Outdoors and marriage

There are definitely things I would not want to do with a partner:

• Move heavy furniture.
• Back up the truck to the boat trailer.
• Paddle a double kayak.
• Run a marathon (unless you both totally run the same pace)

Things that always go better with a partner:

• Figuring out where you are on a map.
• Scaring off a bear
• Planning an epic adventure
• Navigating across rivers

I'm always amazed at the men who marry women who don't like the outdoors, and then they sit around and complain that their wives don't like the outdoors. Hello? For me, I like a balance. I like that my husband (as of Friday! Yay!) will sometimes backpack with me, but not always. It forces me to go with other people, which turns out to be really great. I like that I run and he doesn't, because I can run at my own pace and not get into my competitive my-partner-is-better-than-me-at-this-grrr mode. (I'm not competitive at all. Really).
I like that watching him has made me get better at mountain biking, and I like that he has his own thing, tele skiing, which I don't want to do but makes him happy and jump around when it starts to snow. I think it would be super boring if we did the same things together all the time.

And no couch potatoes. I love my couch but I don't want to live there.

Our party was yesterday at the volunteer ski hill. I can't believe how many people showed up, a testament to this town and the many interwoven strands of outdoor people (The award for most outstanding entrance went to Peter, who flew in on his parasail). There's the backcountry ski crowd, the hike to tops of peaks crowd, the hang out on the brewery porch crowd, the artists, the musicians who could be famous if they really tried, and the horse crowd, some belonging to more than one group. I am still a newcomer here, but the great thing about these people is that their circle can expand to hold more.