This blog site is called Erin and Patricks adventures, and one may assume that by the lack of posts that we may have stopped adventuring. Well if that's what you think, then you are sadly mistaken, if anything I have kicked it up a notch or 10 since getting back and have not had time to sit down and write a funny, intelligent, excellently written, Witty blog, until know. I am going to try and pack the last 3 months of adventure into a couple blog pages.
I have always tried to do something once a year that truly scares me, last year it was move to a different country, this year it was taking a motorcycle trip around Colorado with my friends Zach, Kurt(see gun toting redneck from last post) and Jay. Now you may be saying, 
wow I did not know Patrick road bikes, but hey there if a first time for 
everything. We were on the non plan, plan and really did not have a goal except to stay on two lane roads or dirt roads. It was really fun getting to some intersection on a dirt road in the middle of no where looking at the map and making the decision there. We did 800 miles, countless mountain passes, and river crossings over 3 days.
It started off with a trip I blogged about last, but man I just cant tell you how great it was to come back from Germany and go scare myself in a kayak for a couple days in my old stomping grounds back east.
The first adventure of the year was an academic one. I took my first class at a major college, and I rocked it! So that was nice.
One of the first adventures I had was a ski trip I took with Zach. We hiked in to a 13,000 foot pass and skied at 50 degree shoot(white line down the peaks face) that doesn't get done much, not because its all that hard, but because its not close to the road and the hike out requires hiking with your skis on your back threw some of the thickest forest I have ever seen, think hiking, swearing, getting whacked in the face by trees for a few hours to get out.
It was a great trip, simply because I have not had a suffer fest in over a year.
It has not been all fun and games, I was in classes full time until July 13th ending up with a 3.7 a GPA I am happy with that and makes me feel confident for the 18 credits I am going to be taking this fall. I have also been doing all kinds of random work, fire mitigation (chopping down trees), safety kayaking (pulling rafters out of the water when they swim), and I also had the
great fortune of spending 6 days on the Gunnison river in South central Colorado with a Hispanic leadership program that my friend Cree set up. It was great to be working with kids in the woods again, and this time it paid pretty darn well, so that helped.
One of the first adventures I had was a ski trip I took with Zach. We hiked in to a 13,000 foot pass and skied at 50 degree shoot(white line down the peaks face) that doesn't get done much, not because its all that hard, but because its not close to the road and the hike out requires hiking with your skis on your back threw some of the thickest forest I have ever seen, think hiking, swearing, getting whacked in the face by trees for a few hours to get out.
It was a great trip, simply because I have not had a suffer fest in over a year.It has not been all fun and games, I was in classes full time until July 13th ending up with a 3.7 a GPA I am happy with that and makes me feel confident for the 18 credits I am going to be taking this fall. I have also been doing all kinds of random work, fire mitigation (chopping down trees), safety kayaking (pulling rafters out of the water when they swim), and I also had the
great fortune of spending 6 days on the Gunnison river in South central Colorado with a Hispanic leadership program that my friend Cree set up. It was great to be working with kids in the woods again, and this time it paid pretty darn well, so that helped.Erin got back into the country on July 3rd and it was so great to have my wife back after two months of not seeing her. She was back in country for only one week and she already 
wanted to get out of town and see our great state of Colorado. So we headed off to Buena Vista so she could hike some 14ers and I could do some paddling. It was nice to hang out with her along side a river, and cook a nice dinner after a fun day of adventuring.
Last week there was the third annual Poudre Narrows race. I have always wanted to race but last year I was a little busy with the whole getting married/ honeymoon in Mexico/ moving to Germany thing that I was not able to race, and the year before that I had to work, so this year, this was my year. I did well for my first year running the race, I got the whole shot in my heat by taking a paddle stroke of a friends chest. All in all it was a really fun race that I am looking forward to running next year.
wanted to get out of town and see our great state of Colorado. So we headed off to Buena Vista so she could hike some 14ers and I could do some paddling. It was nice to hang out with her along side a river, and cook a nice dinner after a fun day of adventuring.
I have always tried to do something once a year that truly scares me, last year it was move to a different country, this year it was taking a motorcycle trip around Colorado with my friends Zach, Kurt(see gun toting redneck from last post) and Jay. Now you may be saying, 
wow I did not know Patrick road bikes, but hey there if a first time for 
everything. We were on the non plan, plan and really did not have a goal except to stay on two lane roads or dirt roads. It was really fun getting to some intersection on a dirt road in the middle of no where looking at the map and making the decision there. We did 800 miles, countless mountain passes, and river crossings over 3 days. There were a whole lot of other things that I have written about, and I am sure I could spend the next two hours writing, but hey I live in Colorado and have stuff to do, so I am going to wrap it up. I hope you all have had a great summer and are as ready to get back to school, work, or life as much as I am!
