Sorry it's taken me so long to put together a recap of our trip to Breckenridge, but between work and taking care of Annie, I didn't get to blog this week nearly as much I would have liked.
So without further adieu, here's a summary of our trip -- and just as a forewarning, I use the word "summary" lightly. There's a lot of pictures and a lot of details (mostly because this is the only type of journaling that I do), so consider yourself warned. :)
Day 1 -- Wednesday:We left for Colorado early Wednesday morning, and after flying into Denver, we took a 1.5 hour shuttle ride into Breckenridge.
Charlie was the name of our shuttle van driver, and although he had some sort of twitch that caused him to look as though he was hiccuping every 5 seconds and checking his mirrors every 2 seconds, he was a very entertaining tour guide. The ride was gorgeous (for obvious reasons), and he even went to so far as to point out a house at the top of a mountain that looked like it was from The Jetsons and that was once owned by Woody Harrelson and the Walmart in Frisco that was in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. I didn't get a picture of either, but I did find a picture of the house on Google.
He also pointed out the mountains in the distance that surrounded Breckenridge and said that the historic town was just on the other side.
Once we got into Breckenridge, we checked into our hotel.
We stayed at Beaver Run, which is a ski-in/ski-out resort -- meaning that we could ski directly out of our hotel building to the chair lift in the morning and directly off the slopes and into our building at the end of the day. The resort was a little dated, but it fit our needs perfectly. We had a very comfortable bed, a kitchenette with all of the necessities, a living room with a TV and a table, and a good size bathroom.
I loved the fact that the shower was separate from the rest of the bathroom (I could get ready in a bathroom that wasn't all hot and steamy), but I have to admit that the shower was a little strange. Instead of tiled walls, the shower was surrounded by windows that looked out into the living room and kitchenette, and instead of having a shower curtain on just one side, the curtain formed a complete circle around you. So weird.
From our window, we could see both the mountains and the chair lift in the distance -- although it's a little hard to see in this picture as I was mainly taking it to show how high the snow was piled up.
After checking out our hotel room, we went into town for some lunch. We decided to stop at The Pizza Parlor and had both pizza and wings. The food was awesome, and after eating, we walked up and down Main Street and then rode the gondola up to Peak 7.
After watching people ski for a little bit, we went to the grocery store to stock up on snacks and breakfast foods and then went to the rental shop to pick up our skis, boots, and poles. After putting everything in our locker, we walked around the hotel for a little bit, had a drink at the bar and sandwiches at the deli for dinner, and then headed back to our room to watch TV and go to bed early. We were exhausted and wanted to be ready for ski school the next morning.
Day 2 -- Thursday:
On Thursday, we got up early and went to ski school. We had signed up for the "never-ever" class, and as soon as we got there, the two instructors divided the class into two groups. They wanted the athletic students in one group and the nonathletic ones in the other. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not very athletic (does dance count? haha...), but I also didn't want us to be in the slower class -- especially when Ben is so athletic, so my hand shot up as soon as he asked who considered themselves athletic. That morning, we went over the basics. I was a little nervous that our instructor, Flash (which was his nickname since his last name was Gordon), would notice my non-athleticism, but instead, he told me that I was doing a wonderful job and asked if I was a roller blader or ice skater. When I told him that I was neither, he said that he was impressed at how quick I was picking everything up. Hmmm.....I guess I'm athletic afterall -- although it might have a little to do with the fact that I had already learned the basics during the snow skiing class that I took at Texas A&M during the spring of 2006. I'd prefer to think that it's because I'm athletic though. :)
Ben and I both did really well with the basics and on the bunny slope. There was a guy in our group that kept falling down (who was later put in the nonathletic group), and I had just told Ben how glad I was that he was good and how I found the uncoordinated guys unattractive when he fell on the surface lift -- TWICE. Once when trying to get on the lift and again when he was trying to stand up. It was hilarious. I was cracking up, and so was Flash.
During our lunch break, we went back to our room to shed some clothes. The sun had been out that morning, and although we had both taken off our gloves and hats, we were still hot. I decided to ditch both my sweater and sweatpants (what was I thinking???), and we then went to Copper Top Bar & Cafe for lunch and had burgers out on the deck.
After lunch, we headed back to ski school. We warmed up with a few runs down the bunny slope and then headed to the chair lift. The view was beautiful up there!
While we were on the lift, it started to snow, and it continued to do so all afternoon. We skied down a few of the easy green runs as a class and then a couple of times on our own before the lift closed. I still hadn't fallen a single time, but as we were getting off the last slope and turning into the hotel, I realized that I was going way too fast to make such a tight turn, so in order to not run into any trees, I sat down and slid in on my rear. Not a beautiful ending, but it got the job done. :)
After putting everything back into our locker, we went back to the room for some hot chocolate. We rested up a little bit and then headed to Spencer's for dinner.
Everything at Spencer's was delicious. We had escargot with mushrooms as an appetizer, and for our entrees, Ben got a steak, and I got the mahi-mahi. Even though we were super full, we decided to order a piece of the chocolate cake drizzled with raspberry sauce to-go. As soon we got back to the room, we pretty much fell into bed. We were exhausted, and we had another long day of skiing ahead of us.
Day 3 -- Friday:We woke up early that morning and hit the same green slopes that we had skied the day before.
After about an hour or so, we decided to take a chair-lift that we had passed on the way down. We had never ridden that particular lift before, but according to the map, there was a mid-way point where we could get off at the top of the greens before it went all the way up to the top of the blue and black runs (for those of you who have never been skiing before...greens are the easiest, blues are harder, and the blacks are the hardest). We got on the lift, and as we started to approach the mid-way point, we lifted the bar and got our poles in position. That's when we noticed the sign that said, "Do not get off the lift. Loading point only." I realized that we had to continue on to the top of the blues, and that's when my heart began to race, and my hands began to sweat. Ben tried to reassure me that I would be fine and to just ski as I had learned the day before, but when we got to the top of the mountain, I was petrified. I tried to "wedge" my way down the slope, but that didn't work. It was too steep, and I hadn't mastered skiing back and forth across the mountain, so instead, I went straight down....as fast as I could. When I got to the end, my body was trembling, and my mittens were soaked. Definitely not my idea of fun, but I was happy to be done with the blues. After that, we decided to head back to the greens that I was more familiar with.
We found another lift that took us a little bit higher up the mountain, and after skiing for a little bit, we stopped back by the hotel to have burgers at Spencer's for lunch. They were delicious, but we ate pretty quickly so that we could get back out on the slopes. After skiing for a couple of hours, we took a water break at Ten Mile Station, which is at the top of the green slopes by our hotel, and snacked on teddy grahams and goldfish.
We skied a little while longer, and when the chair lift closed, we headed back to our hotel. After lounging around for a little bit, we decided to eat the dessert that we had taken to-go the night before and then took showers before heading down to historic downtown Breckenridge for dinner. On our way, we stopped to see the snow sculptures.
This year was the 20th Annual International Snow Sculpture Championship. People from around the world come to Breckenridge to carve masterpieces out of 20-ton blocks of snow, and it really is as cool as it sounds. They weren't finished, but here are a few of our favorites.
We went to dinner that night at Michael's Italian Restaurant, and both had the lasagna. It was so good, and after eating, we decided to walk around Breckenridge for a little bit. The view was amazing. Historic Breckenridge was lit up with Christmas lights, and behind it, the snow capped mountains were lit up by the moon. Definitely one of the prettiest things I have ever seen. Unfortunately, I was unsuccessful at getting a picture of it, but here is a picture that I found on Google.
We realized that night when we got back to the hotel that we had forgotten to take a picture at dinner, so we took one in our room.
Please excuse the cheesy grins, windburned faces, and chapped lips. It's the best that we could do.
Day 4 -- Saturday:On Saturday, we woke up early to catch the shuttle bus to Keystone.
Unfortunately, we missed the bus by less than 10 minutes, so while waiting for the next one, we went to Daylight Donuts for some donuts and hot chocolate. Breakfast was delicious, and soon, we were on our way to Keystone. When we got there, we found a locker for our shoes, put on our skis, and rode the gondola up to the top of the greens.
Keystone was beautiful. The slopes were great, but we quickly learned that Keystone is where a lot of the Denver locals go to ski on the weekends, so unfortunately, the slopes were packed! I also quickly realized that I was not very good at predicting what the skiers/snowboarders in front of me were going to do, which somewhat freaked me out, and after wiping out twice -- once backwards and once forwards, we decided to call it a day. We had originally planned to go to Keystone because Ben really wanted to try their night-skiing, but he knew that I wasn't having fun, and because he is such a wonderful husband, he called to see if we could re-schedule our snow mobile tour to that afternoon. Did I mention that he made this call while sitting in the snow on the side of the mountain while I cried in frustration? Not a pretty sight, I assure you.
While waiting for the bus to take us back to Breckenridge, Ben went to go get us a drink. I addition to a drink, he came back with a "Moose Tracks" (vanilla ice cream with peanut butter cups and fudge) ice cream cone and Pop Rocks. Like I said, he is wonderful. After getting back to Breckenridge and dropping off our skis, we caught a shuttle van to go snowmobiling. Taylor was our driver, and we picked up another group of 10 people in Keystone. We drove for about an hour and finally stopped in a "backcountry" area outside of Dillon. We changed into our snowmobile suits, boots, and helmets at the lodge and headed out to the snowmobiles.
Snowmobiling was awesome! We followed Taylor on the various trails and even got to play around for a little while in a huge open field. At the top of one of the mountains, we got out to take pictures of the sunset. The view was amazing, and the snow was so deep up there!
Instead of driving my own snowmobile, I rode on the back of Ben's, and I am so glad that I did. The only wife in our group that drove herself wound up running into a tree and doing $1350 worth of damage to her snowmobile. Needless to say, she and her husband (and the rest of their group) were not nearly as happy at the end of the tour as we were.
After Taylor took us back to Breckenridge, we went into town to get something for dinner. Everyone kept suggesting that we try "this wonderful Mexican food restaurant", and although I was VERY skeptical, we decided to give it a try. The restaurant is called Lucha Colorado Cantina, and it is somewhat similar to Freebirds, but with no flavor or spice whatsoever. Definitely not my most favorite meal, but I ate it. Afterward, we took a picture in front of the "National Historic District: Breckenridge" sign. We first tried to take a self-portrait, but after seeing how those turned out, we asked someone for a little help.
Day 5 -- Sunday:On Sunday, we woke up early so that we could get in a full day of skiing on our last day. While Ben was buying our lift tickets for the day, I took a few pictures of the back of our hotel. I couldn't get all of it in one picture, but if you were to place the pictures side by side, you'd get the whole panoramic view. Our hotel room was on the bottom floor and on the left side of the building in the picture below.
That day, we rode all of the green slopes in Breckenridge (aside from the ones that you have to get on after getting off a black or a blue), and we both agreed that our favorite green run was "Sawmill", a wide run with lots of up's and down's and with hardly any people on it.
For lunch, we rode the gondola over to Peak 7 and had the beef stew at Sevens. It was delicious and reminded me a lot of G's stew. After eating, we spent the rest of the afternoon skiing. At the end of the day, I felt like I had really mastered skiing back and forth across the mountain (Ben had mastered his own skills -- skiing backwards, going through the trees, etc.), and I was really sad when we had to stop.
After returning our equipment and taking showers, we went to dinner at Mountain Flying Fish for sushi. It was so good, but unfortunately, we ordered WAY too much food. When writing down our order, we noticed that the sushi was priced per two pieces, but I didn't think that applied to the "quantity" column as well. In other words, we ended up getting double our order, and it didn't help that they accidentally gave us the wrong order at first, and we had already eaten a few pieces of that when we/they realized. We thought about going somewhere for dessert afterward, but after walking around in the snow for a little bit, we ended up calling the shuttle to take us back to the hotel and ate some Girl Scout thin mint cookies instead.
Day 6 -- Monday:That morning we got up early and checked out of the hotel. We checked all of our suitcases at the front desk and then went into town for breakfast. I had read in a magazine that Clint's Bakery & Coffee is a local favorite, so we decided to give it a try. We both had the ham, egg, and cheddar croissant (Ben's without the egg, of course), and I had an almond joy mocha. Talk about delicious! I wish we had tried this place out sooner. After eating, we did a little bit of souvenir shopping -- a t-shirt, a Christmas ornament, and treats for the dogs from Breckenridge Barkery.
We went back to our hotel to catch the shuttle, and we were on our way back to the airport. I can't remember the name of our driver, but he was a little on the strange side. At one point, he and another passenger were talking about a lady who had was in a skiing accident sometime ago and had died. He made the comment that it was usually the skier's fault for not paying attention and then said something to the affect of, "but the good news is that she's been eliminated from the gene pool". Crazy, huh? Needless to say, neither one of us joined in on that conversation. I read "Dear John", and Ben played games on his iPod touch. When we got to the airport, we ate lunch at McDonald's and then boarded the plane a little bit later. After sitting on the gate for over 30 minutes, the pilot finally told us that there were electrical issues and that we were going to need to de-board this plane and re-board another one. Although it was kind of a pain, we were somewhat excited about the possibility of getting new seats (we were flying Southwest, and they don't assign seats) because I had accidentally chosen seats directly behind a fussy baby with a dirty diaper and his bratty older sister.
While waiting to re-board our new plane, we ran into Lauren Sterling (a girl I went to high school with) and her husband. I hadn't seen her in years, so it was fun catching up and meeting her husband. The funny thing is that Ben had seen two people wearing A&M caps earlier that day and made the comment that maybe I knew them (he's always giving me a hard time because I am constantly saying that I think I know people when really they might just look like someone else). I didn't see them earlier that day, but apparently it was Lauren and her husband, so I had fun rubbing in the fact that I did know one of them.
We finally got home that night -- although it was a little later than we originally expected. We were both very excited to see Annie and Amos, and I'm pretty sure that they were excited to see us, too -- although I have a feeling that a part of them was a little disappointed when they saw us and realized that their vacation with G was over.
We tried to take a few family pictures before going to bed that night, but as I've said before, taking self-portraits with dogs is extremely difficult.
P.S. Thanks again to G and my mom for watching A&A while we were gone and to Jason and Cheryl for taking out our trash and taking A&A on a walk. We definitely couldn't have done it without y'all!
Ben and I volunteered with Special Olympics this past weekend and spent both Friday evening and all day Saturday at the Central Texas Area Basketball Tournament in San Marcos. About 470 athletes participated this year, and everybody had a great time! Ben spent most of the weekend refereeing the games, and I worked the check-in table . Although I have always worked the check-in table in the past, this event was by far the most fun. I loved that my table was located directly in the center of the whole event (with gyms on both sides of me), which enabled me to interact with and meet so many of the athletes. Never before I have ever received so many hugs, handshakes, and smiles, and never before have I ever made so many friends in just a matter of two days. Unfortunately, I know that I will never be able to remember all of their names, but there are a few that I will never forget.
