Steamboat is a pretty cool mountain, possibly my favorite thus far.  They have many open glades of Aspen and Spruce rather than the dense conifer forests found at many other ski areas in the state.  There are excellent tree runs all over the mountain, at many different pitches, and some sweet hike-to extreme terrain off the back side of the summit.  We headed up there on Tuesday afternoon:

 

 

We ski'd down the backside, navigated a cliff, and then cruised through the trees back to the populated side of the mountain.  It was super cool, just all the snow was old and tracked up.  Let it snow FFS!

 

That night James and Jen took us to the hot springs in town, where James happens to work, so we got the VIP experience:  free entry, no bag check, and the privilege of driving down the hill an additional hundred yards.  I really want to check out the place in the daylight and might do that today; it seemed like the perfect blend between keeping it natural and commercializing it a bit.  I would prefer it left alone, but I suppose it being so close to a town and so easily accessible would lead to people abusing it eventually.  We soaked until about midnight, an incredible moonless and cloudless starry night over our heads.

 

Wednesday consisted of working/being lazy during the day.  I put in about 3 hours and a dozen sit-n-go's on Ultimate Bet, took care of some other business stuff, Shelley did some laundry, and we poked around downtown a bit.  I like the town, not too big, not too small, and there's an airport nearby, unfortunately it doesn't fly direct to Vegas.  That evening James and Jen picked us up for an evening of goodness.  We dropped the girls off downtown who were meeting more girls so they could do whatever it is that girls do when they gaggle, and James took me to the local weekly tournament with cash game after.  

 

We walked into this office building, and in the back room there were three tables set up.  I bought in for $24, was handed t100 chips (10 white, 7 red, 3 black (dimes), 1 green).  For the first hour I could rebuy for $20 and get t50 chips.  No add-ons.  Standard goofy home game rules.  I busted shortly in the second table, just in time to start the cash game.  

 

Rules:  $1 ante per player, dealer's choice (casino games only), and dealer chooses the limit.  Some picked $10 limit (thus it was 1-10 spread).  I almost always picked PLO something since it gives the most positional advantage, plus we can make the pot bigger.  It turns out that I'm really good at "five card double flop PLO8."  It also turns out that you can make goofy multi-flop/split-pot rules and have it still be a casino game.  One of them they played was double flop no-limit hold'em, where "the two best hands split the pot."  I'm still not sure WTF that means, but on one hand I had him crushed, but he had the 2nd best hand so got half the pot.  I was 3 Breckenridge Avalanches and 5 Dale's Pale Ales in at this point so the details are fuzzy.  

 

James warned me that the crowd might be a little bitter.  The later the night got, the more the piles of cash in front of us grew, and the more bitter those losing said cash got.  We played until it was about time to go find the gaggle, and then in one hand of 5-card double flop PLO8, you can imagine the mess of cards about the table, I returned my hand to the dealer aiming for his muck pile, which was near the stub that was unprotected, and missed.  I didn't miss bad, but it was slightly questionable as to what the top card was, with four burns, two turns, and two rivers to go.  The guy dealing lost his mind at me.  Berating me like I tried to kill his hand.  I can tolerate this for about 90 seconds.  In the confusion of trying to decide what to do, I was like sorry, I missed, chill out, somebody sticks the five of spades in my face and asks "Was this one of your cards?"  I say no, but wtf, it's five card double flop pot-limit Omaha eight or better, you really expect me to remember the cards that I just mucked with old man bitter-face berating me because it's my fault he's lighting money on fire?  Whatever.  They get the rest of the cards out, bitter-face's 267TQ badugi doesn't make a winner on two boards, what a bad beat, and it's my fault.  90 seconds had expired, I was about to lose my mind, so I quit.  This isn't fun anymore.

 

"I quit."

"Yeah, you do that," says bitter face.

Good one dude.  

 

James and I found the girls with almost $700 of their money in our pockets.  

 

Thursday we slept in a bit, hit the slopes at noon, and had a good lazy afternoon.  There was even more ice than on Tuesday and we're starting to need snow pretty bad.  One bump run we did had sticks sticking up out of every between bump spot.  We came back, Shelley napped, and then we headed over to the first show for the Ski-Jam (winter music festival coincidentally here while we are) opening night, and got to see The Wailers (as in Bob Marley and the) in a small venue for $20 each.  They were great.  The opening band, Jonathan Tyler and the Northern Lights, was also very strong, southern rock/blues/jam-band ish.  

 

 

Peace and good luck,

 

Devo