Day 8: Utah and Golden Retriever Mystery Skiers

After a solid day (and night) in Telluride, we slept in again, mainly because we had to wait till the Hop Garden opened since I had accidentally left my card in the bill holder. After re-accounting the night’s festivities and laughing, Ben sent us to try some of the best breakfast burritos in town at the Butcher and Baker Café. If you haven’t had a breakfast burrito with sausage, eggs, cheese, black beans, corn, sweet potato & salsa, you must try one. The sweet potato un-expectantly kicks it up a notch!

After retrieving my card and thanking Ben and Brr-ett for all their hospitality and good times (as well as Ben hooking me up with my new rockstars!), Grant and I had to move on to our next destination: Utah.

So at this point I should explain who Grant is and how he became the guest skier on the trip. On Cheryl’s Cowgirl Weekend, the ASTs of Houston and Orlando gathered together for a weekend of country fun. During the night we went to Rebel’s Honky-Tonk off Washington, we met a bunch of dancing fools who with complete careless abandon were ripping it up on the dance floor. Poorly. Extremely poorly. We were just out to have fun and were completely amused with the Elaine Bennett style dance that was exhibited by this group of guys. Between the dancing and the mechanical bull riding, Grant asked if he could take me to dinner. I warned him that I had school and was moving to Seattle in 3 weeks. He insisted on getting my number.

Fast forward several dinners and finding out the he was a crazy skier from Washington State, it was decided that he was coming skiing with me.

Now Grant is one of the happiest people I have ever met. He has an enthusiasm that is contagious and is constantly laughing and smiling. Even when skiing you can hear him through the woods whooping and hollering with joy as he bounds down the mountain. You just can’t help but get caught up in it. I told him he was like a big happy golden retriever and that I was going to refer to him as that. He even found that amusing.

As we drove from Telluride to Utah, Grant was super excited to show me Moab and Arches National Park where he had several great mt biking and camping excursions in the area. It was my first time out there and I was so excited to have such a fantastic guide.

We did a short hike and tried not to kill ourselves on the extremely icy trail and red rocks around sunset. As it was starting to get dark and late, we opted to get a hotel with a hot tub to make up for the fact that on the trip up from Taos to Telluride I didn’t get a chance to relax at the hot springs in Ouray.

Despite that it was only drive day with no skiing, it turned out to be a pretty great day :)