Getting our vacation ducks in a row...

And the are SO MANY DUCKS...

This week, in three days, in fact, we join the ranks of “those people” who take off for awhile and go somewhere awesome. Or at least somewhere somewhat off the beaten path. I guess Medellin, Colombia is a huge city of 2.5 million, so “off the beaten path” PROBABLY isn’t the best way to describe it, but... In our defense, we ARE going to a tiny little town where the internet (and the power, for that matter) come and go later in the trip.

But back to the ducks. Vaccines. Shots. I have to swallow live salmonella cultures for this oral one? Yikes! Passports. Paper copies of our passports. Cash. What credit card do we take? Do the hotels want cash or credit? Backpacks or suitcases? Okay, we’re not supposed to look like tourists for safety’s sake. What the hell does THAT mean?? Public transportation. How do we get from Cartagena to Santa Marta? Do we hire a car from the airport to the hotel ahead of time? And that’s just for the actual trip.

Taking a pill with "live salmonella cultures" on the box was disconcerting as hell...

Clean the house. Take the cat to Craig’s. Buy cat litter. Pack. Laundry. Not necessarily in that order... Do I need a rain coat? Or will my packable jacket suffice? I guess I shouldn’t take full size shampoo bottles, those take up too much space. Should we shut off the water? It’s only leaked when we run the washer. What about the plants? The succulents will be okay for three and a half weeks, will the hibiscus? Make sure the credit card bill is paid. And the mortgage. And the car insurance.... Eat down all the food in the fridge. I guess the frozen stuff will keep for almost a month. And the beer. Not so much the milk. Oh, and a jury summons, of course. Right smack in the middle of the trip.

I got creative with the contents of my salad for lunch trying to eat down the food in the fridge...

I wrote those first few paragraphs yesterday. Today, it's better. The bags are packed, the cash is withdrawn, the shampoo situation has been figured out, jury duty has been postponed, and the last pressing thing I need to figure out is what to have for dinner tonight, our last night eating at home.  Worst case, we order a pizza. 

We're Leavin' on a Jet Plane...

Well. We are off on one HELL of an adventure next week. Not even a week away now, we leave a week from yesterday. 

We are headed down to Colombia, all the way down in South America, for three and a half weeks. THREE AND A HALF WEEKS!!!! 

We decided awhile back to take a good long trip between our birthdays. Matt turned 40 this past September, I turn 40 this coming May. Instead of taking two smaller trips for our individual birthdays, we decided it would be way more fun to take one big trip in the middle. Matt has wanted to go to Colombia for a long time. As it turns out, February is right smack in the middle of dry season down there. We went to Costa Rica right on the edge of wet season, and while we got lucky enough, it still rained a bunch. We really didn't want to deal with that again, as we wanted to spend most of our time on a beach somewhere.

It took awhile to figure out what to do and where to go down there. We didn't realize how BIG Colombia is. After much research, we finally came up with a game plan. It was one of those where I was driving myself nuts trying to figure out what to do and finally just said, "Fuck it, this is what we're doing..."

We're spending time in Medellin, Cartagena, and this little tiny town called Palomino. In Palomino, we're staying at a guesthouse with four rooms and a hanging bed with a mosquito net. Apparently the WiFi works fine, as long as the power hasn't gone out. I guess this is a regular occurrence.  

I think we kinda have the best of both worlds going here. Small town beach time bookended by about a week in two of the major cities in Colombia.  At worst, we're "roughing it" for 10 days, no more.  The two cities we're going to appear as different as they can be, one up closer to the mountains in the middle of the country and the other closer to a beach on the Caribbean coast.  

The planning and logistics has been entertaining, as we're going to take public transportation most places and one in-country flight. Who knew it would be a 12 hour drive between Medellin and Cartagena???  I really though places were near each other down there!  Oops. Thank goodness for Google Maps and Trip Advisor...

So. We're off. If you want to follow along as we go, I'm going to try to be posting to both my Instagram and our Facebook page. Might be awhile until I post another blog post - But I'll bombard you all when we get back!

Double Blacks! Voluntarily!

I created a list of things I want to accomplish and/or experience in the year of my 40th birthday not only to do cool shit, but to push myself a bit out of my comfort zone. I tend to live there way too much, and it gets quite annoying sometimes... Here is the first of the items checked off...

What a satisfying feeling. This one had been a LONG time in the making. Like, seven or eight years' worth. The last time I was ready to do what I finally accomplished, I never got the chance. 
Okay, okay. So I FINALLY went up the Imperial lift at Breck and skied the Imperial Bowl. The last time I thought I was ready (I don't know, maybe five or six years ago), it never opened again in the season. I never got the chance. We switched ski passes for a few years, and by the time we switched back, I was scared. 

I don't know what happened. All of a sudden, I lost all confidence in my abilities, and I just couldn't make myself ski to my ability level. I didn't fall, I didn't have a particularly scary experience... I just got scared. I could barely get down runs that I've done a bunch of times. By the time we got back to the pass we have now, the Imperial Bowl was this huge, giant thing that I didn't have a shot to ever get down...

Long story short (with a bit of the story in my last post), I got tired of being scared. I purposely put "ski a double black voluntarily" on my list to get myself there. 
After the previous week, when I just made myself do what I was so scared of, I just decided. I got sick and tired of being scared. I figured I was going to try it. If it sucked, I could always take off my skis and walk down. So, I didn't give myself much of a chance to chicken out. I told Matt that I just wanted to head straight there with a minimum of warm-up. 

All of a sudden, I found myself on the lift headed up to the highest point in Breckenridge. I got off and looked over the edge. Instant panic. Swearing, hyperventilating, shaking legs, the works. But, I was stuck. There really was only one way down. Matt (God bless him) very gently talked me into just moving. Once I got across the scary super steep stuff and to the slightly less steep stuff, I was alright. I mean, at least I could breathe. I will confess, I did sit on my butt once or twice to flip my legs over so I could be facing the direction I wanted to negotiate the moguls. 

I got down safely, and first words out of Matt's mouth were, "Gonna do that again?" Shit. I'm not sure I actually said anything out loud. It wasn't a great run I'd had by any stretch of imagination. I could do better. I headed straight back to the damned lift and went right back up again. 

This time was freakin amazing. I'm not sure I have the words to describe how it went. Was it pretty? No. Was it smooth and graceful? I'm not sure what those words mean. But. No panic. No hyperventilating. No sitting and flipping my skis over. I made the turns. I was laughing and giggling pretty loudly by the time I realized I was, indeed, capable of such a thing. I got to the bottom high as a kite this time. 

I. Did. It. Will I do it again? Probably. Soon? Who knows? At least I know I can. And what a satisfying feeling that is.....

Skiing Scared

Yesterday. Was. Amazeballs. 

The day before, not so much. I had one of those stupid I'm-afraid-of-every-damned-thing days. I was close to panic on a stupid blue run, just because there were a few pesky little snow bumps on it. I made it down, whimpering the whole way... 

I felt ridiculous. I have done way harder runs with way bigger bumps and survived. Probably wasn't pretty, but I did them. I felt sorry for myself for a little while, then something interesting happened. 

I got sick of it. I got sick of myself. I got sick of being scared of something I KNOW I'm perfectly capable of doing. Matt was going to go down one more run, up a lift that only has black terrain. I surprised the hell out of him when I told him I was going with him.  He said, "You know there are only blacks up there, right???"  Yep. I know. 

Up I went. And it wasn't a problem. I was a little scared, sure, but that shit is steep! But I did it. 

No excuses. That's my theme for the year. Fear is probably the worst excuse you can give yourself. It's okay to be afraid, it's not okay to let yourself give in and maybe miss out on something awesome just because you're a little afraid. 

And so, yesterday was awesome. I went in knowing I had figured something out the day before, and used that. When Matt joked about going down the black run with the giant bumps, I went. It's wasn't pretty. I was a little nervous, sure. But I did it. And when he said we should go back to that run that caused me so much grief the day before, I went and I did it twice. And I wasn't scared. 

No excuses. 

Bluebird skies NEVER hurt!

No Excuses

No excuses. That’s the theme if this year for me. No ifs, ands, or buts. If I say I’m gonna do something, I’m gonna do it. If I commit to something, I’m gonna go all in and be there, in the moment. If I get sick, or don’t feel well, or get injured, or screw up, well, damnit, I’m gonna own that too, because shit happens. But I’m not going to let myself use those things as an excuse. 

I’m sick and tired of thinking that I should do this or that to accomplish whatever it is, and never actually following through. I can be the queen of excuses, and I’m done. 

It's kinda funny. I realized today (after I'd decided about this "theme" for the year) that I'd gotten those exact words printed on my new Road ID last year... Foreshadowing, anyone???

So. If any of you guys out there reading this catches me giving excuses, for hell's sake, call me out!!!!!

A Rough Start

Here's hoping that yesterday and today are the least productive days of the year. Needless to say, our new year didn't quite start out the way I'd hoped. Neither one of us felt amazing, and as a result sat around and watched college bowl football games all day on the first day of the year. 

Pretty much the sentiment around our house yesterday 😂

To be honest, it was kinda nice. I don't remember the last time the two of us just hung out on the couch watching TV for a whole day. Nothing to do, no where to go, no life stuff to contend with... It's rare for me to be okay with having a day like that. 

Today hasn't been much better, but at least we got the tires on the car rotated. It's been hard to scroll social media and see all the people getting after it in the first few days of the year. You always go in all fired up to kick ass in the new year and invariably its disappointing if you don't get to for some reason. The year is starting off trying to teach me patience, I guess. Never have been too good at that.

In any case. Tomorrow will be another day, and I'm really well rested... The ass kicking shall commence tomorrow!