It is a beautiful esque day in Colorado. Right now I am sitting in the living room of the house at which we are staying in Beaver Creek CO. It is my mom, Jaime, Matt, Jenny and Myself. It is about 6pm Colorado time on May tenth. I will go back and recap the vacation thus far!
We got up at about 5am on the eighth and headed to my folks place to pack into cars. We then drove up to the Dayton airport to board the private plane, which we were taking to the Vail airport. Long story, we felt really, really cool. Unfortunately we will never feel that cool again. The plane was a 9 seater all first class. The flight was obviously great. As we flew over Denver the mountains came into view. I, as usual, was just in awe. Like a little kid I ogled the whole time. We landed and headed to the house at which we are staying in Beaver Creek. The house is amazing too! Looks like it should be on some cool TV show, and it’s right in the mountains. After we tossed our stuff in the house we headed toward Denver to sign for our apartment and for Jenny to see it! She loved it and I still loved it. We played in the city for a little while; went to REI, Cherry Creek and 16th Street Mall. Finally went to Cherry Creek Grill for dinner and headed back to Beaver Creek. OH, dinner was really good. When we got back we all called it a night. It had been a long day, and we lost 2 hours since we flew west.
The Next day we all got up pretty early. Jenny and I had breakfast and coffee then went for a nice walk through the town of Beaver Creek. It was really nice. It reminded us of Switzerland. The town was just beautiful. Afterward, we all headed to a place called the Kluttergarden, a bouldering area. Long story short we thought we found it but it was posted “No Trespassing.” We ended up hiking in the White River National Forest for a few miles, which was really nice! Beautiful scenery! When we got done we headed back to the house to make dinner for mother’s day…this is when it gets interesting.
Soooo, we decided to cook bbq salmon, burgers, and some shrimp and pepper kabobs… then some fruit salsa for dessert. Sounds good right? Well it was good, but it came at a price. Matt and I were cooking burgers and salmon, Jenny was doing kabobs and Jaime was doing the dessert. Matt and I decided to cook on their outside grill however couldn’t get it started. The next best option was to use their Viking Range Professional burners, which were also very nice. Around the 20 minute mark things were going well. Kabobs were done and went over well, burgers were about done and Salmon was going, but slowly because they were very thick. 22 minutes in things were going less well. I looked at Matt and said, “I think we should turn up the fan a little.” No less than 15 seconds after we turned “up the fan a little,” the smoke alarm went off; and did it ever go off. You would have thought that we set off a nuclear bomb. After several minutes of people fanning the smoke alarm, opening doors and windows, and playing with the security panel, (I’m still tending to the salmon) mom looks at me and says, “guess what I just saw…” Before I could respond she said, “a fire truck.” "Fuck," I think was my immediate reaction. At this point our main concern is that father Cady is going to have a brain hemorrhage due to anger. The firemen pull up and come to find out what is going on. At this point Jenny is almost peeing she is laughing so hard. Just hysterically laughing holding her stomach (I’m still tending to the salmon). Matt and I have the same idea, which is to take pictures of the fire trucks because although we are concerned our father is going to rip his arms off so he has something to throw at us we still think the situation is quite funny. After all the fun, we did actually eat, and it was good for those of you doubting. It had been a long day so Matt, Jaime. Jenny and Myself had a beer in the hot tub and went to bed.
Today, this morning, we got up at 7am so that we could leave for Arapahoe Basin at 730. It is the only Ski Resort that is still open this time of year. We got there right at 8:30 and got lift tickets. We suited up and headed for the lift. The mountain was beautiful. The lodge was at about 10,000 feet and the peak for the lifts was at about 12,700. We spent 3 hours or so boarding on various runs. Both of us felt pretty good and didn’t take any big falls. We spent a few runs in the terrain park, which was not as successful as it could have been. At noon we went into the Black Mountain Lodge and had some snacks we brought and a pint of Fat Tire. There is something about having a pint at 11,000 feet that just makes it extra special. After snacking and beer we went out for another few runs and turned in for the day. Tonight we went to a local Microbrewery called Gore Range in Edwards Colorado. Good food and good beer. Now we are gonna watch a movie, have a couple mas beers, and relax in the hot tub. Goodnight to all.
Arapahoe Basin
Today we got up at 9:30 and found that it had snowed about 6 inches. We went down to the little café to get coffee and breakfast. The town was beautiful. It was also quite warm which made it even nicer. I had a really good egg sandwich panini and Jenny had a crepe with strawberries. The coffee was really good too. It came in your own personal little french press! Afterward we shopped around a little bit in Beaver Creek. We also saw a map that showed where we stopped yesterday at being over 10,000 feet. The lake we were trying to reach was only at 9,700 feet. Apparently maps here don’t actually correlate with the actual landscape. I have given up trying to figure out where in the hell we were, or where we were going. When we got back to the house we relaxed for a little while and decided to head into Vail for the afternoon. Well we accidentally took a wrong turn and ended up by Mount Massive, which stands at 14,421 ft. It was pretty amazing to see but we unfortunately went 30 miles in the wrong direction. I just kept thinking of the Dumb and Dumber quote about driving a sixth of the way across the country in the wrong direction. Anyway, by the time we got back on track we just came back home. Now here I am. We are gonna go eat at a sushi place called Sato in a few minutes then probably have another movie night. Until next time…
The trip has come to an end. I am on the plane on the way home, which is still pretty awesome since it is via private jet again. Since last time not a whole lot has happened but I can still recap.
We got up yesterday morning and headed into Denver to sign for our storage unit, load some things in there and tour the city a little bit for Jenny to get her bearings. The drive wasn’t great since the Vail pass was getting a snow/rain mixture. Once into the city it was pretty nice though. We got to the storage unit no problem. It is only a block from our apartment, which is very nice. Rick, the property manager was a nice guy but was as creepy in person as he was on the phone. Not creepy in a dangerous way, just creepy in a “I don’t really wanna hang out with you” kinda way. After we got all our stuff signed we went back out to the car to find that the battery had died, of course. Well we went back in to talk to ol’ Rick. He kindly came out and jumped us. See I told you he wasn’t actually a creep. Very nice of him. After that Jenny and I headed out to explore the city. We had lunch at a place called Paradise Café. It was kind of like a Panera but not a chain. It was really good. Soups, salads, and sandwiches and stuff. When we got done wandering the city we went back to Cherry Creek so Jenny could get a better handle on her new mall. We weren’t there a real long time but long enough for her to get an idea of how to get around and how to get there.
