My, time is flying. September has come and gone, and now it’s only one more week until I depart for my Indian Ocean adventure. I expect I’ll try to blog a bit more while traveling, especially while I’m on Diego Garcia (though photos might be sparse because of the slow internet connection). Here’s a very brief recap of some of what I’ve been up to the last five weeks.
Air Force Academy
Back in late August I took a day trip down to Colorado Springs to visit my friend Josh from high school, and his brother Justin. Josh gave me a tour of the U.S. Air Force Academy campus, which was pretty neat, especially since Josh is an AFA alum. The AFA Chapel was the highlight, as it’s such an iconic building. A very beautiful one inside, too. After dinner I played some Catan with Josh, Justin, and one of their friends. I’m glad I made it down there when I did, because now Josh and his wife Erika are moving back to Minnesota.
Camping Trip and Hot Springs
Eager to use my pricey new tent at least once this year, I organized a camping trip up near Steamboat Springs on Labor Day weekend with a few friends. I wanted to get away from the Front Range, so that’s part of why I chose the Steamboat area. With it being the Sunday of Labor Day weekend, I was kind of nervous about finding a campsite since we didn’t have reservations anywhere. But lo and behold, we found a great spot at the first campground we visited, at Dumont Lake (9520 feet) right below Rabbit Ears Mountain — I’d argue it was even the best spot in the whole place.
After setting up our tents we drove up to Steamboat Springs to enjoy the Strawberry Park Hot Springs under the stars. We saw quite a few meteors, which was sweet. I’d been to those hot springs once before, last summer with Alex, but it’s a totally different experience at night. It’s a neat place, and the hot springs felt great on what would become a very frosty night.
It didn’t work out to camp any more the rest of this year, but I definitely plan to camp more often next year.
Hotdish Party
Yah sure, you betcha, I hosted a Minnesota hotdish party at my house a couple weeks ago! I encouraged people to wear flannel, rented the movie “A Prairie Home Companion,” and bought a copy of the book “How to Talk Minnesotan” to give away to the winner of “best hotdish.” There were a couple au gratin hotdishes, a couple tater tot hotdishes, a chicken alfredo hotdish, my beef & wild rice hotdish, a pumpkin bake, a [jello] salad, fruit salad, and a rice & beans salad. The party was a success, people loved it!
My 28th Birthday
For my 28th birthday last week a few friends joined me at C.B. & Potts for dinner. I definitely worked off my 4.1-mile run from that morning, with appetizers of buffalo wings, cheese dip, an entree of a “bacon-bacon-bacon” burger (with hickory smoked bacon, something called “chicken-fried bacon”, and chipotle bacon mayo, I just had to get it!), a free birthday ice cream cupake, and a good amount of tasty microbrew!
Weekend in Ann Arbor
Last weekend I flew to Michigan to go visit Alex. It was a very enjoyable weekend, as it always is hanging out with him. Among other things, Alex got us to the Minnesota-Michigan football game, which was a 58-0 curb-stomping for the Wolverines. Because Penn State wasn’t playing I could just sit back (or stand, since we were in the student section) and enjoy the game. Also because PSU wasn’t playing, I wore a Michigan shirt to the game to fit in. I didn’t want to get assaulted for a second time at Michigan Stadium, haha.
Another highlight of the weekend came when Alex & Anne took me rock climbing. I’d been rock climbing a couple times in the past year or so (once with Alex last year in Colorado, once outdoors this spring in Moab), but I hadn’t successfully made it to the top of a climb. This time I made it to the top of all three climbs I tried! The last two took a lot of perseverance, but I eventually made it to the top. I feel like I accomplished something, and now I’m more likely to try rock climbing again.
Also, every time I hang out with Alex I get motivation to learn how to play guitar. Maybe when I get back from Diego I’ll buy myself a guitar…
It’s going to be a busy week coming up, getting ready for my departure to Singapore and Perth, and a week after that, to Diego Garcia! Looking forward to my overseas adventures!
Last Tuesday I joined some friends from church for LoDo Bites, an eating and drinking tour of restaurants in lower downtown Denver. There were about 20 different restaurants participating in LoDo Bites, and for a $25 ticket we could get food and/or drink samples from any of those establishments. The weather was perfect too, sunny but not hot or windy.
Here’s a tour of our LoDo Bites experience:
Stop #1: Rio Grande. Free stuff: Tortilla chips, guacamole, salsa, and a marinated shrimp. Mini-margaritas were apparently free too, but when the server asked if we wanted margaritas and a few of us said yes, they gave us full-size margs (which were $2 off at least). We weren’t complaining, as margarita is a good way to start off an evening out on the town.
Stop #2: Celtic Tavern. Free stuff: Irish potato boat, pulled pork bbq sandwich, bread pudding.
Stop #3: Vesta. Free stuff: One bite of some tangy salad-like substance in a tiny cup. Not sure what it was, but it tasted good and only took about 2 seconds to eat.
Stop #4: The Tavern Downtown. Free stuff: Hamburger sliders, fried chicken sliders, bbq pork sliders, pizza, samples of frozen drinks including hurricanes. Add in the rooftop deck kitty-corner from Coors Field, and this was my favorite place of the night.
Stop #5: Fadó Irish Pub. Free stuff: 4 oz. Irish beers. I love Irish pubs. I tried a Kilkenny for the first time, and then good ol’ Smithwick’s. Tom & I talked to the Irish bartender for a bit too, and he was pretty cool. He even mentioned that he absolutely hates Pennsylvania, because of speeding tickets and the apparently-monotonous Appalachian landscape along the PA Turnpike. Maybe he meant monotonously beautiful, haha.
Stop #6: Wynkoop Brewing Company. Free stuff: Cake (either shortcake with berries or chocolate cheesecake) and beer (either an IPA or a porter). Fantastic.
Stop #7: McCormick’s Fish House & Bar. Free stuff: Lemon drop martinis. I had two because the others didn’t feel like waiting for them. Their loss. I wanted to get my money’s worth! 
Stop #8: Big Game Sports Bar. Free stuff: Cheeseburger sliders, chicken parm sliders, sushi rolls with wasabi, and hurricane shots (or something like it). I was late because of my two martinis, so I had to chow down quickly here, haha. Good stuff.
Stop #9: Backcountry Provisions. Free stuff: Roast beef sandwiches, veggie wraps, and one other type of sandwich. Starting to get full…
Stop #10: Dixon. Free stuff: Aztec chicken and corn chips. It was good, but the main attraction here was one of the horrendously out-of-tune outdoor pianos across the street.
Stop #11: Lime. Free stuff: Margaritas. It sure seemed like Lime was the least enthusiastic participant in LoDo Bites, because it was crowded and there wasn’t a section reserved for LoDo Bites customers, unlike every other place we went. Part of our group went somewhere else by this point though, which was a shame because this was the only place where I got a group photo.
LoDo Bites is definitely a cool event. I had a lot of fun that night in Denver, and I think I got my money’s worth of food and drink!
Greetings from Gunbarrel! I’m finally in Colorado! I can hardly believe my move is over; this fall went by soooo quickly. I’m glad the move is over though, because last week and this week, I’ve spent about 4500 miles riding/driving in a car (4100 miles in my own car).
I drove home to Wisconsin for Thanksgiving, and brought with me a carload of stuff to leave there until Christmas/New Years. Then I drove back to PA after Thanksgiving, to pack up the rest of my stuff and tie up some loose ends on campus and whatnot. I got back to State College on Monday evening, and then on Wednesday morning I drove out again, so I was only back for about 40 hours.
Even with taking one carload of stuff to Wisconsin, I still had to leave some things behind last week. I put everything I possibly could into my car, but some things just wouldn’t fit (bedding, pillows, laundry basket Vikings waste basket, tower fan, cooler, liquor, kitchen stuff/food, skis, winter boots, work boots, PSU lawn chairs). It really was packed to the gills, and weighed down pretty heavily. I honestly thought I’d be able to fit everything in, otherwise I would’ve taken some stuff to Goodwill. Oh well.
I packed some boxes in my backseat Tuesday night during a very brief pause in the heavy rain, but unfortunately I forgot to close the rear passenger door on my last trip of the night. I didn’t discover that little detail until morning, and it’d been raining steadily all night and morning. The boxes and upholstery on my passenger side were soaked. ARGH. I had no choice but to pack more stuff in and soldier on, however, as there was no time to take stuff out and dry it.
By the time I had everything loaded into my car, the steady rain had switched to heavy wet snow, so at least I bid farewell to a snow-coated Pennsylvania, making it even prettier than usual (road conditions improved markedly once I reached I-80). So on Wednesday I drove about 10 hours (with only two stops) to the western suburbs of Chicago, where I spent the night with my friends Ryan & Sarah. On Thursday I drove another 10-11 hours from Chicago to a motel in Kearney, Nebraska (where I was introduced to the fast-food joys of Runza on Ryan’s recommendation; apparently Runzas are a Nebraskan delicacy, haha). On Friday I drove the remaining 6 hours or so to Gunbarrel (northeast Colorado is even more desolate than southern Nebraska).
I went on a big shopping trip to Target and Safeway yesterday to replace all the stuff that I had to leave behind and stock my pantry. My wallet shed several tears, I think. I don’t have any bedroom furniture yet though, so I haven’t been able to unpack very much yet. I’m hoping to acquire some this week — I can hardly wait to finish unpacking and make my room feel like home.
In the meantime, I figured the best way to feel at home was to cook something: some tex-mex chicken hotdish from my Minnesota cookbook. It was a good way to learn where everything is in the kitchen (and to discover in the middle of prep that there wasn’t a can opener!). That just came out of the oven, so I’m going to dig in!
First day of work at NCAR tomorrow! I’ll post some photos of the house in a post later this week, hopefully.
