"I only ski blacks on my birthday"

Day: 252
Steamboat Quasi Rest Day
Time: 1:54
Distance: 17.38 miles
Avg Speed: 9.1 mph
Terrain: Hills and Singletrack

We had a quintessential day of living on the road today. We had wanted to meet with our tent manufacturer, meet with our energy food sponsor and ride some singletrack today. We did so much more.
We started the day off with a little ride up to the Hot Springs Trail north of town. The ride wound us through spectacular country with views of the ski mountain. The actual trail starts out near Strawberry Park Hot Springs. We had thoughts of grandeur and were going to try to time a soak in the middle of the ride. We finally thought better of it and decided to do a soak later in town at the town hot springs. The ride was a great little section of singletrack that kept us near Mad Creek the whole way and eventually spit us out on highway 129. We rolled back into town in time to meet Chris at Big Agnes to thank him for taking care of us on our tent rain fly. He was very down to earth and quite cordial to us even though he was very busy. If you ever have a chance to buy a Big Agnes product, do it. It is a great grass roots company based in Colorado that takes care of the customer. We also ran into Nate, who is the sponsorship director for Honey Stinger Energy Foods. It worked out nice that both these guys work in the same building for the same parent company. Nate hand delivered our latest food order and shot the breeze with us for a little bit as well. It was great to finally put some faces with some names.
We got over to the hot springs in town around 2:00 for a little soak. We ended up in the mineral pool where we got into a conversation with a very interesting guy named Win. He found out we were touring through Colorado for a couple of weeks and added that for his 70th birthday he rode across the U.S. on the southern route (California to Georgia). After about an hour in the pool he invited us to dinner with him and his wife for some Mexican food at the Rio. We met Win and his wife Elaine at 6:00 and headed off to a great dinner at the Rio and they followed it up with a nice little tour of Steamboat Springs. Eventually the conversation steered towards Elaine’s 70th birthday. She had a great day skiing with her five grandkids and her daughter. Evidently her daughter had trouble keeping up with her, because “I only ski blacks on my birthday”. The beauty of it is they only learned to ski at 62. I guess there is hope for Leslie and I.
Backcountry Wilderness Rangers, Skiers, Hikers, Cyclists and married for 51 years. Talk about an inspiration.
How Cool Is That!!!
CK