In this bonus episode, Ryan Lafield takes a break from politics and sarcasm to share something more personal: a family trip to Snowmass, Colorado.
From ski school milestones to pine marten sightings, this episode captures the joy of being present—with a few reflections on what matters most: family, nature, and why this podcast even exists.
🎙 You’ll hear:
– Luge runs, snowy hikes, and wildlife encounters
– Ryan’s son’s first day on skis
– Behind-the-scenes podcast reflections and shoutouts
– What Colorado taught him about clarity, purpose, and patriotism
Short, sincere, and straight from the mountains.
🔥 Hit Follow if you’ve ever needed a reminder of what’s worth fighting for.
Chapters:
00:00 - Opening Song and Reflections
01:46 - Mountain Adventures in Snowmass
03:14 - Family Moments and Ski School
04:24 - Snowy Days and Wildlife Encounters
07:18 - Colorado Fun Facts
10:25 - Podcast Reflections and Future Plans
00:00:01
So I'm gonna love you every night like it's the last night,
00:00:03
like it's the last night. And sometimes I can rise And
00:00:06
that's where I'm at. I want to hold you just for a
00:00:18
while. I'm only here person time in the
00:00:20
world. A new place?
00:01:02
A new home for a while let me feel alive.
00:01:10
Nothing to hold me back. Damn out time just enjoy the
00:01:13
bride. I know man passing by life is
00:01:20
good. Best I've ever felt.
00:01:26
Get me up sewing somewhere I can find myself.
00:01:35
Oh, I feel, I feel, I feel. I feel so alive as I reach out.
00:01:44
Reach out. Hey guys, sit at the top of the
00:01:47
mountain. Here we go.
00:01:47
We're going to do a little luge roller coaster, some tubing with
00:01:52
the kids. Perfect Sunday morning here in
00:01:56
nice Snowmass, Colorado. Check it out.
00:01:59
Headed up the Loos roller coaster with my boy.
00:02:02
Going to fly through these trees.
00:02:03
That's what you do when you have kiddos.
00:02:05
Spread eagle, baby. Everyone here we are on the luge
00:02:29
they call it. It's just a glorified roller
00:02:32
coaster through the forest, through the trees.
00:02:35
Beautiful day out 35 and sunny. Having a great Family Day with
00:02:39
the boys. So I can't beat it.
00:02:43
It's all but I look forward to getting back to you guys and I
00:02:45
hope you enjoyed the last show and hope you enjoy the next one
00:02:48
that should be released out on Tuesday to cap off this
00:02:51
wonderful trip. Love you guys.
00:02:55
Here we go. Headed up.
00:02:57
What do you think? Are you excited?
00:03:01
Here we go. Here comes Mama.
00:03:06
Where's Mama and and Liam? Have they gone yet?
00:03:11
Oh, I guess they already went. Hey everyone, just dropped my
00:03:17
five year old son off to his first day of ski school and some
00:03:23
tears are kind of flowing. That's why I put my glasses on.
00:03:26
But call me a weenie all you want, I'll I'll take it.
00:03:29
I can take the heat. But it's one of those special
00:03:31
moments. He's just kind of just kind of
00:03:34
sitting there looking all innocent, wondering where I'm
00:03:36
going. And he's about to head up onto a
00:03:38
mountain with a bunch of kids he doesn't know and teachers he
00:03:40
doesn't know. And but I started skiing when I
00:03:43
was 5, so I can't wait for a lot of bonding memories, father and
00:03:49
son going up on the mountain and I've got another son coming out
00:03:52
right behind him. So special day for me again, you
00:03:57
can laugh at me all you want, but real proud of them and just
00:04:02
kind of sitting at the bottom of the mountain there waiting for
00:04:04
the day to be over like good people watching good coffee and
00:04:11
working on. So I get back to it.
00:04:13
Miss you guys, love you guys. Happy Saint Patrick's Day
00:04:17
everyone. They made my Scotch dream.
00:04:21
How about that? Cheers.
00:04:25
Good morning, everybody. More snow trying to get out of
00:04:29
here tomorrow. So I'm hoping kind of when the
00:04:30
snow stops. But it just, it wasn't in the
00:04:32
forecast at all. And then all of a sudden, here
00:04:34
we go. The other day here, if you can
00:04:38
kind of see by this grill and you'll see on the picture, there
00:04:41
was an animal called a pine marten.
00:04:44
And apparently they're nocturnal and they rarely come out and
00:04:48
they're rarely sighted by humans.
00:04:50
And it was sitting here running around.
00:04:53
And then when I looked it up, apparently they're very
00:04:56
carnivorous. And if they are out in the
00:05:00
daytime, it means they're very hungry.
00:05:03
So I told my kids not to come out here.
00:05:05
They're about two feet long and they kind of look like a weasel
00:05:08
and they kind of look like a like a big ferret.
00:05:11
So it was kind of cool to see and get a picture of that.
00:05:14
So let's look through this collage video and you'll see
00:05:17
you'll see the the elusive animal, if you will.
00:05:21
So you see tons of animals up here and it's kind of cool.
00:05:24
So just thought I'd share with you guys.
00:05:28
Snow, snow and more snow just keeps coming down.
00:05:34
Never gets old though. You stick it out.
00:05:35
It's just snow and the mountains and the trees.
00:05:38
I think the bears are still asleep hopefully for the winter
00:05:44
time, but it's starting to, you know, days have been warm.
00:05:48
Got up to 40° yesterday. So skiers were kind of, you
00:05:52
know, T-shirts and stuff. It was kind of funny.
00:05:54
But I think the bears will be coming out soon enough in
00:05:58
Colorado. I'll tell you what, just want to
00:06:03
give a quick shout out to people that kind of make this show run.
00:06:07
And, and that would be my producers.
00:06:10
They're not expecting you to do this, but they deserve it.
00:06:13
They deserve, they believe in me, they believe in what I, what
00:06:18
I'm trying to do with the show. They still are willing to listen
00:06:23
about the United States of America and all, the, all the
00:06:26
friction that we have here between each other.
00:06:29
And they work hard for me and they trust me.
00:06:33
And I just want to do a good job for them.
00:06:36
That's that's one of my biggest goals right now is to make them
00:06:40
proud and to make them feel like their time isn't wasted and
00:06:45
they're great people. I can only say so much about
00:06:48
them. And if they only knew how much
00:06:51
they make to me at this point and what I'm trying to do in my
00:06:55
podcast career, then then hopefully will stick with me.
00:07:01
But thank you to them. And I think you see they do a
00:07:05
great job. So hopefully they stick with me.
00:07:10
But love you guys, my producers and all of you.
00:07:15
See you guys. Did you know that Colorado is
00:07:20
known as the Centennial State? Because it was.
00:07:22
It became a state in 1876, which is the Centennial anniversary of
00:07:28
our country. In fact, what about Colorado?
00:07:32
I have a couple more coming your way now.
00:07:35
I remember what the other fun fact was.
00:07:37
Did you know that the cheeseburger was invented here
00:07:40
in Colorado? I don't know if that means they
00:07:42
just said hey, let's add a piece of cheese in this or if the
00:07:46
entire idea of a cheeseburger slash hamburger was invented
00:07:49
here. I do not know.
00:07:51
I don't know how I'm going to be able to sleep, but thank you
00:07:54
because I enjoy a great cheeseburger.
00:07:56
I thought you should know. Hey guys, did you know that?
00:08:01
Did you know that Colorado actually turned down hosting the
00:08:04
Olympics? They won the bid.
00:08:07
I forget what year it was. So forgive me for my, my, my
00:08:11
facts, not being able to give my facts to you accurately.
00:08:16
It's kind of a staple of mine, but I don't know what year it
00:08:19
was, But I, I, I wonder why, because man, there's so many
00:08:24
mountains out here. And and when I say the Olympics,
00:08:26
I mean the Winter Olympics, so many mountains out here that
00:08:30
that could host, that could spread out.
00:08:33
Anybody that skied out here knows that and it's incredible.
00:08:38
One of my buddies and I were here when the X Games were going
00:08:42
on, on Buttermilk Mountain, which is right down the street
00:08:45
from from here in Aspen and Snowmass.
00:08:48
And that was awesome. So I'm not sure why that
00:08:51
happened. But also, of course, Colorado
00:08:55
has more micro brews than anything anybody in the country.
00:08:58
That's pretty cool. And then the one that forget the
00:09:03
last one, there was another one that was pretty cool that I
00:09:07
thought, well, obviously the four corners.
00:09:09
So you have the only point in the country where four states
00:09:11
touch. Don't let your side in Arizona,
00:09:14
New Mexico, Colorado and Utah. No, Nevada, one of the two.
00:09:19
And I know some people that have done it where they do both hands
00:09:23
and both feet. It'd be pretty cool, man.
00:09:26
I'm getting Blizzard here. But it's, it's fun to learn
00:09:31
about these places when you go to them.
00:09:33
And there's some towns around here that have old pueblos and,
00:09:39
you know, they, they kept up the old way of life here from
00:09:42
hundreds of years of years ago. And it's cool.
00:09:45
It's a cool, it's a great state. People are nice.
00:09:50
You know, you walk around the town now and all you smell is
00:09:53
pot, which is which is fine, but it's still being a Texan, we're
00:09:58
not quite used to that yet. Just seeing somebody walk down
00:10:02
the street with a joint. So it's a fun spot and always
00:10:06
had to go back to reality. But hopefully we can get out
00:10:09
tomorrow. My goodness, we'll get we'll get
00:10:13
a show to you as soon as we can. Got some great stuff to talk
00:10:17
about some great guests coming on.
00:10:20
So stick with me and I'll be back soon.
00:10:22
Just you guys love you guys. Hey guys, I'll leave you with
00:10:27
this because I got to get this to my boys to get it, get it out
00:10:32
and release you guys today. Sitting up here, you start to
00:10:36
kind of think about, you know, just everything that you do in
00:10:41
in life and my family, my kids, my wife, my friends, people that
00:10:49
you've lost and gained throughout all of the friction
00:10:52
in this country these days. And I started thinking about
00:10:57
this show, stay in the great podcast.
00:11:00
And, you know, two years ago when myself, along with Trey
00:11:06
decided to, to start this thing up.
00:11:08
And man, it's been a journey. And I just hope that I hope that
00:11:13
my passion for it and my love for what I do here on this show
00:11:23
is, is, is apparent. And, and sometimes it's hard.
00:11:28
Sometimes you wonder if it's worth it.
00:11:30
Sometimes you wonder if people like you, if they care, if they
00:11:33
listen. But I love what it is.
00:11:36
So if it's one of you or it's, you know, 10 of you, or if
00:11:40
it grows beyond that, I'm happy doing it.
00:11:45
And that's what matters. I, I, I absolutely love it.
00:11:49
And anybody that knows me knows I love to talk.
00:11:52
And so this is kind of a perfect, you know, my destiny,
00:11:58
if you will. And, and I like, and I, I enjoy
00:12:01
it. And there's just so much going
00:12:02
on in the country. I like to laugh first and
00:12:04
foremost, but, and it's hard sometimes.
00:12:07
So forgive me if I ever go off and I get too intense and you
00:12:13
know, there's something you don't like, but all I ask at
00:12:17
that point is that you, you reach out if you care.
00:12:22
So, you know, I disagree with that.
00:12:23
I don't like that you said that, but I appreciate your
00:12:26
transparency, which is what I try and give to everybody all
00:12:29
the time. And, you know, let's talk.
00:12:35
It's really tough right now And, and it's hard.
00:12:40
It's it's, you know, you want to grow.
00:12:44
So you get on social media and talk to people, interact with
00:12:48
people and, and then you're called all sorts of crazy stuff.
00:12:53
For the most part, I can brush it off.
00:12:55
Something get to me and, and I just got to learn to, to, to
00:12:59
brush it off and to move on and to understand that there will
00:13:02
always be people that disagree and there will always be people
00:13:05
that go on and sit behind their keyboards and wake up every day
00:13:10
looking to insult people. And I've got to accept that.
00:13:15
And if I'm growing and I'm getting more and more and more
00:13:17
and more and more comments, that's a good thing.
00:13:21
And I'm not able to to respond to every comment.
00:13:23
And I've got to learn that. So again, I love this and I
00:13:27
don't plan on stopping, you know, give me a shot.
00:13:31
If this is your first time listening to me, there's this
00:13:34
great video about Colorado and, and my time up here.
00:13:38
Give it a shot. Go back and listen to some.
00:13:40
I went back and listened to some from season 2 and fun times.
00:13:44
And I miss Trey a lot And, and talked to him recently and, and
00:13:49
he's all good. He's busy, busy, busy.
00:13:50
And so I hope I can talk him into maybe, maybe making a, an
00:13:54
appearance soon. But it's fun stuff.
00:13:57
And then you get into season 3 or 4 and, and current events,
00:14:01
you kind of see the, the intensity pick up and, and now
00:14:04
we're kind of back to hopefully being able to, to give you a
00:14:08
little bit of everything and guests and, and fun topics and,
00:14:12
and serious topics and just kind of a, the whole smorgasboard of
00:14:15
storytelling that I want to do and, and analyzing things as
00:14:19
they happen, not just giving you the news.
00:14:22
Basically, how does it affect us as humans, the human truths, I
00:14:26
like to call them. And, you know, give me a like,
00:14:30
even if you don't plan on continuing on hit follow, you
00:14:35
know, spread it around and you know, you know, somebody that
00:14:38
might be like minded to me or likes podcasts, you know, spread
00:14:43
it around, help us out and mean the world to me.
00:14:46
And of course, like any anybody in the industry says, you know,
00:14:51
I wouldn't there's no reason to do this unless I have you guys.
00:14:55
So I just know that I love you and appreciate you, everyone of
00:14:58
you, and I look forward to many more.
00:15:01
So take care and I'll see you soon on episode 5 four.
00:15:06
Love you guys.