Saturday, May 05, 2012

Jump, Jive and No Wail

Jonny and I took another mental health day off of work to go riding up at Blue Sky but before that I dutifully went to boot camp.  Actually I went more out of curiosity than duty because Friday is Kangoo Jump Day at boot camp and I wanted to see what it was about.  And this is what it's about:



Kangoo Jump Boots


Apparently they were developed in Switzerland so that people with bad knees and hips could run and are popular in Europe.  They do in fact provide a good low impact workout for your knees though I was a little concerned about knee cap tracking issues since I had no sense of stride and felt a little out of control when I first started running in them.  I had no idea what these things looked like before I showed up to class and at first I wondered it I'd even be able to walk in them but after a few initial shaky moments I was o.k. 

We ran about 1/2 mile to a local track where we did exercises similar to the ones in the video except I looked nothing like my instructor and the other blond skinny Boulder chicks in the video.  Once I figured out to leave out the dancy arm movements and focus on the rhythm of what my legs were doing I finally started to get it by the end of class.  Despite the low impact on the knees it was a hard workout.  Those boots are heavy and clumsy at first and hard to run in until you get the hang of it.  There's also the embarrassment of running through town in a group wearing these things but then again this is Boulder so people are used to weirdness.

After boot camp it was off to the coffee shop to fuel up then up to Fort Collins to the Blue Sky trail.  And since both of us were tired and not chomping at the bit to hit the trail we finally stopped in Masonville to check out the Masonville Mercantile.







I finally got some pictures of the murals that aren't blurry from being taken from a moving car.





There was even an old timey prison and wanted posters.




Jonny was afraid to go inside at first but I had to go in and he quickly got over it.  The people inside were really nice so there was nothing to fear.  And the stuff inside - I don't even know where to begin.  All kinds of high end vintage stuff - fancy clothes, knick knacks, jewelry, memorabilia.  If you're looking for a cow skull with a portrait of Jonny Cash painted on it or a taxidermied mountain lion this is the place for you.  I could have spent the day taking pictures of all the stuff inside but I felt kind of funny doing it so I only took 2.  If you go to their Facebook page you can see more.

Old School Mickey Mouse anyone?



I loved Audrey Hepburn and you almost felt like you were in Breakfast at Tiffanys with the way this display sparkled.


And if my brain wasn't already exploding from the awesomeness of it all, there was a field of Stuff across the street but I'll save that for a separate post because this one is already getting out of hand.

Oh yeah, and there were once again blue skies on the Blue Sky.  Temps. in the mid-80's, felt like a summer day.  Freaky but no point in complaining, may as well enjoy it before the apocalypse comes.




We were planning on going to Denver to see the Nuns of Brixton but when I got home from riding I found out they weren't planning to hit the stage until 11:00 ish so that was out of the question.  I almost never went to shows that late back in the day, there was no way I was staying up that late after the full day I'd had.  Plus I don't think my brain could have held any more awesomeness.  Maybe one of these days they'll come up to Boulder and play at a reasonable hour.  In the meantime, I always have YouTube.  I think the band needs some Kangoo boots as well as the crowd.  Gives a whole new meaning to pogo dancing.

3 comments:

  1. Ok, that exercise looks hard and weird. But I guess if it help someone's knees...

    Very cool store!!

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  2. Yeah, I won't be buying those boots anytime soon but I did sign up for next week's class to give it another go.

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  3. Love the photos of the store and their murals. The set-up sounds a lot like this other kitchy place I found in the desert of California, near Barstow: Peggy Sue's Diner. I took a bunch of photos outside and in (you enter through a giant jukebox and out back they have a dinosaur park) but, hmm, still haven't sorted and posted my photos from that July 2010 trip. The bouncy shoe things look interesting.

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