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The Strater Hotel, my new favorite place to be when my flight is canceled. I was happy my phone took such a nice picture.

Some airports are more fun than others. Yesterday afternoon I waited in the airport in Durango for over four hours. In a bigger airport, you can kill a few hours by looking at magazines, chillin’ at Starbucks, or watching people. None of these were possible at the Durango airport because there was only a snack bar and a gift store. There were about 10 employees at the airport, and only 3 passengers. They were goofing off like junior high kids whose substitute teacher didn’t show up for class.

To keep myself entertained, I put on all my layers of clothes from my suitcase and stood outside in the snow to see how long I could make it before having to rush back inside to the warmth. I made it 40 minutes.

The minutes turned into hours, and finally it was time to pass through security and get on my airplane. Before I could remove my shoes and empty my pockets, the airline announced that the flight from Durango to Phoenix had been canceled. My heart sunk in my chest. This is the first weekend I’ve been away from Candyce since I found out she is expecting a baby, so it’s harder to be away than it used to be. But there’s not much you can do when there’s no plane at the airport to take me home.

Minivan Madness

After another boring hour, I hopped in a minivan taxicab with the other two other frustrated passengers to our hotel rooms bought for us by US Airways.

The whole experience in the minivan was weird and isolating. First, the Dodge Caravan smelled like it’d been smoked in for the last 10 years. This instantly brought me back to my childhood in the rural South where many of my friends’ parents chain smoked on our way to Wal Mart. Next, it’s just weird loading into a small van with strangers. Because lets be honest, when you bend over to slide into a van and try to find a seat, you are sticking your butt in the face of the next person in line. There I was in 15 degree weather in the dark, staring at the butt of a stranger by faint glow of the minivan’s interior light.

Most of the time a driver will try to find some music that is universally acceptable like jazz or classical to sooth the frustrated passengers. Not this guy. It was Saturday night, and he wanted to listen to Meatloaf so dammit he was going to listen to Meatloaf.

He was in chatty mood, so he prodded each of us to find the talker. Out of compassion for strangers that were sitting next to me in the dark, I decided I’d be the talker. While I was answering his question about where I what I do for a living, the driver turned up Meatloaf twice. Apparently he likes Meatloaf singing “I Would Do Anything for Love”, and he didn’t want me drowning it out. I stopped answering his question and the 4 of us reverently absorbed the melodramatic bridge to the song song (I would do anything for love…anything you’ve been dreaming of…) This moment of Zen was interrupted by the driver’s cell phone going off with Elton John’s “Like a Candle in the Wind.”

Bad Night Turned Good?

I was so happy when the van pulled up to the curb of the historic Strater Hotel right on Main Street in downtown Durango. It might’ve been the prettiest hotel I’ve ever stayed in.

After dropping my bags off in my room, I hiked down Main Street to Carver’s Brewing Company to get some dinner. I love ski towns because they’re unlike anything else. I sat at the bar wearing my hipster wool beanie with small brim that I got in New York. Next to me was a dude in his 20’s with a burly beard and a trapper’s hat, the furry hats with the floppy things that come down over your years. On the far end of the bar was a guy with a 1970’s looking beanie with a fluffy ball on the top. Yeah, we all looked goofy, but somehow we looked cool because we all looked goofy together.

We watched Green Bay beat while the senior bartender explained to the rookie waiter that there is a difference between Irish Coffee and coffee with Bailey’s Irish Cream.

Good Morning Colorado

I got up this morning at dawn because I wanted to explore downtown Durango. One thing I’ve learned from traveling over the last decade is that a city is most magical in the morning. Maybe it’s because nobody else is out yet and I feel like the town is all mine, or maybe it’s the way the low sun throws sharp light over the whole place. So if I can get to bed early the night before, I always do.

I started off the morning with a double espresso at the Durango Coffee Company, and then I hiked up the hill to explore the neighborhoods. After 20 minutes of trudging through the snow, I was beginning to feel the bite of the cold. I looked up to see the lit sign of the local bank that told me it was 7:12 in the morning, and it was 4 degrees.

King of the Ski Town

The new king of the ski town is the Toyota FJ. This shouldn’t be a surprise, because Toyota SUVs are staples of the ski town lifestyle, but it felt good to see FJ’s scattered around town with 6 inches of snow layered on its boxy rooftop. I loved seeing these toys parked on up and down Main Street, and on the snowy hillsides next to cool little houses.

The coziest place in Colorado, complete with real icicles.

Out of nowhere I bummed into Sacred Heart Catholic Church tucked in a cute tree-lined neighborhood. I left my coffee cup at the door and slipped inside. It was a good Mass with a funny priest.

Flying Home

The flight from Durango to Phoenix was beautiful. It’s rained quite a bit in Phoenix this January, so the higher altitudes in the state were covered with snow. As we got closer to the valley, the sun would ignite a trail of silver down the sides of the mountains. The water rushing down to the valley created the perfect mirror to reflect the bright rays of the sun back up to our airplane at 15,000 feet. The light show made me feel like I was in a fantasy movie.

Now I’m here in Phoenix trying to unpack my mind and my suitcase from a weekend that was full of surprises. It was a lot of fun speaking at the retreat in New Mexico. It was such a lively group. I think it’s time to go downstairs and watch some football.

Traveling for Bored Travelers. I’ve traveled so much over the past decade that the idea of “traveling” is not exciting on it’s own. You might be able to impress a 20-year-old intern with tall tales of glamorous business travel, but any frequent traveler will tell you that flying is isn’t much more glamorous than riding a city bus across town.

Even if you fly first class, you still have to go through the same drudgery as everyone else before and after a flight: checking bags downstairs, passing through security with no shoes and no belt, waiting for delayed flight, occupying your time before takeoff, etc. This bland reality of traveling has forced me into various experiments to amuse myself.

For instance, I got back this morning from a quick overnight trip to Ontario, California. The only thing I brought with me were my cars keys and my cell phone. No luggage, no toiletries, no computer. I left the house as if I were driving to the coffee shop for an espresso. It was a little weird wearing the same clothes two days in a row, and my mouth was raunchy after not brushing last night or this morning. But other than that, it was a no-hassle way to travel. If I fly anywhere just for a night, I’ll probably do it again.

Welcome San Bernadino Residents. It was exciting to see all the people who traveled from the far corners of the Inland Empire to come to the event. I remember in high school how exciting it was to meet teenagers from other towns, so I can imagine how exciting it was to be at the event last night. You had 250 new best friends. How much fun is that?

Second generation youth leaders. Last night a dozen or so of us went out for a late night dinner. It was bizarre and exciting to realize that most of the adults at the table actually came to events I spoke at when they were in high school. Now they’re involved at leaders in their churches and community.

Coziness. It’s been a chilly afternoon for Phoenix, so I bought some Christmas coffee to commemorate the event. The house was already feeling Christmasy because Candyce decorated the place when I was gone. Once the fire was blazing in the fireplace, the house was cozy enough to the shoot photos for a Christmas catalogue.

Tivo is awesome because it’s like renting DVDs but not paying for them. This afternoon we watched Elf (funny), Sweet Home Alabama (alright), and Bringing Down the House (dumb). And we watched a Suns game. After such a difficult week at work and trip out of town, today was perfect day to rest my body and relax my mind.

The 2008 Ford Edge is awesome.

We rented a 2008 Ford Edge to get us around for the week that we were in Pennsylvania, and I was thoroughly impressed. I’ve rented many SUVs over the past 3 years, so I’m not easily swayed just because a vehicle is new or different from what I drive at home. The Edge is just a blast to drive. It’s comfortable and hugs the road. I’d buy one if I was in the market for a new car.

One of the best parts of our trip was the drive down country roads. The colors of the autumn leave peaked on the day that we arrived. The next afternoon it began to snow, covering every bright orange tree with a touch of white. I can’t imagine there could be a more majestic autumn that what we experienced in Pennsylvania.

Johnny and Ali are married.

Johnny and Ali are going to have a very good life together. They are such fantastic friends, I can’t imagine any two people better for one another.

The Problem in New York

Every time I go back to New York, I’m re-writing my life from the summer of 2001 when I called New York home. I get a chance to use the same stage but with new scenes. So with every visit, New York becomes a more hospitable and wonderful city. With every minute that Candyce and I spend in New York, the more I want to move back.

I realize that most adventurous young people feel this way when they visit New York. You fall in love with the action, the romance, and the idea of being the rock star from your home town. (Nobody will admit it, but this is half the reason graduates move to LA or NY, just to be the hometown hero who made it big by, well, by leaving their hometown.)

But a well-spent vacation in New York is far detached from the reality of living in the city. The biggest problem you have to face is trying to figure out how you can afford to live there. Everyone likes to quote Frank Sinatra when we are on the subject of rent in the city:

“If you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere.”

The problem here is that New York is not just an expensive city to live in, it’s a very very expensive city to live in. It was a lot easier for people to “make it in New York” when Sinatra first sang those words. Most of the people who own an apartment in New York could not afford to buy an apartment today. They bought it back when the cost of an apartment wasn’t so outrageously priced compared to the salaries that you could earn while working in the city.

You have another large group of people living in New York–mostly young people–who are burning through their savings hoping to make it big. They eventually have to move away to actually get some financial stability again. These are talented, educated, hard working people. And some other city gets to absorb them into the economy because New York was very very expensive.

This isn’t a good thing. An intelligent college-educated person can move to the city with no debt, find an admirable job from a well-known company, and they still have to scrape pennies to afford a crappy apartment with four friends. There’s something wrong here. If the top performers from America’s universities can’t afford to live in New York, who can? You have a problem on your hands.

The Rocketts

The Rocketts show in Radio City Musical Hall was fantastic. I totally under-estimated the cool factor of this show. I expected an hour long dance routine of women kicking their legs in unison. I’d go again.

The Bling in Times Square

Puff Daddy has a massive 10-story ad in Times Square of himself wearing Sean John clothes. This is as lame as a band wearing their own shirts during a concert. But I can’t judge Puff Daddy because I would’ve probably done the same thing. Why should I pay some model to get famous off of my dollar?

Puffy going for the forlorn Statue of Liberty look.

For the record, I can’t call Puffy “P.Diddy ” because if I do that, I’m giving permission to every other lazy rapper who wants to add to his mystique by changing his name, like he’s an upgraded operating system or something. I figure you have one chance to change your name, and that’s all I’m going to give you. I’ve got better things to do than to keep up with your newest names. If some moron wants to correct me, then he’s a moron.

One useful edition to Times Square is Charmin’s free and clean bathrooms. I didn’t go inside, but I was amused by the concept. I mean really, where do you go to the bathroom in New York? When I lived there, you bought a small cup of coffee at Starbucks just to gain access to the bathroom. (Speaking of Starbucks and bathrooms, this is one of the funniest articles I’ve ever read in The Onion The Onion: New Starbucks Opens In Rest Room Of Existing Starbucks.)

171 Starbucks

On our last night in Manhattan, I asked the barrista on the Upper West side how many Starbucks were in the city. I guessed maybe 35-40 stores. Wrong! Try 171 coffee shops on one island. I didn’t believe her, so she told me to go online and watch this video.

Then I checked Google Maps and Starbucks.com, and I actually believe there are more than 171 Starbucks coffee shops. Without a doubt, all of the Starbucks in New York City add magic to residents and to tourists.

• Residents: If you live in Manhattan, putting a Starbucks in the vacant storefront on the corner tells the world that it is a safe and wealthy block to live on. It’s not like a Wal-Mart coming to town…rattling your local economy. Nope. Starbucks is something that adds to the community. It’s a place where people gather.
• Tourists: For people who travel to NY from out of town, Starbucks are familiar stops on your walk across town. You know you are going to get the same cup of coffee. There is a place to set up camp for the afternoon, or a place to meet friends. You can rest your feet and people watch if you want to.

I know that people like to get all worked up about Starbucks because it’s a corporate success story, and we all hate the idea of a local coffee shop going out of business because the big dog moved into town. But I also know that a lot of coffee shops are in business today because Starbucks paved the way with the coffee lifestyle.

People who act like they hate the Starbucks on the corner are either too stupid to know the big picture, or they are just lying to you so they can seem anti-The-Man. I’m not going to act like an outside observer here. I love the fact that there are 3 Starbucks within a mile and a half of my house.

Don’t confuse what I’m saying here. I don’t want America to become homogenized with corporate chains. I’ve traveled to over 250 destinations in America since the year 2000, and I hate that so many places look the same. But, you also can’t dismiss a chain of coffee shop just because you don’t like a homogeneous America.

I Hear the Suns are Awesome

There is nothing more disorienting than having your favorite team be in a different time zone than you. I salute the Suns fans on the East Coast. You guys really have to work hard to catch the Suns. You might have to stay up past midnight. It is so much more fun to watch the Suns play basketball than it is to look up scores on the Internet at the end of the day. The only thing exciting about that is knowing that we won.

Installing bathroom fixtures is something you just want to get done because it’s not that glamorous of a chore. But in reality, installing a bathroom sink and toilet is without a doubt exciting.

Let me explain. Your archenemy is water guided by the forceful hand of gravity. If you have never tried a day as a plumber, you should probably know that water absolutely does NOT want to go down pipes. It prefers to leak, spray, and gush. One day as a plumber can get you as wet as a day at the water park. So after a total of 20 man hours, Howard and I were relieved yesterday morning when the toilet flushed and the faucet ran–and there were no leaks. It was a rare moment of triumph and solidarity for a new husband and his wife’s grandfather.

Then it was time to get ready for Johnny’s bachelor party at Saguaro lake. A dozen guys drove up with two jet skis and a ski boat. This is probably the last weekend you can enjoy the lake: the air is still warm in the afternoon, but the water is getting colder every night. After a few hours playing in the water (I got the jet ski up to 53 mph), we floated into a cove to settle a stony beach for late lunch.

The peninsula on the south side of the cove was the dead end of an off-road trail for dudes with ATVs, dirt bikes, and other random tough toys. So we had front row seats formotorsports segment of the X-Games. I couldn’t help but be happy for the dudes because they were having so much fun just being guys. One guy wasbouncin’ over the mounds in between the Saguaros in a vintage Jeep CJ -5. The sun light up his trail of dust like you see in the movies. He parked his Jeep on the the tip of the peninsula about 50 feet above the water. Now everything was quiet. He stood up to look over his dusty windshield into the lake. His Jeep looked like Mufasa and he looked like youngSimba. That was a man moment.

Our testosterone was brewing. Jason randomly pulled a parachute out of a bag he found in his boat: “Does anybody want to go para-sailing?” It didn’t matter that he was the only person who knew anything about para-sailing. We knew what had to be done.

This is how we set it up. The water was shallow, so we couldn’t tow Johnny with the ski boat. The propeller would get shredded by rocky bottom just beneath the surface. So this whole adventure would be powered by a 3-man jet ski. Jason drove, Danny sat backwards so he could keep an eye on Johnny. We used a standard tow rope;that attached Johnny’s harness to the back of the jet ski. From Johnny sprouted dozens of thin ropes that were tied to the parachute.

Jason explained that the rest of us had to stand behind the parachute and keep it off the ground. Without our efforts, the parachute would fill with sand and the whole thing would end in a mess. It was a bizarre feeling standing behind that parachute. All I knew is that when Jason yelled GO! we had to run as fast as we could towards the water. It didn’t matter that we could not see where we were running. You just had to run and run fast. So we did.

By the fourth try, Johnny was soaking wet and all of us runners were scraped and bloodied from numerous falls. Even though it hurt, it was funny. It hit me that what we were doing was not much different than the guys who first tried to fly a friend behind a boat with a parachute. You just do it. Unfortunately, we were doing it wrong. The parachute was upside-down, so there was no chance of lift off. Once the problem was fixed, it was awesome.

It’s a wonderful thing to see your friend shoot up in the sky like that. We cheered and pounded our chests with victory. In the distance, he looked like a little baby Johnny with his arms and legs kicking. There was a couple scary moments where he could’ve been blown into a cactus on the shore, but luckily that did not happen. We prepared for this mishap by praying before we started.

After 3 weeks of working my butt off remodeling the house, I treated myself to a day at the lake with some friends. It’s the perfect time of year in Arizona because it’s warm enough to want to go swimming and the lakes are cool and refreshing. On the way to the lake, we passed by a chopped Chrysler 300 near downtown Tempe. I scoured the Internet and found a crude photo. Even though it’s not the most flattering shot, you can see that the car is pretty sweet.

Sweet.

We went to the lake to ski, but I spent most of my time admiring the scenary. Here are a few photos from the afternoon.

That’s Four Peaks in the distance, made infamous by our license plates and a brewery.

Candyce enjoying the sun.

Danny (striking a pose), Lauryn (confused), and Candyce (confident)

Grillin’ and Chillin’

Most of the day on the lake was serene, but the final hours was nothing but surreal. We finished skiing and pulled up to a sandy beach to grill some dinner. There were a half-dozen other boats there, each the main stage of a their own little spring break in September. Big speakers on their boats echoed “Party Like a Rokkstar” around the canyon walls. Males were drinking, yelling, and insulting each other. Females were strutting around in their bikinis showing off their new tattoos. It was a bizarre scene in the middle of the desert. I lit the grill and started cooking. One by one, they backed off the beach and cruised out of the cove. The last boat left leaving a trail of music bouncing through the canyon: Will.i.iam’s “I Got it from my Mama.” Then all we heard were birds and bugs at dusk. Humans really are an unruly species.

Rock the Boat

Before I move on, I should explain that Saguaro lake is the fourth and lowest lake in a series of four. Roosevelt feeds into Apache, Apache into Canyon, and Canyon into Saguaro.

I was flipping the chicken when our placid lake began to ripple with a strong current. This is bizarre, because lakes don’t “ripple with a srong current.” We were all staring into the distance trying to make sense of this, when I looked down and saw a pair of flip flops (left by a party girl) float off the sand and into the water. Within minutes our sandy beach had become smaller than my kitchen.

We hopped up onto the boat and ate dinner and listened to Jason describe his plan for sailing from Los Angeles to Sydney, Australia. Before we knew it, it was dark and it was time to go. Unfortunately, the water level had lowered, and our boat was a beached whale. The guys got out and rocked the boat for ten minutes until we were finally floating again. It was a funny scene because the girls were in the boat and it looked like we were harrassing them I read in the paper earlier this week that they were lowered the water level in Canyon Lake by 20 feet to repair the dam. They opened up their dam upstream and flooded our picnic.

The cruise out of the lake was magical. It was dark and we were the only boat still on the lake. You couldn’t see the canyon walls, so we had to drive slowly. The sky was illuminated by a full dome of stars. It’s been so long since I’ve seen so many stars like that.

We stopped for twenty minutes and just floated in darkness, staring up the the sky. In the distance a camper was staying warm by a fire of mesquite wood, filling the air with the smell of autumn. It was such a calm moment at the end of such a severe three weeks of remodeling.