Christmas tree round two

Today while we were running errands, we broke down and bought a tree. We decided that we shouldn't venture out into the wilderness in our two-wheel-drive truck again. I did promise Tyler that next year he could have a big burly vehicle with huge snow tires to go find his perfect tree.

Final score: Tie.

Thank you Home Depot for the Hail Mary.

Christmas tree round one

It’s that time of year when my biological holiday alarm alerts me to go find a Christmas tree. Tyler and I then go purchase a tree cutting permit from the Forest Service, and go hunt down a tree at a later date.

So on Thursday we decided to go find our tree. He promised me that we’d be back in plenty of time before I had to work, and that we’d decorate the tree the next day.

We drove out passed Minturn to find a Forest Service road that would lead us to our holiday tree. Road 731 looked promising, so we veered left and started down the road. After about 1.5 miles, we decided that we better turn around and park so we wouldn’t get stuck.

Ideas like this are great, if it’s not too late to execute them. As we backed up the truck, we slid the passenger’s side rear wheel into a snowbank. We were stuck.

At this point, I wasn’t worried to get to work because it was noon, and I didn’t have to be there until 4 p.m. We had plenty of time to get out.

After a couple hours of digging, rocking the truck, digging, and rocking the truck — we were free. We started to back down the hill.

But the front end swung around, and back in the ditch we went.

Now I’m getting worried. We don’t have cell service, we’re blocking the road, and I have to be at work in two hours. We started walking to go get help. Tyler started knocking on all the second homes to see if anyone was home. Luckily a nice woman named Lily let us use her phone. Tyler called Kent to come bail us out, and I was able to call work. A few hours later, we made it back to Vail with the Dakota around 5:30 p.m.

Final score: Us 0, Christmas tree 1.

The next round is ours for the taking.

Friendly faces

Marty, Suzette and Sandy outside our apartment.

Tyler and I were driving home from the dog park when Suzette called me. At first I thought something bad had happened back in Alaska, but it turned out Zette, Marty and Sandy were passing through on their way back to Boulder. They were out visiting their son Kevin in Fort Collins, and were tooling around with Sandy. They stopped by our place, and then we went for lunch at The Westside Cafe. I hadn't seen Sandy since I was 6 years old. Back then it was cool to play Little Mermaid on the original Nintendo, if you were wondering.

Marty summed up the impromptu meeting best: "We couldn't have planned this any better. If we had, we would've wound up missing each other somehow."

I love Alaskan pop-ins.

Schooled again

Walking up the hill from the bus stop with eight different bottles of wine isn't a leisurely trek. Neither is defending myself from Moses’ love once I walk through the door. My only concern is that the bottles don’t break for my take-home assignment.

Serving homework is tough.

At work, our sommelier hosted a wine tasting before the restaurant opened. A lot of distributors were there to sell different wines to restaurateurs. They left all the open bottles with us, which amounted to about five cases of wine. Before I left, my co-worker helped me pick out my take-home-goody-bag so I could become more acquainted with Old World varietals.

The wine bag’s weight reminded me of my sophomore year in college when I took Astronomy 102, Physics 101 and Geology 101 at the same time (I’d wanted to knock out most of my science requirements in one fell swoop). But at least with this homework it’s alright to have a mild buzz while taking notes. Plus Tyler is eager to help me with this assignment — I don’t think he’d be as enthused to figure out the stellar evolution of a high mass star.

I line up the bottles on the table. With about 10,000 known varietals out there, my wine knowledge shouldn't even be classified as knowledge at all. I recently tried Albariño, which is a white wine from Northwestern Spain. It’s known in Portugal as Alvarinho, and is one one of the varietals used to make Vinho Verde.

And I thought I was branching out with my Barberas and Viogniers.

So for my day off — and with Tyler’s help — I will reluctantly decipher the differences between French and Spanish varietals, and their appellations.

I think we’ll need some cheese.