Just call us Eskimos

A month or so ago, Cameron and Jeff took a spontaneous trip out to Colorado for a long weekend. No details required for the description of how the weekend was kicked off. If you know the three of us well, you can trust that a few ritas were consumed.

Following our reunion binge, we set off for the mountains where we were determined to build a snow cave. The following pictures were taken at the base of Mt. Bierstadt....

My Life is Never Boring

It has truly been a crazy year-and-a-half, a crazy ride and the best experience of my life. Rather than write everything that has happened to me, I will give you the abbreviated version....

Decided to leave Push America to pursue grad school and a new opportunity, reported to Arizona for school, traveled Colorado for a month, moved to Cleveland, didn't work out, brief stint in Charlotte, back to Arizona for more school, traveled Utah and Colorado for a month, moved to Denver to work for a non-profit that does adventure sports for people with disabilities, decided school was not worth the investment, non-profit could not afford me, moved to Texas, contract work for Paps, dabbled in some consulting, started dating a girl, moved to Colorado....again, stopped dating a girl, got a job with a global company and find myself somewhat settled.

I say somewhat because you just never know what I will come up with. In all my experience I have learned so much about God, about myself and about life. I won't go into details about everything, but want to share three verses I love.

James 1:12 says "Blessed are those who persevere under trial, because when they have stood the test, they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him."

James 4:10 says "Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up."

John 3:16 is so famous, but John 3:17 really drives home the point: "For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him."

Through my experiences, I have also learned the value of true friendship and family. To all those people who are rocks in my life, I thank you. You are truly a blessing and I am forever thankful.

I apologize I have not been updating my blog but promise to make a better effort because I have yet to scratch the surface of adventure and look forward to sharing my journey with all of you.

Also, I am thinking about getting another dog to travel with me. Yes? No? Maybe? Any thoughts?

Impromptu Ski Trip

I am quickly becoming ever so disappointed in my inability to consistently add content to this blog. But the fact is, I just haven't been experiencing many of the things for which this blog was created. Since November, my life has been in a bit of a lull (not bad, just quiet). For those unaware of my current situation, stay tune in the coming months as I will be posting a one year recap of my adventures and "hopefully" making an announcement for GREAT adventures in the upcoming year.
In the meantime, I recently had an impromptu ski trip with some random girl I met at the drive through of a Whataburger outside of Abilene......JUST KIDDING. Somehow in the midst of all my running around America and going from place to place, I have managed to meet an awesome gal that actually thinks I'm "kind of" cool too.......lucky me. Well, here are some pics of our New Year's ski weekend and a typical blog video filled with extremely useful information from Kelly. For the record, Beaver Creek, Colorado is a great ski spot, but also has a little bar up on the mountain that plays nonstop classic rock. So if you're like us, you might be paying for a lift ticket to ski, but in actuality you are paying to sit four hours listening to some of the best tunes ever produced.

Road trip of all road trips for two HLPs!

So I have seriously been off my game lately and haven't updated my blog. My apologies to all, but I hope I don't disappoint with the story from an epic journey with a good pal.

Fortunately for me, I work for a pretty awesome organization that decided to send me on a trip from San Fran to Denver to scout the first half of a cross-country cycling route to make sure all the roads were safe. And it just so happened one of my long lost pals, Charlie or HLP if you prefer, was between jobs and decided to join me on the trip. I promise, work was completed during this trip, but I will say it was equally hilarious as it was business. Honestly, words can't describe what went on during our trip, so I am just going to provide some images from our journey, brief explanation, and maybe a few videos to boot.

As we started in San Fran, we were able to meet up with another great pal, Prescott Shek. For those of you who know Shek, you can appreciate the treat we were in for.

Shek treated us to a great San Fran tour including a stop at the Full House house as Charlie so discretely displays. Next stop, Full House house number two. Is that Comet?
I took a brief solo trip to Half Moon Bay.Sunset...Sunrise...The beginning of a crazy journey.
We like to dance.......


So as we pulled into Ely, NV, we decided to stay at this hotel. The inside was full of mounted animals and housed the first elevator ever in the state of Nevada.
The only way to really paint the picture is to provide you with our own personal tour.


I will leave you with this. Keep in mind.......I did it for the blog.........

Why people live in Colorado....

As of 8:00am this morning (October 29, 2009), it has been snowing consistently for 36 hours. According to our measurement on the patio table, we think we are around 18 inches of snow. Apparently, this is the largest snow storm to hit Denver in nearly 16 years. Adam, Blue and I tried to play in it yesterday, but it was too deep and too soft to go kayak sledding. Check out the pics and video.

Playing For Change

As we all know, hate has become a daily observation in our lives. The wars in the Middle East, drug lords in Mexico and the myriad of troubles in Africa; hate is all around us. Personally, I blame a lot of the perception of hatred on the media, but that is neither here nor there.



Fortunately, with the rise of the tough times comes the rise of leaders who won't stand for such heartache. And I'm not talking about political leaders (don't get me started on this), I'm talking about the ordinary people like you and I who aren't satisfied with the status quo and who do what they can to make a difference in our world.

Two of my favorite things are sports and music. No matter how bad things get, both sports and music bring me peace. I also find a lot of satisfaction in knowing that the only two things that everyone on the planet have in common are sports and music.

Lance Armstrong tweeted a music video today that linked to a Web site called Playing for Change and the following videos are from that site. It is truly remarkable and admirable what these folks are doing. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have.

Snow Kayaking Adventure

This past weekend, Jeff was kind enough to spend a couple days in Denver as he passed through from the Vitters family reunion in South Dakota. For those who are unaware, Jeff is a good friend from Charlotte and one that shares the same appreciation for random, unplanned adventures.

The following videos and images are from our snow kayaking adventure in the Rockies. You may notice, we decided to bring along another friend we picked up at a local Mexican yard sale. On that day, his name was Boomer. Considering Oklahoma's devastating loss to Miami on that particular day, I am currently taking recommendations for new names. Comments welcome.

Video 1: Before every adventure day, it is required to get pumped up. I can think of no better way than a Paper Planes dance off in the car. Enjoy



Video 2: You see, sometimes when you hang out with someone long enough, you start to learn interesting things about their personality. This particular video demonstrates Jeff's ability to scream as if he was an 8-year-old girl on a roller coaster for the first time. I apologize for my zoomed in commentary.



Video 3: I thought it would be a bright idea to hand the camera over to this guy from Holland that was visiting. You will see why I made such a decision upon watching the video. You will also see that my plan completely backfired as I now have a giant welt on my shin.



One thing to keep in mind when viewing all of this is the image of two guys parking at a very popular mountain pass (Loveland Pass) in Colorado and proceed to unload a kayak (no rivers anywhere around), ropes, helmets and a giant stuffed dog. Before hiking to our sledding paradise, we were the talk of Loveland Pass and staged our adventure with an audience of nearly 50 onlookers. That's just how we roll. Game on.