Steamboat Springs

As we left Rocky Mountain National Park we only had one thing on our minds… showers! So, we headed to the lovely town of Steamboat Springs, Co. and managed to secure a decent room at a downtown motel. Ah, to be clean again! (See, there were no shower facilities within the park, so we were rather ripe after four shower free days.) Once we were settled in and clean we had some dinner a decent Italian restaurant, and went back to our hotel room to be lazy couch potatoes and indulge in the Daily Show.

For the majority of the day on Friday and again on Saturday morning we hunkered down in a nice internet café, so Kimbal could do some more job searching and applying. While Kimbal was dutifully applying to jobs, I read and did a little bit of window shopping. And I have to say that a few hours in I started to get antsy, and was wishing that I could apply to some jobs myself, but all in due time.

We did manage to have a bit of fun in Steamboat too. On Friday evening we went to a very nice natural hot springs. Supposedly it’s clothing optional, but everyone there was well behaved, and clothed. It was beautiful, relaxing, and very hot! We had to keep working our way down to the cooler pools because we just couldn’t take the heat. Also, Kimbal and I were already really relaxed, I mean we’ve been on vacation for over two months now, so we didn’t stay at the springs for too incredibly long because relaxing soon turned into boring. On the way out, we passed a few coyotes on the side of the road.

Saturday afternoon it was really hot so we decided it was time cool off with a tube ride down the Yampa River. The tube ride was pretty decent, with some fun abrupt 2 ft drops. It was a great way to spend a hot afternoon. That evening we decided to do something cultural, and went to the rodeo! It was my first rodeo, and I didn’t know much about them before we went, but Kimbal filled me in, since he had been to a few at the Cow Palace in the Bay Area when he was a kid. It was a really great time… I especially enjoyed the barrel racing, and, of course the bull and bareback riders were very exciting to watch. Really, the real talent at the rodeo are the guys that distract the bull after the rider has fallen off. Man, that’s a scary job. I do wish that the announcer had kept his republican propaganda to himself. Talk about alienating people, geeze. We were there to see the rodeo, not to be converted into republicans. Even with all of his bull crap, we still managed to have a great time.