Tag: Snowmobiling; Beautiful Things; Beautiful Colorado; He doesn’t get it; Snowmobile Training

Gut Bucket

On By rrainefioreIn Beautiful Things, UncategorizedLeave a comment

I had a friend visiting from out of town.  I live in such a beautiful place that sometimes it’s difficult to fathom.  Everywhere we go, we keep marveling at the beauty and remarking, “this is where I live”.

One night we went out to see a local band playing.  I know Brian, one of the guys that was playing in the band.  We got there and found the band packing up.  They were slated to play on the deck outside and it was threatening to rain.  Most of the band went home, but Brian and some of his friends stayed for on the deck for drinks.  It was summer, but very chilly out so the place had fire pits outside.  We joined them around one of the fire pits.  Everyone kept trying to get Brian to play his guitar.  He could play even if everyone else had gone home.

One of the guys, Ben, said he would join Brian with his gut bucket.  At this point we were cold and talking about going home.  I turned to my friend and said we couldn’t go until we saw how this played out.  We learned much about Ben’s gut bucket.  Such as he made it himself.  He doesn’t use catgut for the string as that is for fancy events such as weddings.  He uses other types of string that he can get a hold of like clothesline.  He was playing it at a different bar last week so it’s still over there.  The whole conversation we are trying to figure out what a gut bucket is – is it what we think it is – is it a metal bucket with a string attached to it?  We are both pretty sure that’s what it is.  Ben decides that he will go to the other bar to get the gut bucket and then Brian will have to play with him.  He takes off.  I ask one of the other guys if he will get lost and forget what he went out to find (there’s been a bit of alcohol consumed).  We all agree there is a 50/50 chance he’ll come back.  We decided to stick it out a little longer and wait to see if he comes back.  In about a half hour Ben is back with his gut bucket – it is what we guessed.  But, it’s in need of repair.  The string is broken and he doesn’t have another.  One of the guys goes out to Brian’s truck and finds an ice skate lace.  They work for about another 20 minutes trying to make the ice skate lace work for the string.  Ben and Brian start playing and we get treated to a small jam session on the deck.  It was totally worth the wait.  It never did rain.  Impromptu gut bucket concert on the deck.  This is where I live.

Snowmobile Training

On By rrainefioreIn Beautiful Colorado, Beautiful Things, UncategorizedLeave a comment

There’s a guy in Search and Rescue that has caught my attention.  I know he has a snowmobile so I asked him if he wanted to go snowmobiling sometime.  He said yes.  And then asked if anyone else wanted to go.  Huh?   Oh, he didn’t get it.  I do know that my friend wants to go badly.  We are both new to Search and Rescue and in need of some snowmobiling practice/lessons.  So I mentioned her.  Next thing I know, it’s 4 of us going and it’s now a training.  I played that wrong.

I know very little about snowmobiles.  I think I was on one 17 +/- years ago and then again 25 years ago.  Plus, who gets to go snowmobiling for “training”?  So, even if it is training and not a date, it’s going to be fun.

The two guys decide that we should take 2 snowmobiles out instead of 4.  Good plan.  Richard comes up to me after the two snowmobiles are ready to go and asks who is riding with who.  Really?  He doesn’t get it.  We all ride out to a big field where the two guys get off and let us newbies practice riding.  Riding out to the field I kept imagining what it would feel like to drive a snowmobile, and even though I’ve done it before, I couldn’t even guess what it would feel like.  That in itself is such a very weird feeling to be setting out to do something you can’t even imagine feeling.  We around the field for a bit.  It took me a while to get comfortable with the speed and turning, but I got more comfortable.  I thought it might feel like floating, but it wasn’t quite like that.  It was quite a bit more effort than I expected to turn them.  Even though it didn’t feel like floating, it was fun.  We spent the rest of the afternoon trail riding.  There are so many snowmobile trails.  I think you could ride for days.

A few days later we decided to go again, but this time start at dusk.  It was three of us since the guy I like decided not to go.  He definitely doesn’t get it.  Still, it was so much fun. I got to drive the whole time.  It was super creepy which added to the fun.  The headlamps would only illuminate a small section of the trail ahead of you and the area to the sides and behind you was dark.  The headlamps would throw weird shadows which looked like animals or other things moving just off the trail.  We went up to a point where you could look out over the valley and see all the lights of Granby.  Granby isn’t that large so “all” the lights isn’t like looking at a city, but it still was fun to see and it was more lights than I would have expected.

Post blog note: It has been confirmed that at the time of snowmobiling, he did not get it.  It took until August, but now Richard is my boyfriend.  He gets it now.