Travel

Avoiding Sport in Aspen

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Summer in Aspen is all about the sport. Wherever you look, tanned Americans with bodies to die for are biking, running, hiking, walking, climbing, golfing, kayaking, fishing or playing tennis.

The Husband was in HEAVEN.

When on holiday and surrounded by sporting opportunities, his motto is "which sport's next?" When on holiday…when on sabbatical…when in Jozi…whenever…my motto is: "one sport a day".

I thought The Sister was on board with my mantra, but it seems she can be heavily influenced by The Husband. It was either that – or the Bad Billy's All American Beef Burger she was struggling to digest which made her want to chase me around the tennis court for 90 minutes (at an altitude of 2,400m) AND go jogging – all in one day.

So the next day, before those two got any bright ideas about hiking up the mountain, I came up with a plan for a decoy: a cultural outing. I found it in a brochure in the hotel lobby and it was entitled "Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous Tour". I decided to read them the promotional blurb on the tour. It went like this:

If you like People Magazine, you will love this tour!…You'll see the beautiful homes of Movie Stars, Television Stars, Sports Stars, Music Stars, Super Models, Fortune 500 CEO's and Royalty!…You'll have incredible stories to tell your friends when you get home!

(Capital letters NOT mine, by the way…)

The Sister and The Husband heard this, raised their eyebrows, looked at each other and then looked at me as though we couldn't possibly be related. The Sister then verbalised their thoughts, telling me that we weren't "those kinds of people".

Mission "Avoid Sport" had failed.

And so off we went on what was supposed to be a leisurely, meandering bike ride. The first 5km was utterly pleasant: we cruised along paved, flat bike trails, in amongst trees, alongside bubbling brooks. All very civilised and manageable. But then the gentle pathways turned into monstrously steep hills. Before I knew it, I was huffing and puffing like the Big, Bad Wolf. The worst was, there didn't seem to be any end in sight. In times like these, when I ask The Husband important questions like "how much longer is this effing hill?" or "how many more of these frigging hills are there?" he actually lies to me. He'll say that the hill we're on is the "last one". And when we get to the next one and I call him on it, he'll say that he wasn't lying, because, in fact, this hill is not at all like "one of the frigging hills" I was asking about – it's steeper. By this point, I feel like ramming my front tyre into his rear derailer – not that I would actually be able to identify one of those – but of course he's half-way up the mountain by then and there's no way I can catch him.

The Sister wasn't helping matters either. She took to this whole hill thing like a duck to water and soon she was wanting to see if we could cycle to the next town, Snowmass, just to "see what's there". And so, on I rode – or rather, on I wove because the hills were so steep I couldn't actually ride up them in a straight line. I kept thinking that I could have been swanning around the holiday homes of the rich and famous, listening to some American tour guide gushing about their marble kitchen counter tops and who they'd allegedly shagged on said counter tops.

Infinitely more appealing.

Three hours, one spate of tears and one numb bum later, we returned to Aspen. As we were wheeling our bikes back to the bike hire place, we passed a gorgeous looking jewellery store. But it wasn't just any jewellery store. This store had a very special sign in its window. It went like this:

"YOUR HUSBAND CALLED. HE SAID BUY ANYTHING YOU WANT".

Gotta love this town.

Travel

A Pair of Previously Loved Yves in Aspen

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It is not every day that cycling trips lead me to cut price designer shoes. The last cycling trip, for example, took me to Badplaas. Other cycling destinations that spring to mind are shopping meccas like Op-die-Berg, Grabouw, Viscos and Himeville.

You get my point.

Aspen, however, is a little gem of an exception – if your Daddy's a billionaire. Still, I was content just to stare lovingly at the window displays of Ralph Lauren, Louis Vuitton, Prada, Chanel, J Crew and Fendi. I tried to go in to some of these stores to stare lovingly at the wares from the inside, but a part of me always feels like the salesgirls are onto me…they take one look at my Havaianas and they know I have absolutely no intention of buying a single thing. I've always admired a good friend of mine who has absolutely no qualms entering any sort of luxury store whatsoever – even the ones with those 2m-wide tuxedoed doormen out front. Her policy goes like this: "If I earn more than the shop assistants, I'll be coming inside – in my takkies". Great policy. My shrink and I are working on it.

Anyhoo, things got infinitely more exciting yesterday when The Sister and I discovered "the consignment store". We ventured in a little apprehensively, expecting a bit of an Oxfam-style set up. What we found was a little bit of heaven. So, "consignment store" is code for second-hand. Instinctively, we'd already worked that out. But here, they don't degrade their vintage designer merchandise by using terms like "second-hand". No. One refers to the luxury items as "new or like new" and on occasion you may hear, in hushed tones, the term "previously owned". Whilst the word "new" deserves a bit of an eye-brow raise, the words "like new" are totally authentic. Imagine a store filled with tons of immaculately preserved Kate Spade pumps, Manolo Blahnik slingbacks, Robert Cavalli cocktail dresses and Chanel handbags – all looking as good as new. In fact, looking even better with their significantly reduced price-tags.

Between us, The Sister and I may have tried on every piece of footwear in our size, determined to provide these orphaned shoes with a loving new home…

I fell for a pair of pointy Yves St Laurents with heels alot higher than anything I've worn since the start of my sabbatical. My half-hearted lament of "but when would I wear them?" was met with the following shocked retort from The Sister: "When would you NOT wear them?"

Quite.

Besides, who can say no to a pair of Yves St Laurents with a Nine West price tag?

So, just to prove to myself that my new acquisition had deep-seated logical foundations, I wore them to dinner last night. I have to say that the three and a half blocks between the hotel and the restaurant resembled physical torture I haven't experienced since compulsory cross country in high school.

I'm blaming it on Aspen's cobbled streets – quaint to look at but very hard to navigate in stilettos. When I turned to The Sister for sympathy – or perhaps to blame her for talking me into buying this weapons of torture – she was like, "Duh! You put your plakkies in your handbag and your change your shoes around the corner from the restaurant! And PS: You'd never survive in London."

Mamil Wife

Holidaying in Leadville

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The Husband had a rush of blood to the head a few weeks ago and decided that we hadn't been on enough cycling "holidays" this year. The good news is that the latest cycling sojourn will take us to the States. The bad news is that it will take us to an ex-mining town: a place called – wait for it – "Leadville". Okay, so Jozi's also a mining town, but no-one holidays in Carltonville, do they? Just like no-one willingly holidays in Leadville – which is why the town created a mountain bike race to lure obsessive cyclists to its parts once a year. The Husband being one such sucker, of course. He'd already paid his race money and taken his chances when his American friend broke the news that Leadville is – and I quote – "a sh*t-hole".

Nonetheless, we had to find accommodation in this sh*thole, so The Husband's PA set about making some enquiries.

Everything was full, full, full. Like I said, no-one willingly vacations in Leadville. But people (like The Husband) obviously make an exception for the Leadville 100 cycle race and all accommodation was booked out.

Finally, we had a bit of a breakthrough when The Husband's PA forwarded me this mail:

Hi!

I have a large studio apartment available.  Fully outfitted, cable tv, right in town.  That is the busiest week of the year in Leadville.  This unit just came available. 

Have a super day!
Kyle

I was so relieved that I promptly called up Kyle to see if we could book it straight away. Kyle had that super-cheery American service industry thing going on. In fact, he was so overwhelmingly friendly, I was almost expecting him to wish me "happy holidays" or something (even though we were nowhere near Christmas). Still, super cheery is better than grumpy so I tried to raise the level of excitement in my voice to a near hysterical level, to match his. In fact, Kyle's enthusiasm was so infectious that I was about to hand out credit card details then and there. Thankfully, the ever-efficient Kyle offered to quickly send me some pictures before I made a final decision.

A little later, in came this mail from my new friend, Kyle:

Hi!

Here are a couple of pics.  Obviously, the place will be cleaned.

Have a great day!
Kyle

What precisely did Kyle mean when he said "obviously, the place will be cleaned"? I almost dreaded opening the attached pictures to find out…

Apparently, this here below is what he meant.

Obviously.

Based on photographic evidence, I've managed to convince The Husband that we cannot possibly spend 8 days acclimatising for his mountain bike race in this mine dump.

Happily, Aspen is a mere 50km away, so I'll be acclimatising by the pool while The Husband chugs up and down the surrounding mountains on his bicycle. And I've just managed to convince The Sister to tag along from London, so actually the two of us will be cocktailing by the pool…So much more civilsed…