Confucius said, "Choose a job you love, and you never have to work a day in your life." He is not wrong; this summer I started working for Beaver Creek and along with it have found a job and people that make the long days a bit more fun. We have a crew of people from all over the world, a few Serbian guys, some Turkish girls and some from as far away as New York. The locals are strongly represented with the help of a few of my best friends and I. Here is how a summer job turned out to be much more.

Starting out we were all strangers and three weeks later we are all friends. We've learned things from each other, whether it be how to curse in Serbian or where to go hiking on your sacred days off. Every one of us is completely different, different humor, different backgrounds but we all are working for the same thing. We're here for the love of the outdoors, sure we complain when it's 95 with no cloud cover insight but we also get to work in the most beautiful place in the world.

From my friends and I: I know some of you get annoyed with us saying we were locals, but that's what we are. We know this place inside and out and we are proud of that. We know for a fact that when you're camping with us you're bound to have a good time, even if it does take you an hour on a dirt road to get there. We refer to the 30 mile stretch of I-70 as our home because at some point in our lives we've lived, skied, worked or went to school in some part of the valley. As my friends can attest Coloradans are the coolest people you'll ever meet, and down valley girls are the way to go.

To my friends and I: We've been here our whole lives, we've all been friends forever. Meeting the people we have has been an amazing thing for us. They've opened our eyes to recognize how truly blessed we are, the amazement and pure awe they have when looking around them is inspiring. They're so willing to try everything new from the rodeo to Hawaiian food they want everything. The stories they tell from their lives back home make you feel like you were there. They've made working up at Beaver Creek a million times more fun.

Though we only have the short season of summer together, it will be exciting to see where these next few weeks take us. We have countless backroads, endless trails and the powerful Colorado river right in our backyard. The opportunity for adventure we have is so tangible. Everything we do this summer has to be better than the last thing, so cheers to the best co-workers out there.