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.

Mini Vacations

As you may have noticed, I'm a little behind on posting about the goings-on in our lives. With a very busy schedule and a new blogger interface that makes posting take forever, I just wasn't sure if it was worth it - especially considering my measly number of readers. But, as you may have read in my last post, I have a renewed interest in documenting my life - particularly my experiences in Colorado.

Ironically, this first post has nothing to do with Colorado...

Anyway, it may take me a little while to fully catch up on everything that has happened these last few months. But I suppose one good thing about being so behind is that I can connect two events of a similar subject in one post, even if they happened weeks and weeks apart. For example, during my spring semester (I can't help but separate all events in my life into semesters: fall, spring, and summer), I took a couple of mini-vacations to get some breaks from school. The first was way back in February when Matt and I flew to Washington state to visit friends who recently moved up there. Katie is completing her residency for veterinary surgery in Pullman, WA, so she and Dave will be living there for the three years of the program. Hopefully, they'll make their way back to good ol' Colorado when the three years are up.

While the weekend was a short one, it involved lots of beer and skiing. And lots of hanging out, too.

After saying hi to Roxie and Kanzi...

We went to check out all Pullman and the surrounding area had to offer. Which was basically the college (Washington State University), a few restaurants and breweries, and some grizzly bears. Yup, grizzly bears:

Behind the many fences are the bears. They're a part of the Bear Center, which is a research and conservation program associated with the university.

A couple of the restaurants we visited. An old European place with awesome potato pancakes, and a delicious fine dining restaurant where Matt had the best steak he's ever had. Yum.

Beer! Palouse Falls Brewing Co.

On day 2, we made our way to Dave's local ski resort a couple of hours away. These pictures might look familiar because I think I already included them in my skiing post. Oh, well. It's always fun to look at ski pictures.

At Silver Mountain Ski Resort in Idaho.

Driving through Idaho and Washington.

It was a nice trip, and it was great to see Dave and Katie.

The second mini-vacation was a girls' camping trip to Moab, Utah during my spring break. I was super excited to go to a destination I've been wanting to visit for years, but it was a little bittersweet because I went without Matt.. While I really value girl-time and time with friends, I also love sharing my experiences with my husband. Fortunately, I only saw a fraction of what Moab has to offer, so we'll definitely go back sometime.

Camping!

We basically had one full day to see Arches National Park. We tried to hit the big sights, which included the Windows, Delicate Arch, and Landscape Arch.

Viewing an arch from the underside.

Walking around at the Windows.

Besties!

Hiking to Delicate Arch.

At Delicate Arch.

Meryn climbing something. She did this a lot, and it got a little boring standing around as she climbed random rock after random rock. This was, like, the10th thing she climbed. At least she was having fun!

Walking to Landscape Arch.

Landscape Arch.

After a night of awkward camping on the side of the road (a little planning goes a long way, kids) and a breakfast by the river....

We went to Dead Horse Point before Kirsten and I headed home. Amazing views!

Look how close I got to the edge!

It's always nice to get out of town for a couple of days, and it helps me keep my sanity at my stressful job.

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!