Weekend Ski Trip

At this point, it should be no surprise to you that my husband is completely obsessed with skiing. And while I love it too, it's a little easier for me to start getting bored doing the same thing over and over. Every weekend we drive for way too long, ski places we're pretty familiar with, and get stuck in traffic on the long drive home. Don't get me wrong, I still get excited to do it. It's just that, every now and then, I need a little change.

Early in the new year, we turned our weekend skiing into a little more of a vacation. And I like vacations. We went up to Steamboat Springs for two days with our friend, Dave. Really, it was the perfect plan for us. Matt got two days of skiing new (to us) terrain with his buddy, and I got a hotel stay and some vacation-y small town exploration. Awesome.

After our long, but beautiful sunrise drive on Saturday morning, we went straight to the resort. The temperature in town was a little terrifying (-20 degrees Fahrenheit), but thanks to the lovely inversion effect, it actually wasn't too bad at the top of the mountain.

Skiing! My favorite run was Frying Pan, just because of the name.

Matt and Dave

After a lovely day of skiing (and a little sitting and resting for me while the guys went crazy), we attempted hanging out in downtown Steamboat. We had tapas and drinks at Mahogany Ridge Brewery and Grill before enjoying dinner at the famous Rio. (It's actually a small Colorado chain called Rio Grande Mexican Restaurant, but it's generally referred to as The Rio. It's pretty famous across the metro area for delicious, but strong margaritas.) While our two stops were enjoyable, that was about all we saw of the town. It was just way too cold to wander the streets or pop in and out of shops. We gave up early, hit the pool and hot tub at the hotel, and retired for the night. After all, we had to be well-rested for day 2 of skiing!

Pretty morning.

The second day was pretty good for me. I felt like I was going a little faster than usual, and I didn't even crap out early.

After a quick pizza stop, we had to head back to Denver. But it was certainly nice to get out of town for a couple of days. It's amazing how easy it is to head up in the mountains and forget about your worries back in town. It's like a short vacation. And I like vacations.

Spring stuff!

To be perfectly honest, I'm getting a little angry at myself. I hate that I'm so behind on posting, and it feels like I will never catch up. I have so many fun things that have happened - and they just keep happening! And as long as fun things keep happening, I will keep falling further behind on posting.

Oh, well. Just keep swimming, just keep swimming...

So... a long, long time ago... these things happened:

• My awesome niece was chosen as one of eight finalists to perform at a music competition for Denver's Bringing Back the Arts Initiative. She was crazy sick, but she was still ridiculously awesome!

• Matt's folks came to visit a while back, and they brought a boat! We took it out on the lake to do a little fishing, and then made our way up to Rocky Mountain National Park for a nice hike.

We're on a boat!

RMNP is one of my favorite places ever. So pretty.

• Our little town is certainly not the quaint community that I often long for, but we do have the occasional festival that makes me enjoy (or at least better tolerate) where we live. Thorntonfest is the biggest of these celebrations. It's no Arkalalah, but they had some yummy food, fun vendors for the kids, and an awesome dog competition. And Belle and I held a giant snake!

Good, clean, family fun!

Wow. I think I may have made it through spring. Summer stuff to come... eventually!

Thinking About Colorado

I don't have much to say regarding the horrifying shooting that took place in Aurora a few days ago. It was obviously a devastating event that caused me, and so many Coloradans, much grief. My sadness cannot even begin to compare to that of those who were in the theater, or those who lost loved ones. No sense can be made of events like this, and I don't see much point in trying to find elusive understanding. I want to avoid giving the bastard who committed the horrible act any of the attention he was seeking, and so I will try to simply move on with my life. I am fortunate enough to be able to do that more easily than so many who were more greatly affected by the shooting.

Colorado has had a difficult summer, first with the devastating wildfires that destroyed hundreds of homes, and now with this horrific shooting. All I can hope for myself and my fellow Colorado residents, is that we can remember the many reasons that we chose to live in this beautiful state, and that we won't let the difficulties of this summer become a part of our identity. I have had SO many wonderful experiences here, and I plan to continue to enjoy Colorado's beauty and culture, with a new-found appreciation for what I have.

My desire to make the most out of my time here in Colorado has rekindled my interest in blogging about my amazing life, so that I may happily look back on my experiences in the future. So, I'm back from my unplanned hiatus. We'll see how long this lasts, but for  now I'm looking forward to filling these web pages with examples of the many wonderful things in Colorado and in my life.

Skiing: 2011-2012

Much to Matt's disappointment, ski season is over. In fact, it's been over for a few weeks. We had a pretty crummy winter and an early spring, which was quite the opposite of the amazing 2010-2011 season. Sadly, there will be no skiing in July this year. But despite the not-so-great conditions, we were still able to get in quite a few days - and even a couple of powder days. Because all ski pictures start to look the same, I thought I'd save them all up for one massive 2011-2012 skiing post.

Matt started the year with a couple of early season A-Basin trips, but I decided to wait for the real snow... or at least slightly better snow. The first couple of weekends together, we went to Keystone. It was still limited terrain and long lines, but the conditions weren't too bad. And we even went night skiing!

Week 1 at Keystone.

While I'm a pretty ok skier now, I still enjoy resting every now and then.

Week 2 at Keystone. Long lines, but pretty views.

My first time night skiing.

Dave, our friend who works with Matt, no longer lives in Colorado, but he had to get a four-pack to use when he came back on business. So when he was in town, we spent a couple of weekends at A-Basin. One of them became the Official Corona Insights (Matt's work) Ski Day... with me tagging along. Luckily, Matt works with pretty cool people, so I didn't mind hanging out with these folks for the day.

The Corona Crew.

Hanging out at the "beach" of A-Basin.

After some skiing, we made our way to another resort - but we left our skis/board in the car. We went to Breck to watch the men's snowboarding half-pipe finals of the Dew Tour. It was pretty cool to be really close to all the crazy tricks. Plus, I got to stand 10 feet away from Shawn White!

All the gear left behind as people stopped skiing and became spectators of the big event.

Half-pipe! And Todd's fist??

We had a little big of a hard time keeping our footing on the slip hill, but seeing Shawn White's HUGE air right in front of us made it worth it.

Since we didn't have our skis with us, we had to find a more creative way to make it back down the mountain. Meredith and I slid... kind of. It was really more like falling, skidding one foot, and stopping. But fun, nonetheless!

Whee!

Keystone was pretty much our destination of choice this year, and we went there more than any other resort. We were able to have a lot more fun there because I'm finally comfortable enough to explore the back side. Woohoo!

The side of Keystone I hadn't seen before.

Being awesome at Keystone.

It's very pretty on the back side.

While we were able to have some pretty good ski days, it wasn't until we went to Idaho in February that we got our first powder day of the season. We went up to Pullman, Washington to visit Dave and Katie in their new home (more about that trip in another post), and Dave had to take us to his local ski resort. It was pretty small, but had some cool areas. Matt loved this glade, especially because of all the fresh powder:

Enjoying the snow.

Being my first day ever skiing in powder, I had no idea what I was doing. I felt like I was fresh out of ski school all over again, which was quite disappointing. But it's always fun to play in fresh snow, so I just stayed on the greens and enjoyed it.

Matt and I have recently decided that we'd like to ski more of the resorts in Colorado. To start checking some off our list, we made our way to Vail (Matt had been, but I hadn't) and Sol Vista (new for both of us). I LOVED Vail because there was SO much terrain to explore. We could ski the whole day and never do the same run twice. It was awesome.

Skiing Vail.

Pretty pretty.

Sol Vista was pretty much the opposite of Vail. The only have two lifts, and their conditions were pretty bad because it was later in the season. But we went on Matt's birthday, so he got to ski for free!

Lots of dirt visible, but Matt still found a big hill to conquer.

To finish the season, we went to Breck on the last day they were open. While it was nice that it wasn't crowded at all, the snow was pretty slushy. But slushy skiing is better than no skiing, so we enjoyed it while we could.

Last Day at Breck.

So, that's it. An entire season of skiing in one (very long) post. Now that I've shown you all these pictures, I'm sure you wondering how I've progressed over the season. No? Well, I'll tell you anyway. I can now do pretty much any groomed run! Hooray! Steep black hills make me nervous, but I just take my time and I make it down fine. Next, I need to work on bumps and powder. Only five more months until next season!