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Last weekend we headed up with some folks from the Rocky Mountain Club B5 car club to flex our 4×4 muscles on the lightly rated St. John trail. We started just outside of Keystone in Montezuma. The trail ascends pretty rapidly getting you above tree line before you know it. I don’t know our exact altitude during the trip but I know we made it over 12,000 feet for a good period of time.

We had four vehicles, my 1977 Scout II, a late model Jeep Wrangler well modified, 1992 Range Rover and a 2006 Ford F250 Superduty monster! It was a family day so there were some kids, spouses, siblings and significant others in tow. We stopped at a few different points along the way to not only see if the weather would hold up for us to eat lunch but to take in the wonderful scenery.

As we got higher and higher we got close and closer to the clouds, to the point where it felt like you could reach out and touch them! We also got to see a herd of Mountain Goats. Looks like they are ditching the Summer coats for something more Winter appropriate.

After spending some time above tree line, checking out a glacier and realizing it was too cold to stop and eat we headed down into the trees and lower elevation so we could stop and eat some lunch and celebrate a birthday.

While eating lunch we were able to check out a cool old cabin, a buried car and an ass load of rusted out old tin cans. I can’t believe I didn’t get a picture of the tin, but I am not exaggerating when I say there were a lot, I would say in the many many hundreds.

You can view the rest of the pictures at Saints John w/ RMCB5.

This past weekend was “Guy’s Weekend.” Spawned from a few different bachelor parties in the mountains, once we realized that it was going to be awhile until another bachelor party we instituted guy’s weekend. Technically 2006 was the first annual Guy’s Weekend. This year we were a little less organized due to busy schedules and lost out on getting the same house. Nevertheless GPC pulled through and found us a sweet condo just at the edge of town. Oh what town, the town of Breckenridge, Colorado.

Fortunately for us, it was also Oktoberfest in Breckenridge so we had everything figured out. Go up Friday night, get drunk. Get up Saturday and hit up Oktoberfest for the day. I must admit, if you’ve never been to the Breckenridge Oktoberfest I highly recommend it. This was my first time and I look forward to going again next year. Without a doubt you need a place to stay up there for it or at least for sure have a sober driver. There were two beer vendors, Paulaner and Breckenridge. I of course drank Paulaner all day, starting with their Oktoberfest and finishing with their trusty Lager. Hey I was in the sun all day.

Personally I think it’s silly to have any non German beer as an option, but it is in Breckenridge and the Breckenridge Brewery was a sponsor anyway. It wasn’t terrible in price, you bought drink tickets. They were $4 a piece. You could also buy a 16oz or 24 - 28oz stein. By the time I had enough to drink to be willing to splurge and buy a stein they were out of the big ones and I got stuck with a little one. I even got heckled by a girl for not having a larger stein. Boy does that just sound so wrong.

The event culminated in us watching a long unseen occurrence of a drunken fight. It appeared to began as any spat, then evolved into a slap fight and ended abruptly as one guy punched and knocked out the other guy. Ahh the memories of being young again. I’ll have to say the Breckenridge po-po were very cool and calm with just about everything.

All in all Guys Weekend kicked ass, I look forward to next year and hopefully more people can make it.

It’s been about a month now, it’s time to get back to normalcy here with my blog life. Adjusting to life without Jasper has been tough, I think it’s tougher now than it was after a week. I keep thinking he’s coming home, but he’s not.

We have been keeping busy though, not to forget, but so we don’t dwell. A week ago we entered the Audi in to Dubs Along the Rockies, which is a Vw/Audi show in Colorado Springs. We brought home the best in class award for “Other Audi.” Since my car is a little old, it didn’t fit into another class. However, I did have some stiff competition, a 2003 Audi RS6, my friend Andrew’s Audi Allroad with many many upgrades. There was also a nice Audi 90 CS and an Audi 90 Coupe.

Renee and I began work this weekend refinishing the pergola out back. It covers our entire back patio. The previous owners were odd. They were very creative and it appears things were well engineered, but when it came to choices in products to use and finishing the work they were very half-assed.

While removing slats from the top of the pergola that provide shade we found them all to be bad. Well all but two. Why two? Well two were wood, the remainder were all MDF. Yes, Multi Density Fiberboard. This stuff is not designed to be used outside. I mean if you sealed the hell out of it it might last. I don’t even think they primered these babies before putting on a light coat of paint.

They were all warped and were about 1/2 to 1″ thicker because of water retention and rot. We had to replace 62 slats. The remainder of the pergola is wood, so some power washing and scraping to remove old loose paint. We picked up some Behr Premium Plus Ultra™ Exterior Semi-Gloss Enamel from Home Depot. Initially we picked up a 5 gal can of Primer only, but found this and so far we like the look. Lets hope it holds up. We have been applying about 2 coats to the old painted wood and will be doing about 3 -4 coats on the new wood slats.

We hope to wrap this project up by the end of the month, however, this weekend we are heading to Salida for Kolorado Treffen. This is slated to be the first of it’s kind event in Colorado. Not a show, not a brand specific event, but a way for auto enthusiasts to get together and talk cars, have fun and go drive.

The following weekend is Guy’s Weekend in Breckenridge. Renee isn’t too happy about me being gone for a few days, but it will be fun to hang with the guys and watch them get wasted.

That’s it for now, I will try and get some in progress and after pictures of the pergola if I remember to.