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Steamboat Springs — I've been "in-state" for three weeks now, and there hasn't been a whole lot that's surprised me.

Sure, I've covered a lot of new-to-me winter sports since I arrived at this newspaper from my previous job near Kansas City. I've seen plenty of things I never saw growing up on a wheat farm near Wichita, Kan., and I've done things with my free time I never could have imagined while finishing school at Kansas State.

None of it really surprised me. Freestyle skiing, NASTAR races and days on the mountain were about what I expected when I moved here.

Dog sleds, however, weren't.

I saw my first dog sled two weeks ago after moving in with a co-worker near Stagecoach State Park. Every morning as I cautiously made my way down snow-packed roads toward work, I passed a team of dogs preparing for the day.

Of course I knew dog sleds existed - I read "Call of the Wild" and "White Fang" as a child, and I loved Gary Paulson's "Woodsong." I'd always loosely follow the progress of the Iditarod. Still, it all seemed so far away - even further than the ski slopes my family occasionally visited.

Dog sledding? Really, who does that? Who rides a dog sled?

The employees of Carol Bloodworth's Red Runner tours do.

Bloodworth's dog teams pull tourists on one-hour trips around the park. It was something I'd never considered, and it was something I found while barely even stepping outside my front door.

It seems I've already covered a wide range of events in my short time here. Saturday was no different. The first cross-country skiing I ever personally witnessed was one of my first assignments - the Steamboat Springs pentathlon. I got a much bigger dose when I made my way to the fourth annual North Routt Coureur des Bois ski race.

My lack of knowledge in the area made for a lot of dumb questions and led to a lot of interesting discussions.

Steamboat's Jim Harkness set the 90-kilometer course record for classic-style cross-country skiing Saturday. It goes without saying that the fact there were two styles was new to me, too.

"I'd been skate skiing for a long time when I saw a Bill Koch video," Harkness said. "He was the first World Cup skier from the United States, and he revolutionized skiing. It looked so cool to see someone classic skiing and just motoring along."

It did look cool. While I've been assured the wild-arms swings and hurried steps of freestyle skiers make for the fastest way between point A and point B - a truth reinforced Saturday when more than 20 freestyle competitors streamed in ahead of Harkness - Harkness made his own point, gliding toward the finish with seemingly half the effort and twice the grace of the other skiers.

That's not to say one style or another has won me over. Three weeks in, I've decided that's my favorite part of Steamboat Springs - there's a million things to do and equally as many ways to do them.

No doubt manning the Outdoors page will open my eyes to other activities I had never thought of. That's a great thing, and I look forward to sharing it with you.