Annie Bierbower
True Story
At the base of a mountain in Colorado on March 7th, 2003 I quite possibly had one of the most random and just plain weird events in my life take place. My family has made it a ritual since I was in about the 8th grade to take "The Big Ski Trip" over spring break. As the years have passed our group has grown and shrank but often consists of my Dad's hilarious brothers, one of his two sisters, and their families, and of course the children most often bring the various friends. So of course this spring break we all eventually made it to Keystone Ski Resort for a couple days of heaven. My family and I skied Copper one day and Keystone for 2 days meeting up with the rest of the family as they came. We all always stay at the same resort/hotel and hang out every night. We cook a wonderful but cheap supper, and spend as much of the evening as possible talking/teasing each other about the "graceful" falls and telling our own dramatized stories of what happened to us that day. It absolutely a wonderful time, but anyway now that we are done with the background information I'll get onto the crazy event! My Aunt's second husband's daughter from his first marriage (if you can get the straight) was coming up on the evening of our first day at Keystone. Lindsey, my kind of cousin, was bringing her friend along who ironically is also named Lindsey and who has two roommates ALSO named Lindsey but that's a whole different book, I just found it highly entertaining. So of course as us fun girls go we were planning on going out that night and well pretty much getting to know each other-I hadn't hung out with Lindsey in about 4 years- and seeing if we could paint the town a little. So off we go looking for something that was not only fun but legal for us minors as well which can be a hard task at 10:30 at night. After not too long of our unsuccessful searching we decided to try out the village at the base of the Keystone Mountains. The village is an absolutely enchanting place filled with everything from live music, clear streams, log bridges, shops, and of course the various bars and restaurants. By the time we got there it was about 11:00 and the place was looking pretty dead but we walked through the large wooden archway just the same and as soon as we make it officially through the gates this little old man with white hair walks up to me and shoves a credit card of all things into my face.
"Take this," he said in a practically frantic voice. "Take this and take us somewhere, anywhere, we just have to go somewhere! There is no limit, you can spend $100,000 just take us somewhere"!
"Where do you want to go so bad"? I asked.
That's when a realized that it was group of three not just one. There was the older man maybe 55, and younger tall man who was 38 and a dark haired woman whose father was originally from India. After a few moments we managed to understand that they were looking for a bar with live music and for some reason could not survive unless we didn't find them one so off we went down the strip looking for a place. It wasn't long before we heard live music and followed it to the Kickapoo Bar so we all went in and had a seat (uncarded luckily for the 50% of the party who were minors...no names)! The older man ended up to be an incredibly wealthy pilote, who seemed to have so much money he couldn't quite figure out what to do with it all. He gave us 20 bucks for "finding" the bar and bought drinks for everyone until the place closed! So we're sitting around a table at the base of a mountain, drinking Sunshine beer with a 55 year old man, a 38 year old man and a 26 year old lady like we’d known each other for years, as if that weren't weird enough the most exciting part hadn't even happened yet. It turns out that these three companions were just beginning the first cycle of an over year long process. They had concocted this wonderful idea for a book and decided to let us be its beginning. They were going to go to do pretty much nothing but travel and research for the next year (how great would that be). Their plan was to take what ever group of friends they ended up on this trip and have them each write on the back of a coaster where they would go if they could just hangout there for an entire month. You had to write where you go, what you would do and date it than they would randomly choose one of these coasters and off they would fly to the next destination. They have the title of the book and publishing corporation already handled. The book will be entitle "Haiku's and Shinku's Great Adventures" (the names of the pilate’s sons) Published by Sky Travel. It's due out in probably about 2 years so look for my name!!!! I actually learned something very important from this crazy little excursion. As with most sophomore college students, I am trying desperately to “find my calling,” but have had little luck other than short-lived obsessions where I think I’ve decided only to change my mind the next day. All I knew is that I wanted to see as much as possible in my lifetime. I want to experience all this world has to offer. I want to be up to eyeballs in culture, beautiful scenery, and ways of life I can’t even imagine at this point. Everytime I tried to discuss this with my parents I would usually receive your everyday parental reaction about responsibility and having a firm foundation and doing this and doing that. Telling me about all the “important” things in life, or more accurately THEIR LIFE. It just removed about 5,000 pounds from my shoulders to meet real live adults who agreed and supported my dreams, even if they were complete strangers. It was obvious that these were successful, educated people with families and if they can do why can’t I.
True Story
At the base of a mountain in Colorado on March 7th, 2003 I quite possibly had one of the most random and just plain weird events in my life take place. My family has made it a ritual since I was in about the 8th grade to take "The Big Ski Trip" over spring break. As the years have passed our group has grown and shrank but often consists of my Dad's hilarious brothers, one of his two sisters, and their families, and of course the children most often bring the various friends. So of course this spring break we all eventually made it to Keystone Ski Resort for a couple days of heaven. My family and I skied Copper one day and Keystone for 2 days meeting up with the rest of the family as they came. We all always stay at the same resort/hotel and hang out every night. We cook a wonderful but cheap supper, and spend as much of the evening as possible talking/teasing each other about the "graceful" falls and telling our own dramatized stories of what happened to us that day. It absolutely a wonderful time, but anyway now that we are done with the background information I'll get onto the crazy event! My Aunt's second husband's daughter from his first marriage (if you can get the straight) was coming up on the evening of our first day at Keystone. Lindsey, my kind of cousin, was bringing her friend along who ironically is also named Lindsey and who has two roommates ALSO named Lindsey but that's a whole different book, I just found it highly entertaining. So of course as us fun girls go we were planning on going out that night and well pretty much getting to know each other-I hadn't hung out with Lindsey in about 4 years- and seeing if we could paint the town a little. So off we go looking for something that was not only fun but legal for us minors as well which can be a hard task at 10:30 at night. After not too long of our unsuccessful searching we decided to try out the village at the base of the Keystone Mountains. The village is an absolutely enchanting place filled with everything from live music, clear streams, log bridges, shops, and of course the various bars and restaurants. By the time we got there it was about 11:00 and the place was looking pretty dead but we walked through the large wooden archway just the same and as soon as we make it officially through the gates this little old man with white hair walks up to me and shoves a credit card of all things into my face.
"Take this," he said in a practically frantic voice. "Take this and take us somewhere, anywhere, we just have to go somewhere! There is no limit, you can spend $100,000 just take us somewhere"!
"Where do you want to go so bad"? I asked.
That's when a realized that it was group of three not just one. There was the older man maybe 55, and younger tall man who was 38 and a dark haired woman whose father was originally from India. After a few moments we managed to understand that they were looking for a bar with live music and for some reason could not survive unless we didn't find them one so off we went down the strip looking for a place. It wasn't long before we heard live music and followed it to the Kickapoo Bar so we all went in and had a seat (uncarded luckily for the 50% of the party who were minors...no names)! The older man ended up to be an incredibly wealthy pilote, who seemed to have so much money he couldn't quite figure out what to do with it all. He gave us 20 bucks for "finding" the bar and bought drinks for everyone until the place closed! So we're sitting around a table at the base of a mountain, drinking Sunshine beer with a 55 year old man, a 38 year old man and a 26 year old lady like we’d known each other for years, as if that weren't weird enough the most exciting part hadn't even happened yet. It turns out that these three companions were just beginning the first cycle of an over year long process. They had concocted this wonderful idea for a book and decided to let us be its beginning. They were going to go to do pretty much nothing but travel and research for the next year (how great would that be). Their plan was to take what ever group of friends they ended up on this trip and have them each write on the back of a coaster where they would go if they could just hangout there for an entire month. You had to write where you go, what you would do and date it than they would randomly choose one of these coasters and off they would fly to the next destination. They have the title of the book and publishing corporation already handled. The book will be entitle "Haiku's and Shinku's Great Adventures" (the names of the pilate’s sons) Published by Sky Travel. It's due out in probably about 2 years so look for my name!!!! I actually learned something very important from this crazy little excursion. As with most sophomore college students, I am trying desperately to “find my calling,” but have had little luck other than short-lived obsessions where I think I’ve decided only to change my mind the next day. All I knew is that I wanted to see as much as possible in my lifetime. I want to experience all this world has to offer. I want to be up to eyeballs in culture, beautiful scenery, and ways of life I can’t even imagine at this point. Everytime I tried to discuss this with my parents I would usually receive your everyday parental reaction about responsibility and having a firm foundation and doing this and doing that. Telling me about all the “important” things in life, or more accurately THEIR LIFE. It just removed about 5,000 pounds from my shoulders to meet real live adults who agreed and supported my dreams, even if they were complete strangers. It was obvious that these were successful, educated people with families and if they can do why can’t I.
posted by Annette at
12:38 PM
