the bottom of the hill after the medals ceremony"

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!

I'm so THERE!

So I head down to the bottom of the hill where they have a couple tents set up and freebies at different places. ONe is Jeremy Bloom's sponsor RIp-It, which is an energy drink. NOw I don't usually like energy drinks, but this one was actually pretty tasty. And it was free, so I'm not going to bitch.

I wait around with a couple other girls who are big fans of Jeremy's. Come on, how can you not be? He's gorgeous, and he had just finished laying down a completely awesome run.

They tell us it will be twenty minutes....an hour later he is still not there...and I'm getting pissed cuz I want to be skiing. Anyway, they realize we are not happy and they call my good buddy Billy Kidd down to sign autographs until Jeremy is done. Apparently he had to go do his drug test because that's the way the Olympic people are.

So Billy talks to everyone in line and just as he's getting ready to sign some autographs, out comes Jeremy....

Beautiful Jeremy.....

So Jeremy takes a seat and begins signing things for people in line.

Yes, I'm shamelessly posting pictures of him....kiss my ass.

So the girls in front of me ask it they can take a picture of him. We understand...he has cameras thrust in his face all the time and a couple of chicks wanting a picture with him might be completely out of the question. We've only been basking in his presence for five minutes....we don't know if he's going to be an ass or not. You know, some of these guys have every possibility of being total dick heads because fame has gotten to them.

Jeremy says "Oh, yeah...sure...no problem...you can come on back behind the table and everything." Collectively our jaws hit the concrete and our heads begin spinning....he's being absolutely fantastic about it. Well, they were going to do the whole, hold the camera at arms length and hope to god that they're in the shot when I, being the incredible photographer that I am offer to take it for them. Jeremy signed some posters for them and also the one girls brothers ski helmet (munchkin was only like six years old and was heading back for a nap or something....) and also the girls ski which was surprising to all of us because it was a K2 and Jeremy is like, way sponsored by Volkl. so we didn't even think he'd touch the K2 much less sign it.

SO then I get up and pretty much just ask him to sign a poster and for a picture.

Conversation time...

Jeremy: Do you need someone to take it for you or...?

Me: Oh, no, you see, the lense just flips around and then I can do it myself.

Him: That's gotta be like, the coolest camera I've ever seen! That's awesome!

Me: (menatlly: He said I have a cool camera...hehehe) Yeah it is, just smile and on the count of three it will go, k? (oh god, he's touching me...he's touching me! I can't believe it....pay attention to the picture....there you go retard.)

HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!! I got my picture taken with Jeremy Bloom! (Does the Happy Dance!)

The only unfortunate thing about this was that I wasted two hours of skiing time AND missed the bus back to my hotel so I had to run through the base village IN SKI BOOTS (try THAT for a work out) to the OTHER bus to get back to my hotel.

I was on cloud nine....I yammered like an idiot to the general audience of the bus.

I didn't care (still don't) I had just met Jeremy Bloom....Jeremy Bloom had just touched me. Who am I kidding...I'm still giddy.

SO I go rushing back into the hotel room, poster and other free crap in hand and rush into the room where I am still giddy and relate the whole thing again to my parents. My feet and legs hurt after spending all day in ski boots and the better part of an hour standing in them, plus the time it took me to run through base village. I am now tired although not completely opposed to more skiing though I know it's impossible.

Tonight is the Aerial competition.

So we head downtown along with a couple thousand other idiots to Howelston Hill. NOw Aerials are the ones where the guys do INSANE acrobatics about a hundred to two hundred feet off the ground. It's incredible.

Photographs do not even come close to doing these things justice because well...it was night...they were moving quickly....but I did shoot video.

I also shot some video of one of the women pretty much landing on the back of her head and sliding down the hill. It was a spectacularly graceless and completely horrifying fall.....but she's OK and she's still competing for a spot on the Olympic team.

Anyway, post competition (in which Ryan St. Onge and Emily Cross won spots on the Olympic Team) was the Olympic send off party. They have video of all the Olympic athletes steamboat has ever produced, lit the 'community cauldron' which 'cousin Travis' failed MISERABLY at doing (someone forgot to turn the gas on). And then, finally, was the Hootie and the Blowfish Concert.

It was a fun night.

THen it was on to the bus back to the hotel with the entire (and I do mean ENTIRE) Smith Family---All 40 of them. Plus the 27 people already on the bus.

We go to the next stop.....with all 40 Smiths and all the various other families....and the bus driver tells us to move on back so we can add a couple more people. I can not see them, as I am sitting down behind the screen of Smiths, but I can hear a very loud, very drunk group of twenty somethings get on the bus. These are my people.

On seeing that the bus is overly crowded, they and the rest of their compatriots get on the bus and soon decide to sing a very drunken variation of 'the wheels on the bus' in which the wipers go open and shut AND up and down, the wheels go round and round, the windows go open and shut as do the doors. There were more verses but the main gist was "we are drunk and singing and how many of you can we annoy." I was singing along of course---I thought they were funny. By the looks on many of the 50 and 60 year olds faces, and the faces of three quarters of the Clan of Smith, they were not amused.

We then break into a stirring rendition of the theme song to "the fresh prince of bel aire" Again, I sing along, my mother stares at me oddly and I inform her that not only are these my people, but that she has a four year old asleep on her knee. THe poor kid was exhausted, forced to stand becuase of the amount of people and had pretty much just leaned forward and decided that my mothers knee was comfy. HIs mother appologized, but it was too cute and mom was enjoying the little kid (she wants grand babies and isnt' going to get them from me any time soon I can assure you.)

So my drunk buddies get off to continue their bar cruising and drunken fun and take with them the entire Smith Family because they were going to a restaraunt somewhere near the bars. We also meet up wit the dumbest people in the world who were just riding the bus around and around because they coudn't figure out 1.) which bus they were supposed to be on and 2.) were too stupid to get off and change at teh bus terminal center and 3.) were just plain idiots.

So we return to the hotel and fall into bed so that we may drive home the next morning.

Unfortunately for me it's SNOWING the day we leave...the day they have fresh powder on the mountain I have to leave. God Hates me.

Well, obviously not that much.....I DID have my picture taken with Jeremy Bloom.

Well, that was my trip to Steamboat. Have fun everybody...good luck with classes, school, work and life in general!