That’s right, ten minutes after 8 am this morning! That’s the latest we’ve slept in for as long as we can remember! It seems like we’ve wasted half the day, ha.
Yesterday we headed down to Denver to the dry cleaners and then Mom’s house. We have lots of cleaning to do in rooms like the basement where there is so much stuff, it’s almost overwhelming. We worked for a few hours with Tom and Ali and then Lori, the boys and I headed back up the hill. As soon as we arrived home we had to start getting ready for the Gala. About 5:45 Lori and I walked out the door for the Marriott.
We arrived at 6 with Lori looking stunning as usual. In fact one of the Hall of Fame members wives came up to her later in the night and told her so. When we walked in, it was packed. We knew a few people but not many. We found our table and said hi to Hart who was sitting there with his mountain cap on which had like 100 buttons from ski events all over the World on it. Turns out our (Hart’s table) had four Hall of Fame members! There was Hart, a fellow named Dick who was a member of the famous 10th Mountain Division which was the U.S. Army troops that were on skis in WWII and founded Vail, Francine Peterson and her husband and another fellow. I sat next to a guy named Mo who was probably in his 80’s yet still had a grey pony tail in his hair. It was a really fun and special evening. It was basically the Academy Awards of U.S. skiing.
There were five honorees or people being inducted. They had a video of each highlighting their contributions over their lives to skiing. There was a guy from Aspen, one from Wyoming, an extreme skier from New Hampshire, a guy who was most recently the head of Steamboat after running resorts for 43 years and a woman who started as a free style skier in the 70’s and now owns a ski apparel company. There were probably 30 Hall of Fame members in attendance.
Of course our new friend Hart, opened the ceremonies with a song and closed it with the same. One song was the third verse of the Star Spangled Banner. Now we, along with a lot of people didn’t know there even was a third verse. So they had the words on the video screen and everyone stood and sang along, most with their hands over their hearts. No one was taking a knee here, ha!
At one point in the evening Lori’s cell phone rang in her purse. Turns out there was a mountain lion under our deck and Mojo was trying to get to. The boys were trying to warn us for when we came home. Ty had his BB gun out in case it jumped up on the deck. I laughed and told him that’d just piss it off unless he hit it square in the eye!
We made it home around 10 and it really was a special event. You can learn so much from people older than you. It’s a shame that nowadays most people ignore them as they have such a different, and in many ways, better understanding and perspective on life. We enjoyed the evening very much.
This afternoon Jag and I are headed to the Bronco game, whoo hoo! Sure hope we win. We’re supposed to which is always a scary thing. It’s a beautiful morning with the blue sky creating a sharp contrast against the fall colors of the trees and scrub oak on the mountains. There’s no snow right now but we know it’s coming. This week though, it’s supposed to be in the 70’s all week long which is hard to beat anywhere. Guess I’ll get moving, hope you all are well, take care and be thankful for the day and all you have in your life, mostly your family and health as when you get older, that’s real wealth! God Bless.
Here’s a picture of one of the inductees skiing a 14,000 foot peak in Colorado. He skied all 54 of Colorado’s 14,000 foot peaks in one year and what’s even more impressive to me, is he had to climb them all to ski down!
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