[su_heading size=”18″]Girl Getaway Weekend in Moab[/su_heading]
[su_quote cite=”Albert Schweitzer”]In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit. [/su_quote]
It was spring in Aspen when the mountains are still too muddy and snowy to play in. A time when one craves the warmth of the desert and the desire to get away and reset. It was time to get away with girlfriends, and so off we went to our favorite most accessible destination, Moab.
On our way we stopped at Fruita for some mountain biking. First on everyone’s agenda was to pack the cooler with ice and beers for après ride. Normally a get up and go, pack it all in kind of group (we’re moms), we took our time lingering over amazing veggie sandwiches at Camilla’s Kaffe. The freshly baked bread was so divine I had to break my “no wheat” rule, eating all of my bread and any other bread that was tossed down by others who were saving their carbs for beer. This was just the beginning of rules unbroken. Don’t get me wrong, we all love our husbands and would never break the matrimonial rules, but there are plenty of other rules to break (I had to sign a privacy waiver).
Fruita and Moab Bike Rides:
The first ride was in Fruita on Horse Thief Loop, a great precursor to riding one of our favorites in Moab, Klondike’s Bluff. It felt so gosh darn good to be in the desert and back on a mountain bike, cruising fast up and down trails that wound through sandy and rocky terrain. Getting a little tired of body slams I have abstained from riding for the past few years but with the full suspension bikes the ride is a completely different experience.
We took our time determined to not get lost and to get back in time to drink our beers to the setting sun. At the beginning and the end of the trail you have to hike your bike and as we hiked down, adjusting our bikes to maneuver them over large boulders, cute girls/she-men trudged tirelessly past us, their perfect hair in tidy little ponytails and their skinny bottoms in the latest bike shorts. Our smiles hello held an edge. That used to be us … pre-kids; strong, confident in our athletic abilities … and cute, keeping up with the fashions instead of spending all of our money on the latest kid toys, and getting up early to get on it so that we could get back in time to shower and go out on the town. We were still just as fun and adventurous … only our priorities had shifted to our children. But I’ll tell you what, even though half of us were riding on ancient bikes and wearing ratty old clothes and tennis sneakers for our flat bike peddles, and even though our glasses weren’t made for riding and our helmets were slightly askew, in each of our own little ways we were still rock-stars, completely happy with how our lives have progressed. The thing we miss most is the ability to take off whenever we want without having to be a master planner and cutting off an arm and a leg to make it happen.
As the weekend unfolded and the beautiful light of the desert worked its way into our being we spoke of all of our memories together, from making out with strangers in golden bird cages at our favorite long gone Champagne Bar Andres, where the roof opened up to the stars over the dance-floor; to catching first gondola in the 90’s to propel ourselves down Walsh’s on a powder day and ending up at 1am dancing in our ski boots at The Paragon; to morning sickness that was far worse than any hangover; to riding in a limo together up into the mountains to say “I Do”; to the here and now where we were finally getting back on our mountain bikes to tear it up in Moab during the day and doing what we did in the night.
And it was so good. No… magnificent, to all be together, untethered. And new memories were formed of making friends with weathermen in the middle of nowhere and of praising our beautiful, long-legged bike bitch who always saves us from having to walk out of trails with broken bike parts.
So next time when you are singing out of tune or life is getting the best of you, don’t wallow in your misery, just call a friend and plant the seed that you need to get out of town, just DO IT and I promise that you will emerge smiling and life will blossom again into a huge, brilliant flower with deeply saturated colors…and no stingers.
[su_quote cite=”Famous Quotes About Friends”]A loyal friend laughs at your jokes when they’re not so good, and sympathizes with your problems when they’re not so bad ~Arnold H. Glasgow
The friend is the (wo)man who knows all about you, and still likes you. ~Elbert Hubbard,
The Notebook, 1927 A loyal friend laughs at your jokes when they’re not so good, and sympathizes with your problems when they’re not so bad. ~Arnold H. Glasgow
A true friend never gets in your way unless you happen to be going down. ~ Arnold Glasow
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, All losses are restored and sorrows end. ~William Shakespeare[/su_quote]
