Sun, Snow, and Coolio

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As many of you already know, I spent the beginning of my trip in the Bay Area, visiting old friends, but mostly spending time with family. I took a trip up to Point Reyes with my mom, brother, and his girlfriend, and hiked around on the beach and took in the scenery. We found a beat up old soccer ball and kicked it around a bit, and saw what we think was part of a seal carcass. Don't worry, no pictures of the carcass will appear. I rang in the decade with some of my closest old friends, a meal from House of Nanking (one of my favorite Chinese restaurants in San Francisco), and a couple bottles of wine and Crown Royale. A couple of nights before, I ran into my friend Angela randomly at a bluegrass show at Amnesia, in the Mission District of San Francisco, while I was hanging out with my brother and some of his friends.

Well, now I'm in Colorado, Telluride to be precise, and loving the mountain. The snow isn't perfect, but it's pretty good, the mountain is big, the lifts are fast, and I've got a whole week to ride the slopes. I'm here with a few friends from law school - Omar won a condo for a week here in the law school's annual auction (donations welcome) - and it's been pretty fun. The condo has a hot tub (which we've used daily) and a steam room (haven't used it yet), and plenty of sleeping space.

We found out that a big group of college students from all over are in town as part of some company's winter break trip. As part of that trip, the organizers booked a bunch of events over the week, including a Coolio concert to be held at the Sheridan Opera House. As much as Coolio, the Grammy-winning rapper of my youth-would have been great to see, we couldn't bring ourselves to leave the comfort of our bathing suits, sweatpants and couches. We watched a movie instead.

So generally, when we weren't on the slopes, you could find us in the condo, soaking in the tub or lounging on the couches, or cooking big family-style dinners. We did go out a couple of nights, though, to the Sheridan and O'Bannon's. We stopped at the Bubbles, but it was pretty empty on Tuesday, so we moved on rather quickly.

I learned this week that I'm not nearly as good a snowboarder as I once was. And I learned the hard way. While once upon a time I could pull 360's and do all sorts of other tricks, I was having trouble riding switch (normally I ride goofy), and was only really able to do a few small jumps and board grabs. Well, despite the warning signs that years of non-practice had left me far below my prior abilities, I decided to play in the freestyle park. One face-first landing later, I figured that I should change my approach to the trip and just concentrate on riding. By the way, Michael - thanks for the goggles, they probably saved my eyes from serious injury.

Now, I'm getting ready to head out and on to the South America leg of this adventure. I fly to Philadelphia to grab my backpack, and then make my way down south. First stop, Cusco, Peru!

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Photos

Crown
New Year's Eve 2009-2010

The View
Ski-in-ski-out condo

Playing Politics
Telluride passed a resolution against the USA PATRIOT Act

Dinner
Ben, Samantha, Elena

Dinner
Omar, Cecilia, Nick

Going Out
don't ask what I was trying to communicate - I don't know.

Falling over
and laughing about it

My injuries
worse than they look here, but not that bad