Official Colorado Weekends

It can be daunting living here, you know. There are certain unspoken requirement for living in the bumpiest of the square states, usually involving willingly taking your life into your own hands in the name of entertainment and fitness.

We decided to embrace such a silly lifestyle last weekend, and met up with some old AF friends to share a condo at the bottom of the slopes at Keystone. It was a wonderful time, staying two nights that allowed us to relax both nights, avoid most traffic, and get some pizza at the original Beau Jo's in Idaho Springs to boot. The skiing itself was pretty darn good, and while conditions did not bring any new snow, it was at least perfectly sunny allll dayyyy loonnngg. (ahem. Michigan?) Liz spent the day with our friend Anne, burning up every green dot she could find, while i did my best work at dislocating or breaking any possible bone in my body back in the trees.


And while skiing is all well and good for blogging, i would be remiss if i did not take a moment to diagram the stellar (STELLAR) decorating choices of the condo that we stayed in. The place we had seemed to be owned by an individual family, and then leased out to an association for rentals, because there was no way that any faceless, impersonal organization could decorate as well as we saw. In fact, let me be a guide for your lesson in Mountain Condo Decorating for Dummies:


First, pho-tree and antler accoutrement are a must. A MUST. Here you will see a simple lamp made of branches, but you could also find a coat rack of antlers, multiple frames made from rough wood and a large, rustic fireplace. There are countless stores across the front range and in the tourist section of mountain towns that have shelves and shelves and shelves of this stuff. There is an entire industry of people who take new pieces of furniture and make them look old. I love it.


Here is step 2 - proudly displayed artwork from the 80's. This little gem could be found at the middle turn of the stairs, and almost made me trip and fall backwards on my first trip up. Just try and pick one thing about this to be amazed at. The butterfly's? No, it has to be the hair. Ah, but what of the fantastic eye shadow? I bet they spent a lot of money on this at one point.


Item number 3 is almost qualifying for our first section, if not for it's bravado and size. It's... a big ram. i guess. It almost seems like it was frozen in carbonite, Han Solo's little curled-horn buddy. But the reason it get's very special recognition are the very personal pictures of the actual homeowners on the mantle..... including a picture of them buying the carbonite ram. I can't make this stuff up.


And finally, number 4. Oh, my. This was on the wall of the room that liz and i slept in. It looked over us while we slumbered, and i wholly expected it to show up in my dreams. Have you seen a better example of nightmare fuel? It's like mardi gras, turkeys, and the plot point of a B-Grade horror movie all rolled into one and put on the wall. IN THE LIVING ROOM.

Luckily, the skiing knocked enough out of us, and we hardly noticed the daemon hung above us as we snoozed off the muscle strains we had both earned. And we eventually left on Sunday morning, with seemingly not a trace of a curse following us home. (we think)

(please, seriously, if anyone reading is bankrolled enough to own a mountain property, do not follow these guidelines. Misery and blog posts at your taste's expense is all that can come from it.)