I just spent a very fun weekend in Steamboat Springs with my boyfriend visiting his family.  For the second year in a row, we decided that the prime weekend for a visit was during Winter Carnival, which is pretty spectacular if you ever have the chance to witness it.  During the day, they load up Main Street with snow for events such as the donkey jump, where local cowboys saddle up their horses so they can drag kids on skis over ski jumps (something my boyfriend has experienced and survived) or the shovel race, where the cowboys drag “grown” men sitting on snow shovels down the street to see who can get the best time.

There are lots of other things going on as well.  Last year, we went to Howelsen Hill – home of the Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club and training ground of many Olympians – to watch some ski jumps.  But perhaps the biggest draw is Saturday night’s fireworks display and the Lighted Man.  This show begins after dark at Howelsen Hill as skiers carrying flares make their way down the mountain.  Cut your eyes to the right, and you will see ski jumpers with flares jumping through a ring of fire.  But the grand finale is always the Lighted Man – a skier outfitted in a suit of LED lights making his way down the hill while fireworks shooting from his body.

As for me, since I don’t downhill ski, I spent the weekend running barefoot through snow-lined walkways from pool to pool at the hot springs, traipsing through a man-made ice castle, and giving cross country skiing a try. There were so many options for a code for the day, but I kept coming back to the Lighted Man.  Because codes on a claim tell a story, I just wonder what the insurance company would say should the Lighted Man have to report these codes:

• W39.xxxA, Discharge of firework, Initial encounter
• Y93.23, Activity, snow (alpine) (downhill) skiing, snow boarding, sledding, tobogganing and snow tubing

It’s such a fun tradition, I hope he never has to find out. I didn’t get close enough to the mountain this year to get a good pic of the Lighted Man, but if you’d like to see some great pictures of the Winter Carnival is like, there is a good synopsis if you click here.
Coder Coach