Being A Tourist In My (Sort Of) Hometown

Okay, Colorado Springs is definitely not my hometown. But I have lived here for over a year now (minus a brief one-month hiatus), so it's pretty home-like. So when my friend Christina asked if she could stay with me for a few days while she covered the Rockies vs. Marlins for work, I was super excited to explore a little bit with some new eyes!

Christina flew in on Thursday, and she was on her own on Friday because I had to work (GASP, no more unemployment for me! But more on that at a later date). And on Sunday we'd spend the day in Denver at the ballpark. So Saturday was our designated Colorado Springs day. We didn't drag ourselves out of bed particularly early, so we had brunch (at Over Easy -- those blueberry streusel pancakes with lemon butter changed my life) and then crammed everything into the afternoon. Our first stop was, obviously, the Olympic Training Center!

I've already been on the tour (and, uh, lived there for seven months...), but they'd revamped the pre-tour video presentation after Sochi ended so I was itching to see the new one. I may or may not have cried through the whole thing, so I'd say it's a winner. (Though I'm probably a bad barometer for that. Set anything to music and I get weepy. And I also get weepy at pretty much any great Olympic moment. So combine the two and I pretty much need to set up camp in a box of tissues.)

The tour was fun too, as it was led by the very first person I met at the OTC before I moved in last May. :) He also asked some Olympic trivia questions for prizes, and before I could even think about raising my hand, he totally called me out and said I wasn't allowed to participate. LOL! But never fear, I knew all the answers! (But seriously, I got the biggest kick out of being labeled "former intern." Other people on the tour started asking me questions about the facilities. It was the greatest.)

We spent some time in the gift shop -- and I escaped without buying anything! -- and then headed off to Garden of the Gods. As we arrived, we noticed that they were offering Jeep tours, so we made a snap decision and hopped on! It took us around the park and into Manitou Springs and Old Colorado City, which was a really pleasant surprise! It was cool to get a little bit of history and other tidbits about the area.

When our tour finished up, it was after 4 p.m., so we hightailed it over to the Air Force Academy... but everything there closes at 5 (ugh!) so we didn't see much. We popped into the visitor's center really quick, and stopped at the outlook points, but it was a brief little visit. It's absolutely beautiful over there, though!

By now we were starving, so we headed back to Manitou for dinner at The Stagecoach Inn, a place recommended by our awesome tour guide. It was SO GOOD, and the portion sizes were perfect, and the ambience was great, and I will most definitely be coming back here in the future. We capped off the night with some custard (holy. freaking. delicious.) and a walk around town.

We had to be in Denver fairly early on Sunday, as the game was at 2 p.m. so Christina had to be in the clubhouse by noon. This gave me a good chunk of time to wander by myself, so I lounged by the stadium for a bit before walking down Wynkoop Street to the Tattered Cover Bookstore. I have ZERO PICTURES OF IT because my phone's storage is completely full (I know, I hate myself a little bit), but I absolutely fell in love with this area! There are beautiful old buildings mixed in with some futuristic design at Union Station, and all sorts of restaurants with open-air patios... Seriously, I need to go back. LoDo (lower downtown) is apparently the oldest part of Denver, and has recently been awesomely revitalized. I also just really loved being in a city again! Sheesh. There's just something so great about walking and exploring to your heart's content.

After browsing the bookstore for a bit, I headed back to the stadium to pick up my ticket (at VIP will call, thank you very much). Coors Field is super nice, and Christina and I walked around the concourse before she had to head back up to the press box to, y'know, do what she'd come out here to do. :P

How 'bout that view! Note: if you want really good seats, be friends with someone in the media. #ballin'

The Rockies ended up winning, and when Christina was finished with her story, we adventured around for a while as we looked for a Mexican restaurant. Eventually we did find one, and my quesorito was as delicious for lunch the next day as it was for dinner. ;) And THEN we hit absolutely disgustingly awful traffic on the way home, so let's just pretend the night ended with Mexican food instead.

Over a year of living out here and this was my first visitor, so I had so much fun being a tourist again! But my parents are visiting next month, which means I'll get to do it all again. :) And now I am so, so glad it's the weekend again, because I'm about to sleep for a solid day.

Getting Our Nerd On In Cardiff

I'm still kind of sad that my Eurotrip 2012 recap is finished. :( But now we get to backtrack a bit and relive some of my other expeditions in Europe!

I went to Cardiff, Wales with Amanda and Liz in February 2012, and it was the first time during study abroad that we'd left England. I didn't particularly care about visiting Wales, but Amanda and Liz are both huge Doctor Who fans and apparently Cardiff is a thing in that show... so they were super gung-ho about going, and I decided to come along for the ride. I mean, the bus fair was cheap enough, and I'm not one to say no to a day in another country!

Going in with zero expectations, I had quite a great time in Cardiff! The weather was cold and wet (hooray, UK!), but other than that it was a great day of nerdiness. Liz and Amanda had their Doctor Who fun in Millennium Park, of course, but Amanda and I also reenacted some Harry Potter scenes on a narrow wooden bridge at Cardiff Castle. We also walked around in the WWII air raid shelter hidden in the castle's battlements, which was just THE COOLEST THING EVER. The castle itself was beautiful, and I really enjoyed getting a look at Millennium Stadium, and the food was delicious, and we capped off the day with a frantic 15 minutes trying to find our bus and then sneaking our to-go dinners on board. Whoops. #adventuring

However, my camera died in Cardiff Castle, so this post is brought to you by a good chunk of my friends' wonderful photography!

And hey, can we talk about the Welsh language for a quick second? It looks like keyboard mashes!

Interesting place, Wales. It's definitely a country I'd like to return to someday!

Miracle Monday: Steve Christoff

Okay, how great is that picture? Have you ever seen such joy on a person's face?! Bill Baker is such a gem. :) But, moving on, because today is not about Bill Baker. Today is about a dude who is a total frickin' badass and not nearly appreciated as he should be. Are you excited yet? Because you should be!

FUN FACTS:

+ Steve was an absolute beast of a hockey player in high school. He was the guy that opposing coaches knew their team had to control if they wanted to win. He was powerful, talented and ridiculously hyper-competitive, and had an absolutely lethal slap shot, all of which combined to make him all but unstoppable. He led his high school team to the program's only state championship appearance ever.

+ Herb heavily recruited Steve to the University of Minnesota, which is where he ended up attending. He joined the Gophers in 1976 and won the NCAA championship in 1979. He continued his unstoppable ways in college and as a man of few words, he let his stats do the talking. He averaged almost two points per game in his sophomore and junior years and was named team MVP as a sophomore. But beyond all of this, Steve's legacy will pretty much live forever. Remember how Neal Broten won the inaugural Hobey Baker Award in 1981? Well, Steve here was the model for the trophy. So every year, the best collegiate hockey player in the country gets a 40-inch bronze statue of Steve Christoff. And if you don't think that's the greatest thing ever, you can go away!

+ Steve's complete baller status earned him a spot on the Olympic team, and he proceeded to absolutely tear it up there as well. In the pre-Olympic season, he was the team's leading goal scorer (though Mark Johnson had more total points), with 35 goals and 26 assists (61 points) in 56 games. His production slowed down in the Olympic tournament, though, where he scored two goals and one assist (three points) in seven games. But he DID score the first U.S. goal in the gold medal game (literally as a Finnish power play was expiring, so it was essentially short-handed).

+ After the Olympics, Steve signed with the Minnesota North Stars (who had drafted him in 1978) and was on the ice with them just days after winning Olympic gold. In the remaining 20 games of the 1980 season, he scored eight goals and seven assists. The North Stars made it to the semifinals of the Stanley Cup playoffs that season, and Steve scored eight goals in the postseason alone, setting the team record for playoff goals scored by a rookie. He had two more solid seasons with the North Stars before being traded. Unfortunately, a shoulder injury robbed him of that monster slap shot that made him so dangerous, so after two seasons with three other franchises, he retired in 1984.

+ With his hockey career finished, Steve enrolled in flight school. For the last few decades he's worked as a commercial pilot for Minneapolis-based Mesaba Airlines, flying to various places around the midwest. While he's not involved with sports anymore and mostly keeps out of the limelight, his wife Anna was an elite handball player for several decades, and was just inducted into the Minnesota Handball Hall of Fame this year. Talk about an athletic power couple!

Does this dude totally slay at life or what? If you're not convinced, take a peek at that slap shot I was talking about. Lethal.