13Aug23 ~ Kala & I headed to Summit Co but first stopped for golf with Matt @ Kennedy GC near his apartment. We had a great outing there; Matt donned the Lahinch GC hat we got him while in Ireland. We stopped by for a post-round beer at a brewery new to al of us, A Bit Twisted. When in Summit I prepared Thom Ka Ghai (chix lemongrass soup) for us.
14Aug23 ~ We headed out for a hike around the tarn below the Nest on a day of gorgeous weather and many wildflowers still popping.
15Aug23 ~ Kala & I rode mostly to Breck via the lake rec path this day; it was another gorgeous mtn day. Of course afterward we stopped at ORB for a pop and to pickup September's allocation.
16Aug23 ~ We laid low most of the day and did some computer & audio stuff. And we did house chores like staining the deck chairs. Here we clean them off with wood cleaner and then let the dry before coating with natural transparent oil stain. Nice.
17Aug23-18Aug23 ~ I fished the Blue and Kala worked out. On Fri we caught up with TV series' we're watching.
19Aug23 ~ Part of my desire to be in Summit this weekend was to attend the Keystone Mountain Music Festival, which we did. We saw a couple of Nashville-based acts. Kevin Daniel lead a 3 piece called The Bottom Line; he belted somewhat sad country tunes with a good voice and picked his guitar well while backed by a couple of good beat boys. Keith the bassist wears gloves from a nickel allergy ~ I didn't win the merch by guessing "medication." We enjoyed a beer at Steep in River Run before joining for the 2nd act. During break we checked out the long construction of KS River Run base lux condos; cranes over Keystone. Too we chatted up Tom Baugh, an interesting 70's era AFA grad, who lives in Summit and is a ski instructor for ABay. There was a group of AFA Class of '25 kids walking by and he high fives 'em, exposing us to his college days. Tyler Bryant & The Shakedown were the 2nd act. These guys are young rockers with some blues influences, with a couple of decent voices and a bunch of crowd pleasing covers. Not pleasing us a much as the 1st act, we split a bit early. Mix and sound was decent all day but Tyler's voice was not that discernible.
Kala & I stopped at my fav Summit pizza place, Last Chance, and it's affiliated taphouse, Cove & Craft, for the first pizza enjoyed in many weeks. I then kept the music vibe alive that evening with a full audit of Molly Tuttle's latest album with Golden Highway... City of Gold, on the dialed-in Nest Music Theater. More on the review in later entries.
20Aug23 ~ We were off to the Front Range early to meet up with Jim & Mary for the All-US championship Sunday of the USGAA finals tournament. This is the season culmination tourney for Gaelic games played in the US. There are two games: hurling (men) / camogie (women) and Gaelic football played in the tourney at 5 different levels (top to bottom: Senior, Intermediate, Junior A, Jr B, Jr C), to a national champion in each. While the day was hot we had a blast, finding our spot between Field 1 & 2 where all the Intermediate and Senior finals were played. Gaelic games are Irish-derived obviously but the US clubs and games are played with both Americans (often emigrating from Ireland to the US or born of Irish parents or grandparents in the US) and Irish citizens visiting the US to play. Still, the players are unpaid, as are the volunteer conveners and organizers, coaches and refs, to my understanding, in Ireland and NAmerica. At the level we observed on championship Sunday, there were lots of Irish players... this makes the USGAA quite different from the Irish clubs and games where your birth county is the team for which you can play. Anyway, action throughout the day was awesome. Scoring in both games gives 3 points for a shot in the net and 1 point for a shot through the uprights. Scoreboards don't even do the math for you so a score of 2-22 is 2x3 + 22 = 28. First up was Intermediate Hurling where San Diego (red) thumped Madison.
Next we saw Intermediate Ladies Football (no pics) and then Sr Ladies football. We sat next to the parents of a number of the Chicago senior women footballers and chatted them up for info. They were happy to share, often in Irish accents; this especially as Chicago was good at Gaelic football and bested their Charlotte rivals. #14 for the Chicago women was a scoring machine. We learned this was a grudge match of sorts as the Charlotte team is very good as well and when Chicago last played them, 6 US marines were on the team and, well, did what marines often do. Jim tried on the trophy for good measure.
Before the senior hurling championship we got food from the trucks. Not bad gyros. Then came the match I most wanted to see... the seniors featuring top level US hurlers. The match featured Galway (maroon) vs Tipperary (gold & blue); it's not really them but their US clubs were so named. It wasn't a match as Tipperary crunched maroon ~ their players could score with hands free from at least 20 yds further, and were faster to every free grounder.
The biggest match of the day seemed to be the senior football meeting. Crowds (mostly other players at the tourney and their mates or parents) lined the field and the game was begun with a parade of the players lead by a Colorado Gaelic band. Again Chicago was in the senior finals and we were in the thick of their rooting contingent. The Chicago blue looked smaller than the fiercer Philadelphia red. But, haps on the field showed cleverness, weaving plays, and the speed of Chicago at these games. Philly was down early and stayed there... our friends were stoked again with hoots often beguiling the red coaches. Great action if even it got a little chippy... multiple players were tossed from the game on both sides; leaving their teams man down for 10 minutes... it didn't seem to deter Chicago though who prevailed. We didn't really get to see much of the senior camogie game as it ran concurrent with the big football match; I did duck over and see some of the action but no pics. As we left for True Food dinner with J&M, I snapped Kala and my pic over the games ~ I am very red from a day in the 93° sun.
Dinner was very good in the Cherry Ck area at True Food, as was a fine day with J&M. We stopped to see Matt and pickup golf hat gifts he'd given us. How should I feel with a hat suggesting "3 off the tee?"
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