Colorado trip. Where do I start. We had an uneventful flight out Tue to land in Denver with snow on the ground. We go by the saddle place I had randomly gone to their web site and notice they had a showroom in Denver. Oh looky, it's right near the airport. So since Will had time zone conversion problems and our dinner plans with Sarah were not until later, we went by then. We met a guy who pulled lots of saddles form to sit on and I think I found a winner. There is a 20% off deal that ends at the end of Dec, so it's not a bad time to buy but I need to do withers tracings and stuff so I say I'll think about it and wouldn't order til I get home. But he shows me a saddle that is quite similar to my borrowed saddle but a lot less expensive and the flaps are shorter which should be good for Black.
Anyway, they are predicting snow for the night we arrive and it is already snowing in the mountains. Apparently Sarah is delayed as she was in the mountains. We decide that's ok, we'd rather go on towards Boulder anyway in case the big snow storm does hit soon. We find out Brandy and husband John are up for dinner though if we take a slight detour so we meet them for dinner. Yum. We went to a fun mexican inspired restaurant and I had something with "poblanos" in it. As far as I can tell they were real poblanos. I had met Brandy a long time ago briefly. It was nice to talk to her more now. We then move on to get to the apartment in Boulder before the snow really starts. It has started snowing but isn't too hard.
We get to the apartment and immediately furn up the heat. Brr. Very nice apartment complex. The common area has a waffle machine! We go to Target to buy a pillow, a blanket, some batteries, etc and then head to bed pretty quickly.
Wed morning, it has snowed overnight! The ground is white and beautiful. We dress to go wandering. We start by eating breakfast/brunch at Snooze. YUMM. We go to a few Boulder parks and wander the Pearl St. Mall. I really enjoyed this wandering . Boulder is so weird as it is flat. Not pancake flat, but close in the middle of Boulder. Even the outer reaches of Boulder, which are only a mile or so away start to have some actual steep hills. Then there are just vertical mountains. Beautiful. We wind up meandering in and out of stores that I really like in Boulder. However it is winter there and I live in FL so most things I see are for bundling up and I don't need that. BUT, they have a Penzey's spices! During our wanderings we talk to a HRC guy for a bit. Once we got done with the downtown area, we stop at a famous tea house that was built in *stan as a sister city thing, disassembled, shipped, then reassembled in Boulder. It has the most amazing chai tea. Highly recommend. It also has ornate tilings, columns, ceilings, etc. Once we warmed up, we wandered through some more parks. I think we went back, Will took a nap, then we went to Twisted Pines Brewery. I"m a big fan of the Bloody Billy. It's a spicy beer mixed with V8. Pefecto. The food was also good. We had a little pizza and spinach dip. Again, yumm.
Somewhere around here we went by REI and an outdoor consignment shop to get gloves for Will and anything else we decide we might need. Will does find gloves, eventually. This takes multiple trips. I find the best warm hat ever (it has EARS!). And at the consignment shop I find white snow board pants that I pick up for a steal at ~$20. Foreshadowing - these turn out to be a grand idea.
I have found out that I really should have bought the snow boots I wanted as the boots I'm wearing get my toesies COLD very very quickly as the soles have no insulation and the "leather" upper is not waterproof. Brr toesies.
Thur we eat brunch at Walnut Cafe which is just across the street. I am warned I need to save room for pie. This seems weird for a breakfast place, but ok… It proves impossible to save room as breakfast is hard to choose, big, and yummies. We get some pie to take home. We then go exploring as they've had time to plow the roads by now. We go and drive towards Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park. We get sidetracked by driving through Left Hand Canyon. It is beautiful. We keep driving until the road gets less and less clear. We get to a tiny little town full of very old cars and a sign for "Congested Area" We decide now is the time to turn around. We continue on to Estes Park and then into the Park. Oh, we stop at a brewery along the way and have a pretty good beer. We also see a very helpful sign that tells us to climb for higher ground in case of flash flood…
We spend a few hours traipsing about the areas that are open in Rocky Mountain National Park. We see all kinds of amazing animals. Weird but beautiful bird, some kind of deer, elk… We are hesitant to go in some areas as they suggest snow tires and chains. We are from FL in a rental car with a tiny engine without either of those things. We are cautious with the driving thing!
This is just a beautiful exploring day. We go to another southwestern inspired place for dinner. We get an appetizer that Will isn't super excited about as it has all kinds of special things to go along with the cheese dip. I think it sounds wonderful. We wind up licking it clean and wishing we had more of the jam that went with the cheesy. Yum Zolo Grill.
The next day we eat leftovers and then take the wandering path through some interesting towns to get to Winter Park. The former commune now just looks pretty and not that interesting though the roads are obviously less travelled past here. The more interesting town turns out to be one we've never heard of before that is ONLY casinos. So weird. We've climbed and climbed and climbed and now dive to get back to the interstate before taking the highway back north to Winter Park. We check in, park the car, then go to get fitted for our ski stuff. We take a shuttle to go do this and he passes by our stop so we walk back to the ski shop (which was supposed to be a stop on the route). Whatever. My toes are SO DAMN COLD.
We visit the hot tub. Getting from our room to hot tub is quite an ordeal even though our room is about as close as it can be. We determine the best way is to have some kind of shoes to shed quickly and then to get out, just run to the sauna for the dry off walk to the room. This takes some trial and error though. And I get ICE in my HAIR!
The next day (Sat) is my ski lesson and Will goes out on his own. I really enjoy my lesson. We originally get spit into groups of 10. I really like the instructor but wow, some of my group just don't get it. At lunch, groups got reshuffled so that I got moved to the "not quite so bad" beginner group. We actually get on lifts and go up the mountain a bit. I didn't know it was possible but I have way overdressed and am HOT. Like drenching several layers of clothing hot. And I know dehydration is a concern for poor flat lander me. No way I can drink enough water for that. Anyway, end day 1 on a great note and consider taking the next level class. Turns out it is more expensive than I decide I want to spend for day 2. I decide to spend it with Will instead.
By the way, walking in ski boots sucks! By the end of the day I have atrocious bruises just on my left shin. My right is fine. I hang out in a cantina for drinks and ask Will to join me. Until he gets there, I make friends with an awesome couple from England. We probably talk for over an hour. They didn't know what margaritas, flautas, tamales, etc were. So cute.
Food on the mountain resort is pretty darn good. I'll just say that now. Maybe not quite as good as what we ate in Boulder, but I was more than happy. We ate at a "tavern" first night. I got chili over roasted taters. We also had a spicy chicken pizza some night.
I think Will is starting to feel not so great. We get a fire made in our room and I have way more energy than Will does. Not usual
Day 2 of skiing (Sun). We decide to go together. We start on one of the greens I had skied before to make sure I still have my feet under me. That was fine. Then we move higher up the mountain. YIKES> I have a couple falls - 1 right off the lift. First fall of the weekend for me. These trails scare me. They are long and steep and have black diamonds crossing them so people come flying at you from above. And now i'm not only trying to not fly down the mountain and die, but since the trail is crosswise to the main downhill slope, I'm trying not to fall that way too. My hips and legs are oh so damn tired because all I know is snow plow.
I have a few freak outs. We eventually make it down for lunch. Will is COLD. Like stupid cold. So cold he is wearing all his clothes and as many as I could possibly peel off. Again, I was hot. It took a long time for him to warm up. We go back out to go to the area where I am comfortable. Again, I am happy here and work on gaining speed. Will stays with me for a bit but decides to go play in some side trails that go through the trees while I go ahead with what I'm doing. He catches up anyway. One time he just takes too long to catch up. I stand halfway down the slope looking and looking and looking. He eventually shows up and says he had an argument with a tree and had to take a bit to catch his breath before he could ski to me. The tip of his ski caught a tree. he didn't hit it, but apparently there was quite a tumble. We do another run or two then I shoo him away to go play on the bigger runs while I stay here. I decide to challenge myself a bit and do a few of the longer runs. I still get stuck and scared even in the bunny area if I venture to the harder bunny slopes.
We meet up again eventually. He doesn't look great. We get him some meds, eat dinner, get another fire and relax. This fire takes several tries to get going. In fact, we have to go get a phone book to use as our own firestarter and a 2nd call to the fire person. We make friends with her during our stay. Will goes to be early. I have energy and stay up for a bit.
There is a snow storm predicted to hit Christmas Eve night and last through Christmas day (Tue).
We wake up and Will is so bad he tells me to go skiing without him. We are worried enough about the snow and Will that we decide that we want to leave midday. It's disappointing to have to miss the Xmas eve fireworks and the skiers that come down the mountain all lit up. But, it's by far the sane thing to do. I really would have loved to have been on the mountain for a real snow storm - IF we didn't have to go anywhere for a couple days. But that wasn't the case. So, I skied a bit on the bunny hill and had a good time. I came back to the room, changed, Will had packed our stuff, we returned our skis, came back to see the reindeer(!) and then went on down the mountain. I was hungry but it was obvious Will felt terrible and was on a mission to get. down. now. So, I held my tongue. We took the most expedient route out and back to Boulder. There were a couple of place I wouldn't have minded sopping to look at hints, but we had to get Will to bed. We stopped near the apartment to get us food. I devoured it as soon as we got back. Will napped. I woke him up a couple hours later to go get more meds and dinner. We tried walking to a brewery i really wanted to go to, but it was closed since it was Xmas Eve. Oops. We wound up at a chain brewery but it was still delicious and had a fabulous specialty seasonal beer. I wasn't so hungry since I had eaten "lunch" at about 4pm. Will never ate, just went to nap. But he felt so much better just by coming down from altitude that we could consider walking to these breweries. By the way, it was snowing pretty hard by this point.
For most of these nights, I wore my new-to-me snowboard pants to dinner and they were amazing. I could walk around completely comfortable. I actually did better than Will in the cold. With the right clothes, it's not so bad other than the amount of work it takes to figure out the right layers, the laundry to do tha many layers, etc. But I didn't hate the cold like I thought I would.
We went to bed to wake up to my first White Christmas evers! We went for a walk and played in the snow. The snow as so powdery it couldn't make a good snowball or snowman. I eventually made a snowman by using the chunks made by the snow plows as a starting point. But, it made good snow angels :)
We drove to the airport and then flew home. Poor Will felt horrible and the pressure chambers in the cabin made his ears hurt so bad. I couldn't do much about it but got him gum…
He really didn't sleep the night we got home. I woke up in the middle of the "night" to see him and he looked at me and said "2 hours until I can call the doctor". We then spent 6.5 hrs there. Only one doctor working. X-rays for the "rib injury" that turned into a possible speen rupture which required CT scan only to be inconclusive but probably not a ruptured spleen. Just internal bleeding to go with the pneumonia and ear infection. He felt terrible. I had this day off luckily to take him to the doc and back.
I had to go to work on Thur but then had Fri off again. We spent this time just trying to get Will human again :( We finally did Christmas presents on Friday.
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