Rocky Mountain Balboa Blowout 2013

After years of not traveling further than San Francisco, all of a sudden last year Chris and I decided to leave our bubble and start traveling to dance events - I left one job with over 2 weeks of vacation time saved up and realized that not using it was the dumbest thing ever (yes, they paid me out, but it wasn't worth it). We've been invited to teach at several out-of-state events in this last year, and we love teaching, meeting new people and seeing a few sights, so we're trying to take advantage of as many opportunities as we can. And now that we're meeting people who live all over the world, we need to keep traveling so that we can see (and dance!) with them.

Last weekend we went to snowy Denver for Rocky Mountain Balboa Blowout. Now, Chris and I were both born and raised in Southern California, and we are NOT built for snow. I went to college in Iowa, but that was 10 years ago now (yikes!) and it was a small town and small campus so I didn't have to deal with a car. So of course the first time we venture out to Denver, the town is hit with the biggest snowstorm of the season!

We were prepared for cold weather, but I forgot how darn WET snow is. I SO did not bring the right shoes - I only had one pair of flats with me. 7-Eleven bags to the rescue!

But that said, we still had a great time! RMBB is a fab event - we always had it on our list of events to go to, sooner or later. The music is great, the venues are pretty, and good/NICE dancers always turn out. We taught two classes (advanced Balboa and LA Lindy Hop) and I was in 2 contests - just the right amount of obligations for a fun weekend away. (Teaching and competing *are* fun, but sometimes you don't want to keep an eye on the clock.)

Here is video footage from the two contests I was in - enjoy!

Open Strictly Balboa - 

Chris & Beth, 1st Place

(For my family members who only want to watch our spotlight, that starts at 9:52 ;)

Invitational Jack & Jill -

randomly paired with Andreas Olsen, from Sweden, whom I met only the previous night!

(Andreas and my spotlight starts at 5:08)

Big thanks to David Bradford for the video footage and for the great dance we had! :)