Walden - not exactly a Thoreauian paradise...

So last night while I was listening to a friend rant for like a half an hour about a bad bad day, I was looking at the race website (nice friend, huh?) and I was reminded that we run through Walden. The sheriff of Walden CO and I go way back. And not because I ran a stop sign on my bike.

Last summer, while driving from Fort Collins to Steamboat Springs (where my sister Jess lives), my friend Tamara and I decided to take a "shortcut," which was a mountain pass through national forest. It was July, the road wasn't closed, so we figured it was fine. Look, doesn't this map just scream "Take Rt. 24!"


After winding up a (very nice gravel) road for forty five minutes, we came to a snowy patch. We could tell we were close to the top and that we were only about 12 miles from Steamboat (at least according to the map). Tamara, who has lived in the middle of nowhere in CO working for the Forest Service, says "You can make it through that snow patch." Note that I own a Ford Escort station wagon.

Well we got stuck. If my camera hadn't been stolen in Toronto last year, I would post a photo here of Tamara trying to dig out my car. We dug and we dug and tried to get out for like 2 hours. Tamara gave it one last try and my car started slipping off the road so we gave up and called AAA just as it was getting dark. Amazingly I had cell phone reception! Anyways, they called the ONLY tow truck driver in Walden CO, who apparently is a lazy ass who didn't want to drag his butt up a mountain to pull us out. Instead, he called the sheriff of Walden CO who brought his ass all the way up the mountain to pick up Tamara and me. I would note here that Tamara and I were on our way to NM, so we only had warm weather camping stuff and it was cold up there and we were wet from digging in the snow, which is why we didn't just wait until the next day to get pulled out.

I had to call my sister at 10 pm to come to pick us up - which was like a 1.5 hour drive from Steamboat (from the base of the road we took). She was not a happy camper. We had to get a tow truck driver from Steamboat to pull us out. Let me tell you that the pulling out took about two minutes. Any of the 5 SUVs we saw coming back down as we went up could have pulled us out. Instead I had to pay $270 for a tow truck driver from Steamboat (which I fortunately got AAA to pay).

I will say that the sheriff of Walden CO was very nice, but don't get your car stuck there - the tow truck driver is a jerk.

P.S. This link is in honor of Kori's post.

P.P.S While writing this my ipod came back from Apple. As much as I bitch about Apple and how I only got an ipod because Apple is the only company that managed to get up to 4G on a flash player, I have to state how impressed I am. It broke last thursday (the click wheel broke). I put in an online service request thursday night. Monday morning I had a DHL delivery with the prepaid box I was to return it in. Sent it out monday, and here it is thursday and they have sent me a brand spanking new ipod. One week. One week! Talk about customer service! And now I have a shiny new unscratched ipod, yay! It will keep me company on this 15K this weekend.