Experiencing The Mesa(s): Acquiring new experiences

Often when I meet new people here they are asking why I decided to do a student exchange or what I'm trying get out of the exchange. Especially since I don't necessarily need any of the classes that I'm taking here for my degree. My answer is simply that I'm doing this for the experience. (The even more common question is how did I choose CMU from all the possible universities in US. The answer to this question I believe I've covered in previous posts: the outdoors and the ski team.)

So during the past weeks I've been trying to participate in all the new stuff that I've come across and this way acquire new experiences (most likely I'll continue to do this for my entire stay here).

Even before I traveled here I knew that I'm going to buy a bike. Pretty soon I got fixated on the idea of buying an old road bike so I can use it for training in addition to commuting. I was looking for bikes from Craigslist and even though there were quite a few options it ended up being much more difficult process than I could have imagined. Either the bikes were in other towns, I couldn't reach the sellers, we couldn't agree on the price or I was too late and the bike was already sold. Couple of weeks ago I finally managed to buy the sort of bike I was looking for. (I know this is not actually a new experience but the bike has helped (and will help) me to do new things).

A week ago took my bike up the nearby mountain (Colorado National Monument). The bike is Giant Cadex CFR-1 from somewhere between 1992 and 1994, and it has carbon frame (alu joints and fork) and Shimano 600 Ultegra components (in case some of cyclists are interested) and everything works like a charm.

In my last post I was telling that I had been practicing (and learned how to do) the Eskimo roll with a kayak in the pool. So one Tuesday I decided to put this new skill to a test and went with the OP to Montrose Water Sports Park. Basically it was some 500-meter long section of a river that included some nice rapids. Excluding the first time I went upside down in the river I was able to do the Eskimo roll and keep going.

Fighting the rapids

Upside down in the river

The following day after the kayaking (if my memory serves) there was this bag jump event on campus and as soon as I heard about it I had participate. After almost one hour wait the scissor crane took us in ten meters and then there was only one way down on the huge air bag.

Mid air!

CMU has this clever "taxi" system called MavRides operating every Thursday, Friday and Saturday between 9pm and 3am. The idea is that students can call a ride to and from bars or parties so they wouldn't drink and drive. By volunteering to do MavRides students can raise money for their team or club. I decided to help the ski team and have done the MavRides two times now (they didn't let me drive, though, because I don't have an American driving license so I was the navigator). Those were laborious yet interesting experiences.

Last Saturday we decided to ride to Palisade (small town about 25km East from Grand Junction) to do some wine tasting in local wineries. There were quite a few of those, they were really cozy, had excellent wines and the best part was that in each place you could have 3 to 5 samples for free. After couple of places we figured it's best to call a friend to pick us up. But we forgot to remind her to take the bike rack with her so only one of us was able to fit into the car with the bike. So it ended up being quite a long trip for my friend and me. But it was a great day!

These have been some of the examples from the past weeks. We also went outside city lights to watch the lunar eclipse, helped to prepare the ski trails ready for the winter on National Public Lands Day, watched our football team's game, got to try crack climbing (super fun btw!) and hiked another 14er.