A couple of weeks ago I took a four-day weekend to visit my long-time friend Jeff in Denver. Back in the day, this was a drinking-buddy friendship, with much time spent fruitfully in the taverns and pool halls of Chicago. Lately, though, we spend more time fine-dining (Jeff’s a serious foodie), doing stuff outdoors, and playing stupid games (a constant).
Most of the trip was spent around Breckenridge, a ski resort in its low-key off-season, checking out the sights, doing some cautious high-altitude hiking (with me acclimated to sea level, Jeff acclimated to one mile up), and competing with ferocious intensity at mini-golf and alpine slide races. (The alpine slide is a luge-like affair on a track, which seems to be the latest clever idea about how to monetize a chair-lift in the summer. By the way, it would be very hurtful to point out to me that all these amusements were really designed for kids, so please don’t do it.)
On that Saturday, we figured that we had time for one more outdoorsy activity before heading back to Denver to hang with Jeff’s family (where I enjoyed dancing with the kids and telling Jeff’s wife T all my troubles). Biking, white-water rafting, hot-air ballooning – all considered and rejected. And this is how it came to be that when JP sent me a text message that afternoon, she got back: “On a horse right now. ttyl.” She must have found this puzzling, and must have looked for a metaphorical interpretation, because the literal interpretation would be that I was … on a horse, which was not consistent with any previous experience. And yeah, I found it amusingly yuppie and SiliconValley to bother texting someone on my Treo while trying to ride for the first time. 🙂 Here’s a picture, which Jeff’s wife described as “a little Brokebacky, but cute” 🙂 (I’m the one on the right.)
Tim Converse 