The last time I was able to travel out of town for more than a weekend was last October, so time spent in 100-degree Las Vegas was most welcome.
Speaking of Las Vegas … before moving to Meeker, my wife and I lived about 90 miles south of Sin City in Arizona, but it was close enough over the nearly two decades we were there so Las Vegas became quite familiar to us. We know where we want to gamble, we know where we want to eat and we know how to get to whatever theater or casino for a particular performance or concert.
There really is no other city I know of on earth that is quite like Vegas for several reasons. But, you know what? When we pulled into the driveway at our Meeker home, we had a feeling that, by golly, it is, to borrow a line from John Denver, “good to be back home again.”
While in Vegas, it is good to be able to find whatever it is you want to eat.
It is also good to have access to world-class entertainment.
And it isn’t too expensive to get to where you want to go via taxi.
But it isn’t home. It never will be.
We enjoyed some exceptional food. The gambling wasn’t too costly on the wallet this trip. And we didn’t make it to any of the famous shows — most we had been to before moving.
But the highlight of our trip was to the 2014 International Boxing Expo at the huge Las Vegas Convention Center.
My wife and I are big boxing fans. Usually each Friday and Saturday night we are glued to the TV to watch: “Shobox: The New Generation”; “HBO Boxing”; “Friday Night Fights” and even Boxeo, Boxeo Azteca and Boxeo Telemundo, which are three Spanish-speaking networks that offer boxing as well.
On those channels, my wife just enjoys the boxing because she doesn’t understand much more than a few words I have taught her and I enjoy them because I can make out just about every other word because they speak so fast — but I understand enough to get the idea of what they are saying.
Anyway, we are big boxing fans, and Cris thought I would like to attend the Expo while we were in Las Vegas. The event was held in Las Vegas because it was the same day as the Floyd Mayweather/ Marcos Maidana rematch at the MGM Grand.
We looked up the price of the tickets to attend the fight and decided on the Expo because of its $30 tickets. That is compared to the cheapest fight ticket we could find of $550 per person. I don’t like Mayweather all that much, so that was too much to spend in the hopes that the 47-0 boxer would lose to Maidana. He didn’t lose, and that was an $1,100 save for us.
Cris, it turns out, was more excited than I was to attend the Expo, but it was fun.
The event was put on by Mike Tyson Productions, and sure enough, the first fighter we saw was Mike Tyson. He was off in the right front of the convention center main meeting room and was surrounded by about 30 security men and women.
I figured I could get in between one or two of them and get a photo of him and his tattoo.
Nope.
The security guards moved like grass swaying in the wind. They were blocking unpaid photos and they were doing it with ease. It turns out Tyson was demanding $25 for a photo of him, and there weren’t, I can guarantee, many people who got a free photo of him. So off we went to check out who else was there.
We went back toward the entrance to start our aisle-by-aisle search, and in the first booth were former world heavyweight title holders Buster Douglas, David Tua, Ray Mercer, Lamont Brewster, Riddick Bowe and Chris Byrd.
The next booth was ESPN Deportes, the Spanish-speaking ESPN channel, and they had former referee, TV court judge, etc., Joe Cortez taking photos and signing autographed photos of him that stated his famous mantra “firm but fair” and giving out sports bags and other goodies to everyone.
One of the two sad parts of the Expo was in the next booth. Leon Spinks was signing autographs and boxing gloves but he was attended to by a gentleman who had to hold up a basic cue card for Spinks to look at while signing autographs. It was quite sad to see that he rarely raised his head, took about five minutes to autograph an object and that he needed instructions on how to do everything. Obviously, at least one punch too many.
Next was the other sad portion of the event. In the corner of the next booth, but obviously vary uplifting and very aware was Paul Williams, a former world title holder and one of the top boxers in his weight class until about two years ago, when he was paralyzed in an automobile accident. It was good to see him happy, reaching out to the fans and more than willing to sign autographs and speak with the fans.
It was equally sad to see the top world-class boxer in a wheelchair, with no hopes or plans or abilities to return to the ring. Hats off to Paul Williams, who was one tough hombre, as a real boxing fan will tell you. He is missed in the ring.
Other big names we got photos of were former pound-for-pound champion Roy Jones Jr., former world champ Zab Judah (without his famous grille), and past and current champions Omar Figueroa, Peter “Kid Chocolate” Quillen, Orislandy Lara, Jessie James Leyja, Shawn Porter and too many of the other lighter-weight world champions and strong title contenders.
We were only there about two hours but we were told we had missed a few of the other past and present names because the Expo ran from 8 a.m. to about 5 p.m., ending just before the first fights on the Mayweather/Maidana ticket.
It was fun to see these famous fighters in person and see just how big some of the were and yet how small some of these other lightweights were. For $30 tickets, we had a much better time than we would have had if we had shelled out $1,100 for what I understand from many folks was a lousy fight. (I actually watched the fight this past Sunday night, and I would say that while it was an unruly fight, there just wan’t much excitement.)
The rest of the trip to Vegas was filled with lots of great food, mostly good gambling and, next-best of all, lots of sleep.
Oh, and did I mention? It really is nice to be back home again.
My wife and I had to travel to Steamboat Springs on Saturday to pick up a new (to her) used car she brought from a friend. She had been without a vehicle since the minus-29-degree night in October last year.
She was pretty happy to have gotten a great deal on the 2002 Cadillac, which has all the bells and whistles that were available back then plus a few minor problems that will not be cheap to repair. But, for a great price, she now has a good car.
I had skied in Steamboat Springs quite a bit in the late ‘50s and early 1960s, through to the mid ‘70s but hadn’t been back there. My wife had never been there.
Two things were noticeable to me about the trip.
First, Steamboat Springs has changed a lot in about 50 years. I didn’t recognize it at all. It is still fairly small, but it is spread out and the number of businesses far outnumber those in place 50 years ago.
The word in the Colorado ski world 50 years ago was that Steamboat may have had the best skiing in the state but that it didn’t have the best restaurants or nightlife of the state’s ski resorts.
That has definitely changed because there were quite a few restaurants and bars in town and they all looked like they were being well attended.
The second obvious statement about the trip on Saturday is that the drive from Craig to Steamboat Springs is gorgeous.
I wouldn’t say the drive coincided with the peak of color change in Hayden Valley, but I can certainly say it was close. My guess is that this coming weekend could be right near the peak.
The aspens were shining in bright golds, a lot of the brush — more there than around here — was from bright to dark red, the other brush was a yellowish brown, some was still bright green and still other bushes, trees and shrubs seemed to produce a wide variety of reds, oranges, browns, greens and yellows while the Hayden Valley and the Yampa River were at their most peaceful, yet colorful best.
Not quite so yet in Rio Blanco County.
Occasional small outbursts of color could be found along Highway 13 to Craig. There was one large grove of aspens about two miles on the north side of the Nine Mile Hill summit that really glowed bright gold in the sun and a few small bunches of reddish-brown bushes.
But the color change was not at its peak — perhaps this weekend or next.
I did, however, see the first two bears since I moved to Rio Blanco County more than a year and a half ago.
On the way north to Craig, I saw a small sow on the left side of the road about three miles past the summit of Nine Mile Hill, and on the way back I saw an obviously large boar about a mile north of the summit of the same pass.
Momma Bear was wandering through the underbrush, and it was pretty obvious that it wasn’t a cub from this year, but she, I am assuming, wasn’t very big.
The old man, there was no question, was a boar and he was very large. He was sitting on his rear end and towered above the brush rows he was sitting between.
That was pretty exciting for someone who hadn’t seen a bear in roughly 20 years.
But more than a bear report, this is meant to point out that the fall colors are changing, and quickly, and that if you have an urge to go on a mountain drive, you best start making plans because the trees that shed early are already bare and the trees that change in the middle or at the end of the color change are starting to change and won’t be around much longer.
I have to add here quickly that the road between Hayden and Steamboat was blanketed with an extraordinary number of dead raccoons and skunks. I would suggest exercising caution because no one wants to hit a raccoon because they can be big enough to cause some damage, and no one wants to hit a skunk — for obvious reasons.
It was a tough loss the Broncos suffered Sunday, but it was a great comeback in the last half of the fourth quarter. Seattle is tough at home; but count me among those who favor another change in the NFL rules regarding overtimes.
Denver should have had a chance to possess the ball and try to score in the overtime as well.
What a foolish rule it is that states if the team that wins the toss scores a touchdown on its first possession, the game is over; if it only scores a field goal or doesn’t score at all, the other team is at least guaranteed to possess the ball at least once.
With a bye week ahead, I don’t think the Arizona Cardinals will receive a very warm welcome when they visit Denver in two weeks.
Attendance numbers at the Meeker Classic Championship Sheepdog Trials, released Monday by the organization as “rough attendance numbers” were: 3,000 spectators, 500 students/organized groups, 500 sponsors and 300 volunteers.
