Just Another Weekend
It was an average Friday afternoon at work, nearing the end of yet another workday (workweek!) and a coworker asked me “What are ya’all doing this weekend?”. I replied, “not really anything different from any other weekend.” But our “average” weekend is anything but average for the normal human. Our weekends are generally filled with adventure, multiple action-packed sports, and entertainment to the likes that most people might consider the “time of their lives”. So that inspired me to write about it. ‘Just another Weekend’
Let me preface this by saying that Ms. Jill has been working DOUBLE-OVERTIME the last few weeks on some pretty amazing things (which are confidential), but could really take her career to the next level, so I have not been getting sufficient attention from her. Thus, I decided she owed me some serious date time. So, after I left work, I decided that I was going to make her go to my favorite BBQ joint, “Lulu’s’, in Old Town Louisville, followed by ice cream from “Sweet Cow“.
On the drive home, however, I thought to myself; “man Jake, you can make some killer chicken yourself. Why leave dinner to the ‘amateurs’ when there’s a pro right here.” I also thought “Why make just a little chicken when I can make an ENTIRE chicken” Seems like I would be stupid not to. I promptly bought a whole chicken and some of my favorite BBQ Sauce, “Big Hoss”. Then I think to myslef again, “I have canned beer.” I would be stupid not to use it to make beer canned chicken. Because I got home early (3:30pm), I still had a few hours until I or Jill was ready to eat, so I thought again (even better this time around), “why not smoke the chicken with mesquite chips that I have lying in my pantry.” And so it began; the glory of the Smoked Beer Canned Chicken.
If you’re interested, I smoked it with mesquite chips for about 3 hours while the Chicken sat on top (see pictures) of a can of Fat Tire Ale. The rub I used was a homemade blend of olive oil, salt, pepper, chili powder, brown sugar (lots of it) and paprika.
After our glorious chicken feast, we got in the ol’wagon and drove down to Louisville to get our all-time favorite ice cream at Sweet Cow (friends and family that visit us are always brought there for a treat). Summer was in full-effect in Old Town; kids, families, dogs, music, and us, just enjoying the beautiful evening in the little courtyard with their yummy ice cream (there was not a cell phone in site). We have always said that going to Old Town is like going back in time to the 1980’s and it would be a great place to raise a family (if one wanted to do such a thing).
Jill went with her old standby – Strawberry Ice Cream – 2 scoops in a cup (which is really 4 scoops) and I got a scoop of “salty caramel’ on top of a scoop of “peanut butter captain crunch’. We just sat on the lovely big chairs on fake grass and enjoyed each other’s company, like it was pre-smart phone, 1980. It was an amazing end of the day.
Saturday morning we woke up a little later in the morning (about 8am). Jill wasn’t feeling great, so she only ate a piece of toast, while I had eggs over easy with toast and jelly. After gathering all of our stuff, we decided to pack a cooler with a picnic and head over to Boulder Reservoir for a day of sailing. We have a Coronado 15 sailboat, dubbed “Bosco”, stored at the Rez, and it just happens to be about 5 minutes from our house. Bosco is just as temperamental as our late puppy dog of the same name, but we had no issues with her that day. Low crowds on the water and a steady 10 knots of breeze made it a fantastic sailing day. Cloud coverage kept the temps low enough to be comfortable and the snacks I stuffed in my life jacket kept my tummy happy until lunch. We sailed around for about 3 hours (although time flew by) simply enjoying life. Jilly worked the helm, manning the main and jib sheets for most of the day, while I occasionally would help with a tack or jibe, and moved my body weight from side-to-side to keep us on an ideal heel.
After we pulled Bosco out of the water, parked, packed and covered her, we grabbed the cooler and headed over to the beach. We had a nice little picnic (fresh salad made with chicken from the night before, some pepperjack cheese, roasted red peppers, and a light EVOO dressing) on the beach. It was really nice and relaxing although it was very crowded that day, as the Rez had a few events going on, and many parties throughout the grounds. We didn’t have any trouble finding a nice chunk of grass by the water to enjoy ourselves. One funny thing happened when some drunk college kid lighted his gas can on fire…freak out for a second, throw it down in the grass, and let it burn a bit more. I was surprised to see that the same foolish kid was actually smart enough to have a fire extinguisher (right next to his grill) and quickly put it out. There was also an AVC event (all things remote controlled) with air planes, helicopters and lots of RC Car racing. It made me happy to see people with hobbies doing their thing with LOTS of other people!
Later that night, we headed to Downtown Boulder to meet up with some of our most favorite people, Rob & Patty, for a fancy steak dinner at the Boulder Chop House. It was also a semi-work dinner for Jill, so that meant one thing, getting the best and biggest steak on the menu. We literally closed the place down and our table was the last to leave, because we had great conversation with our friend’s and Jill & Rob’s work colleague. All-in-all it was a great Saturday in Boulder.
By the time Sunday rolled around, we were moving pretty slow. Normally we don’t stay out super late, but we didn’t get back in until after midnight and we were both pretty exhausted from the day before…so we slept. I got up a bit earlier than Jill, spent the morning reading my latest zombie book. Jill woke up and was craving her, now famous, Jilly Cakes (click to view recipe), so she got to work. After breakfast we were both still pretty tired, so I read a bit while Jill did some work.
We decided that because of our late start, and the VERY hot temps, that we were going to do an evening climb in Boulder Canyon (which is where we generally go climbing in Boulder). We were hoping to beat the weekend crowds by going later in the day and we are trying to get/stay fit for an upcoming trip to Wild Iris, WY. Normally, we try to climb during the week to avoid crowds, but we decided to take the risk and venture out.
It was about 95 degrees and we were hoping to find a climbing spot in or near the shade. We left at about 330pm to drive the 35+ minutes to this area called the sport park. It is the farthest climbing spot up the canyon before you enter into the next town (Nederland), and can often be about 10 degrees cooler than any other spot. Generally, it is a VERY popular climbing location, due to the very high concentration of moderate climbs and the respite of shade. But, it also has a tricky river crossing that sometimes keeps crowds away (especially in late spring and early summer). It looked hopeful when we pulled into the parking area, which wasn’t as crowded as normal, and started our way towards the river. We saw a couple of people walking back to their cars, soaked to the bone…not a good sign.
The river was in high-swing (since it is early summer the river moves FAST). I decided to go first, and it was FREEZING! I was up to my waist in a VERY strong river current that would have pulled me down had it not been for the rope strung out between two trees. I didn’t have too hard of a time, but Jill was a different story. She tried but couldn’t convince herself that she would make it across (and not die). She went about 10 feet and turned back. It was pretty crazy and flowing really strong; where if you make a false move or can’t hold on to the rope, you will probably get swept away and could SERIOUSLY injure or kill yourself. So I crossed back (and actually gave myself rope burn because of the current pulling me).
Strike one
I cracked open the guidebook back at the car, and found another climbing crag nearby that we had never been to, but had always talked about going. It was called “Retirement Crag” which had about a dozen pretty decent climbs (at least that’s what the guidebook said). We drove back down the canyon a few miles to find that our crag had the exact same river to cross over, only had no safety rope to guide us…even I, me, Jake Challis, decided that it was too dangerous (now that is saying something!).
Strike two
Since we know this climbing area very well, we knew which areas were going to be overcrowded and in the sun. So, once again we open the guidebook and found another crag a few hundred yards from where we parked. This was on the other side of the road, so no river to cross…things were looking hopeful! Jill asked me if that large 200+ feet of rock right in front of us, was where we were going. I said…no it’s up to the left (as the guidebook says). So we bushwacked for about 20-30 minutes through thick trees, mud and lots of loose rock (on a pretty steep incline). After that didn’t work, I kept walking forward toward that huge rock face, and realized that sure enough, that was our crag (I guess sometimes the wife is right – don’t tell her I said that).
We scrambled up a gully (which is basically just a field with loose boulders that can fall at any time) to the base of the wall. I bashed my finger bushwacking and fell on the boulders a few times, giving myself a bunch of new bruises and bloody cuts. I consulted the guidebook to determine that this was the correct location, and inspected the wall. The rock was crap. It was full of debris, water and chipping away pretty badly. Generally popular climbing areas lend themselves to clean and beautiful rock faces, scrubbed free of debris, loose rock, and loose holds. This climbing area was clearly not popular. It was also in the sun….and it was HOT.
Strike Three
As a general rule, if something doesn’t work out for us after 3 tries, we give it up as a bad omen and the universe telling us that we shouldn’t keep pushing, because it just leads to bad things. We had used up most of our remaining daylight for the evening and decided it was best to just go home.
Calling it quits is not a horrible thing. We found some new climbing areas and got outside. In climbing there is a general principle; “you can’t win them all”. The success rate of having a great climbing day with no injuries and fun challenging experiences is only about 15%. It is higher in our local area, ranging about 60-80% success, but only because we have fought the good fight a lot more, and know where to go (and more importantly where NOT to go).
And that brings us to the end of our sunday and the end of our blog. This is just a typical weekend here in Colorado, in the summer. The weekdays tend to follow the same suit, with working out, climbing, sailing or doing something fun like making a fancy dinner or going to the ice-cream shop, inbetween those pesky work-hours. The moral is to get out there and try things (any-things) because you never know when your going to miss out on, and failing only makes you smarter, better, stronger. With that, I bid you adeau.
