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A Tale of Two Puppies

Once upon a time, there was a puppy. 

  

He was little and cute and very, very furry.  Once cool, fall day, the little puppy went to live with a family.  They thought the puppy was the cutest little furball ever.  

After spending a week assessing his new situation from a safe location under an armchair, the puppy decided that he liked his new family too.  He came out from under the chair and began to frolic and play with the family.  He loved to spend time outside.

The little puppy grew.  As the little puppy grew, so did his fur.

  He grew, it grew. 

He grew some more -- it grew some more.  

 

This went on for some time until the puppy was nearly full-grown and he was very, very, very furry.  
 

Unfortunately, for the puppy, as he was growing the seasons were passing by and summertime had come around.  The furry puppy did not like summer. He thought summer was too hot.  So, he spent most of his time panting while spread eagle on the tile floor (unable to fit under armchair anymore).  When he’d go outside, the puppy would scurry for the shade and then get back inside as quickly as he could.

The family was sad that the little puppy was so hot and uncomfortable.  Sometimes, they would let him play in the hose to cool off, but then he’d have to wait outside until he stopped dripping.  The puppy did not like that either.  And the water made his fur very tangly. 

Oh dear, they thought, whatever will we do?

Fortunately, the puppy was lucky enough to have a Fairy Godgroomer.  She heard about the puppy’s plight and just when things seemed most hopeless, she swooped in to help. 

The puppy was skeptical at first.  He thought the Fairy Godgroomer’s magic clippers were a little scary. 

And he wasn’t so sure that it was a good idea to wield those scissors so near his face. 

But the Fairy Godgroomer knew what she was doing and when she was done, the puppy was transformed!  When he went out, no one even recognized him anymore and everyone wanted to pat him!

 

 

 
With his new “’do”, the puppy was happy again. He could run and frolic and spend more time outside.  He could get wet and even go in the pool sometimes!  The puppy decided that he never wanted to be all furry again.  Or at least until winter.

And they all lived happily ever after.  

Caution, Slow Vacationers Ahead

One of the reasons we picked Breckenridge for a summer getaway instead of, say, Vail or other Colorado mountain town is that it has a "summer fun park."  That way we’d have something to do if the kids got bored with hiking to just another gobsmackingly stunning location.  Plus, it kept one of us adults from spending way too much time watching the debt ceiling negotiations on TV.  I probably need not mention here which adult was so inclined but I will say that I attribute it to the patriotic zeal of newly-minted citizenship.  Because otherwise it’s just weird.

So, off we went one morning to the summer fun park.  One cool thing about it is the Gondola ride up the mountain to the park.  The Gondola is “free” (if you don’t count the $70 per person for the all-day park pass) and it’s pretty impressive – crossing over the main road and making stops and turns at various resorts on the way up.   

After getting our tickets, we headed for the newest attraction at the park, a roller coaster that you ride down the mountain.  You hop into individual cars that carry you to the top.  You then have brakes to control the speed of your vehicle as you plunge back down the mountain.   We could see the people ahead of us hurtle past with shrieks of exhilarated glee on their way down.

Here is one of the cars containing a person who would have dearly loved to hurtle down the mountain shrieking with exhilarated glee. 

Alas, the blurriness of the photo wasn’t caused by the blazing speed of the ride.  To the contrary, it was because crammed into my car with me was another nearly full-sized person who refused to ride by himself or to man the brakes.  In a moving roller coater, unable to take a breath, holding a camera in one hand and a brake lever in the other while someone is screaming at you “DON’T GO TOO FAST, MOM!” does not yield the best photographic results.

Needless to say, we did not hurtle.  We were the people who aggravate everyone else by going really, really slow so that the people behind us (including some vociferously complaining family members of our own) had to go really, really slow too.  Yes, we were those people.  But, we did go faster on our second ride and were all primed to become speed demons on our next adventure:  the Alpine Slide.  There it is in the distance.

 

Once again, I found myself in a too-small car containing two too-big persons and holding the brake, but I was determined that we would hurtle this time, darn it.  We were on a simple sled in a low-tech chute built right on the ground – what could go wrong? [Please stop here and try to imagine 2 people in this sled.]

Well, we were flying down the track when Julie – who was in front of us -- came to a complete stop.  There was an injured chipmunk on the track in front of her and, bless her gentle animal-loving soul, she absolutely would not squash it further with her sled.  This resulted in traffic jam beside us akin to I95 in the wake of a jack-knifed tractor trailer.   We were becoming those people again.

The guy directly behind us started urging Julie to just keep going.  After he realized she was too principled to cave into that kind of bad influence, he next urged her to move it off the track.  Now, dear readers, would you allow your 11 year old child pick up an injured chipmunk?  Or, more to the point, would you suggest to someone else’s child that they pick up an injured chipmunk?  I wouldn’t.  I’m still traumatized – and I am not making this up -- by a childhood chipmunk biting incident (it bit Dianne, not me).  Moreover, I couldn’t help with the chipmunk since I was wedged so tightly into the sled by the almost full-sized person sitting in front/on top of me that it would have taken the jaws of life to get me out of that thing.  Finally, to break the stalemate, the guy climbed out of his car and flipped the poor maimed chipmunk off the track.  But our reputation as those people was sealed.

Undaunted, we struck out for new activities like the giant maze -- which was a lot harder than it looked. Daniel was determined, though, and hurtled through it in no time. Then he had to go back in and help me escape.

And panning for gems -- which was a lot easier than it looked since they gave you a large bag-full of sand and gems.  It was really more like sifting than panning.

All in all, we enjoyed the summer fun park although I suspect when we left, some of the other patrons were glad to see the back of those people.

A Summer Outside

As a former New Yorker living in Arizona, there is one thing I miss about summer:  being outside during daylight hours.  To survive the dangerously hot summer temperatures, Arizonans are forced to spend the summer burrowing in dark (and air-conditioned) places far from the withering power of the sun, thereby coming to resemble some weird pale, subterranean species.  Think naked mole rat.

Those who resist a fate as naked mole rats have 2 options:  (1) dessicate and die under the white-hot rays of blistering solar radiation or (2) leave.  Thus, our trip to Breckenridge. 

I can personally attest that even the most preternaturally pallid creature would be safe venturing outside in the the ambient 72 degree summer temperature of Breckenridge.  Unlike Phoenix, there is an abundance of shade and water just about everywhere you look.  Right outside our condo, there was a shaded, woodland trail beside a mountain stream and leading to a lovely lake. 

Looking less pasty already: 

Hardly wanting to burrow at all:

Emerging triumphant into the light!

Of course, there are some perils even in this beautiful spot.  By the time we reached the top of the trail, we were gasping for breath, thanks to the 9,600 foot elevation.  Still, it was worth it to see how the rest of the world spends the beautiful, temperate days of summer, even if only for a few days. Soon enough, we had to return to the sweltering heat of Phoenix.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got more burrowing to do.

 

My New Favorite Place

Occasionally, I discover a place that makes me want to run home, pack up my stuff and move.  Usually, it’s a city like London (although, ahem, not so much lately) or San Francisco.  This is partly because it must have a good coffee shop in order for me to envision moving there – without my daily non-fat, no-foam latte that I would shrivel up and die.  But I digress.

My new favorite place is not a city; it is Breckenridge, Colorado -- a small town, nestled by mountains, accented by rolling streams and lakes.  I’d like to say that it is of those “undiscovered gems” that the travel magazines try to uncover, but it turns out that I am the last person alive to have discovered this little slice of heaven on earth. 

Of course, most people know Breckenridge (or at least its bigger neighbor, Vail) as a ski mecca.  Those people are seriously misguided.  Breckenridge could not possibly get any better than it is in the middle of the summer when the temperature is a perfect 72 degrees and the abundant “ski” accommodations are being offered at a preposterous discount.  And without all that pesky snow to slog through.

We stayed at BlueSky Breckenridge, a gorgeous condo resort. Here are some photos to give you a flavor.  I wish I had brought a wide-angle lens because these pictures really don’t do the place justice:

You may have noticed that there were several animal heads in residence.  I am still mulling over the cosmic implications of fact that taxidermy features prominently in some of our vacations.   In the meantime, if I did pack up all my stuff and move to Colorado, I probably would not choose to live so closely with animal heads (assuming they were not attached to live animals at the time). 

It did, however, add a rustic hunting lodge aura to our impeccably decorated condo.  I like to believe that the condo owners were hunters/gatherers who ate the animals to survive a cold, hard winter and were honoring the animal spirits, while simultaneously respecting the corporeal gifts that the animals had given them, by using and appreciating every last bit of the animals, including their regal heads.  I’m pretty sure that must be it.  It made me feel much better about them watching over us as we vacationed in their midst.

Speaking of animal heads, could someone please identify that animal on the right?  What the heck is that thing?

 

The punks loved the bunkbeds. One punk did fall off the ladder which I attribute to the fact that said punk grew up in a single-story ranch house and never had to climb anything indoors higher than the step up from our sunken living room.  [Why do they “sink” living rooms anyway? Discuss.]  Fortunately the punk survived and exercised some coveted whining rights for a while afterward.

 

There was a game room, free DVD rentals, various lounges, a pool with three hot tubs, and a gym.   In short, it had all the comforts of home -- assuming your home has impeccable decorating, animal heads, lounges, a game room, a pool with three hot tubs, free DVD rentals and a gym.  My aforementioned plan to move to Breckenridge should give you an idea of whether all (or even most) of those are currently available in my home.

Then it occurred to me that I had much better things to do with all those spare millions I just happen to have lying around at home than frittering it away on some impeccably decorated condo, even if it does feature animal heads.  There was that anti-taxidermy foundation I was thinking about starting up, for instance . . . .