Ski Trip

We just got back from a four night stay in the high country in Colorado. We went on a ski trip with a couple of friends and stayed at a condo in Breckenridge. We skied Breck the first day, then Keystone, and Vail the last day. As much as I hate to say it, I had a really good time. The second time skiing was much better than my first. (To make a long story short I got frustrated when my ski instructor took me down a pretty steep run that I had a lot of trouble with and I ended up throwing my skis at him... Brett was my ski instructor.)

We tried to leave Wednesday night and get as far as my parents' house to drop off the kid and dogs but the heavy snowfall prevented us from going more than a couple of miles from home. So we left around 5:30 Thursday morning. We took Highway 36 all the way through Kansas and stopped at one landmark on the way... the geographic center of the 48 states. It was somewhat underwhelming as you may have guessed.

The first day skiing at Breck went okay. I had a couple of minor falls but overall it was a good day. We stayed on mostly green runs (the easiest) and ended up doing a lot of walking or pushing ourselves with our skis. It was pretty cold and windy and even snowed in the morning. The next day we went to Keystone. The weather was about the same but it was even more windy, especially at the peak. Sometimes the wind would push me back or stop me from moving forward when it wasn't very steep. I had a pretty good wipeout that day at the end of a run but I was mostly skiing blues. Surprisingly enough, my favorite run was called Paymaster. The name was definitely intimidating though. Toward the end of the day Brett and I decided to take a ride to the other mountain on the Outback Gondola. It was pretty fun. We planned to ski down one last time but my goggles had fogged up on the gondola and then the condensation froze, so we ended up just riding back down.

The third and final day of skiing we decided to drive over to Vail. Believe it or not, there was even more snow on the way there. We saw a sign for "Avalanche Area" along the road. The trees were full of snow and there were huge piles of snow along the side of the interstate. The roads were all snow packed once we got out of Denver and higher into the mountains.

I had never been to Vail before that I can remember. It was really nice and as fancy as I imagined. The architecture and decoration of the shopping area around the base of the mountain is pretty neat and most of the sidewalks in that area are heated. It was a beautiful day - nice and sunny, no wind, and no clouds. And Vail is so big that the slopes seemed empty compared to the other places so that was also nice. They were well groomed and there was quite a bit of powder in some of the less popular areas which Brett enjoyed. Our friends did one run with us - a pretty steep green - and then decided to call it a day since they had already done two full days of skiing. I went on with Brett and we did several blue runs and hit the terrain park a couple of times (I just videotaped - and got a pretty good wipeout on camera when Brett didn't quite land his jump). We were amazed at the view when we rode the gondola up the first time.

I think taking in the scenery is probably my favorite part about skiing (other than making my husband happy). The view on the way back down was almost as nice. I'm happy to say that I did not fall one time on the third day although I am a a pretty cautious skier with really bad form (the 4-year-olds make me look ridiculous).

We had a pretty economical trip overall. Our condo, rentals, and lift tickets were a package deal that ended up costing around $500 per person. We bought a bunch of food from the grocery store for breakfast and to pack sandwiches for lunch (which ended up being a little smashed by the time we ate them after being in Brett's backpack all morning). We ate out at a place called Mi Casa the first night, ate frozen pizzas and hit the hot tubs the second night, had lunch at a bar in Vail, and dinner at Rasta Pasta the last night. Since we didn't eat our sandwiches for lunch we decided to have them on the way home. They weren't all that great and we were one short so our clever friend made lettuce wraps out of what was left in the refrigerator. We were feeling pretty cheap and not at all wasteful.

We made really good time getting back home. We left Breck around 6:30 in the morning, got stopped shortly thereafter while some avalanche work was going on for about 45 minutes, lost an hour due to the time zones, had to stop to pick up the baby and dogs, dropped off our friends, and still made it home before 9:00. I think it was eating our leftovers that saved some time but we had Freddy's pizza in Seneca to make up for it - Brett even tried my favorite (hamburger, sausage, and sauerkraut). Or maybe it was the fact that we only had to pass 3 cars in about 6 hours after leaving Denver. We passed the time on our desolate drive by playing our own version of "Don't Forget the Lyrics" by playing songs we knew and pausing to see how long we could continue singing. I'm surprised we still had our voices the next day. Overall, it was a great trip and a lot of fun. Now we have to decide if we want to move to Seneca or Colorado when we sell our house!