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Tom Ross: 2010: The year of the road trip

Tom Ross wants to drive to Texas and back in a single weekend. What adventures do you plan to tackle in 2010? Send Tom a note at tross@steamboat

p>pilot.com, and he’ll compile the best entries for a future column.

Tom Ross wants to drive to Texas and back in a single weekend. What adventures do you plan to tackle in 2010? Send Tom a note at tross@steamboat

p>pilot.com, and he’ll compile the best entries for a future column.

— I’m pleased to be able to report that I already have accomplished one of my 2010 New Year’s resolutions.

On Sunday, I installed a new shower curtain liner in my bathroom. It’s a dark shade of khaki and came with little suction cups that don’t quite adhere to the shower surround.



I felt a sense of accomplishment when I checked the bathroom remodel off my list of resolutions. But rest assured that I have loftier goals for 2010 and the decade ahead.

I’m darn serious about taking down the last of my outdoor Christmas lights before November.



Before this winter is out, I intend to enter a cross-country ski race and finish dead last. If it sounds to you like I’m aiming low, you haven’t seen me ski, or maybe you’ve never gasped for air, as I have, while 11-year-olds glided effortlessly past you.

In 2010, I want to fish a river in Montana, visit the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco and explore Provence (I know, that’s in France) on a bicycle. Hey, it could happen.

Throughout 2010, I vow to take numerous road trips to obscure destinations such as Goblin Valley, Utah; Humptulips, Wash.; and Chilili, N.M. I’ve been to all three places, and I’m eager to return in 2010.

To Texas and back

High on my list is setting out to prove that it is possible to leave Steamboat Springs in an automobile and drive to Texas and back in a long weekend. I’m calling it my “Amarillo by Morning” adventure in honor of country crooner George Strait.

Along the way, we’ll be taking in no fewer than five states. Pull out your Rand McNally road atlas and turn to the two-page spread of the entire United States. You can plainly see that only a 20-mile strip of the Oklahoma panhandle separates Colorado and Texas. The Lone Star State is right next door.

For reasons of pure speed, on the way south, I’d circumvent the panhandle and take I-25 south of Pueblo to Raton, N.M. From there, I’d head east to Dalhart, Texas, via U.S. Highway 87 and then on to Amarillo.

We’ll linger in Amarillo long enough to have lunch at Jerry’s Famous Pit Bar-B-Que on South Tyler, then turn around for the trip back to Steamboat.

On the return trip, I’d add my fourth and fifth states by transecting the panhandle on U.S. 56 northeast in order to bag a little town in Kansas — maybe Syracuse on the Arkansas River — before veering back into Colorado at Holly. We could follow the river all the way back to Pueblo. If we time it right, we might even chase tornados.

Now that’s a road trip!

A photo a day

I’m taking my camera with me everywhere I go in 2010 and vow to produce, on a daily basis, an image worthy of posting to Flickr.

I haven’t exactly opened my new Flickr account yet, but I’ve photographed an old Jeep Willys buried in snow, alpenglow on Buffalo Pass, a snow-capped outhouse, snow-covered rocks in Fish Creek and a giant snow shovel.

The new year is off to a great (snowy) start, with many more adventures to come. What are the adventures on the top of your to-do list for 2010? Send them to me at tross@steamboatpilot.com, and I’ll compile the best submissions for a future column.


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