Vail, Colorado

We took a little escape once Colin finished his fifth semester of college . . . not to brag but he aced all his classes.  I am especially proud that he made an A in Organic Chemistry; he worked very hard and it paid off!  Thanks to points and miles we are flying and staying for free which is nice because ski passes and food aren't cheap!  I picked Vail, Colorado, and we flew into Eagle County Regional Airport . . . which has to be the nicest airport!  As we were landing we were a bit concerned at the lack of snow!

I picked Vail mainly because there was a Hyatt Hotel, Austria Haus that looked adorable and reminded me of Europe . . . and I had enough points to stay for free with a suite upgrade reward too. 

I was most excited about the sitting area with a fireplace since I knew I would be hanging out in the room a lot the next few days!

 

Now on to the real fun of Vail!  Colin was a bit nervous since he had not skied in two years!

I told him he would be fine and soon after he set out on his own I received me a text  . . . 

According to Colin this was common throughout the day . . . young and old!  He had a great two days skiing but decided he wanted to give snowboarding a try so we signed him up for a one day lesson!

He loved it but said it was a lot more work than skiing!  While Colin was on the slopes, I was out exploring the village.  I never knew there was a connection between Vail and the 10th Mountain Division.  There was a great museum that was worth a visit!

 

Of course we ate . . . a lot . . . Pazzo's Pizzeria, Pepi's, Red Lion, and  Alpenrose Vail . . . .

Our favorite meal was at The George which was in a basement down a long hall with an ID check before entering . . . it was a bit strange.  Colin had seen a sign for Surf-and-Turf and he was sold; I had fish and chips and it was excellent!

We discovered the best ice cream at Sundae next to our hotel which was so yummy!  We stopped every night for a scoop!  Good thing the hotel and flights were free because food is pricey here.  

This trip was also to celebrate Colin's 21st birthday! 

I can't believe he is 21 . . . we had a nice relaxing 4 days with great sunny weather.

Day 5 Utah Road Trip

It’s my last full day, and I am just tumble weeding along. I have a plan for the day but no place to stay so hopefully it all works out. My drive is long and out of the way but I really, really wanted to visit Dinosaur National Monument. 

The drive was mainly back roads with one part being extremely tight hairpin turns which was super slow going especially when following a caravan of trailers. And then I realized I would be doing the same drive back to my stop for the night. Great! Anyway, Earl Douglass discovered bones on August 17, 1909. I was amazed at how beautiful this site was for a national monument. 

The visitor's center was nice with great displays. In order to see the bones, you had to take a tram (free) or hike. I decided to take the tram to the bones and hike back since it was downhill. The quarry exhibit hall is where you could see fossils and the work being done.

Then a hike back down the Fossil Discovery Trail was easy with educational signs.

Before I left, I did the auto driving tour to see the rest of the viewpoints which I could have skipped. It was back on the road towards Colorado. I did a quick stop at Colorado National Monument . . .

. . . because I was not sure if I had been here before, but as soon as I started the Rim Rock Drive, I realized I had been there so I just drove the entire road from west to east with a few quick stops. The best view point in Monument Canyon . . .

I got a bit mad at myself because I thought I had been to the Black Gunnison National Park and realized I had not and it was so close but time was not on my side. I mixed up Colorado NM and Black Gunnison NP which annoyed me . . . I should have planned better so guess I will be making a trip back to the area. When I got back to the land of internet, I made a hotel reservation for a hotel near the airport. My flight was late and was going to try and fly earlier since I was ready to go home.

Driving Map Day 5

Good-Bye Beaver Creek. Colorado

Of course my sleep was terrible worrying about a canceled flight due to all the snow . . . 10 inches to be exact. It sure looked pretty, but we were ready to get home!  Our shuttle arrived on time and we were off to the Eagle County Regional Airport which was super close and so much easier than if we had to go back to Denver.  It had to be the nicest airport I have waited in with all the luxury furnishing but then remembered it is near Vail and all the upscale ski resorts.  The views were not your typical airport runway views. . .

Beaver Creek, Colorado day 3

Another day and another photo from our room. I sent Colin off to ski school (can you find him in the photo) . . .

. . . you can tell the Spring Break people are starting to show up as there is more action early in the morning but the crowds are still small. It was back to breakfast in a box, and I sat in the room determined to finish this online required HB-3 Reading Academy class . . . and I did!

Ignore that is says I made a 0. My cohort leader must verify that I made at least 80 on all quizzes, discussion posts, and artifacts. All I can say is D-O-N-E. I was determined and the views outside were nice but the snow had me concerned!

The mountain is gone! Of course ski resorts need snow but we also had a flight tomorrow. Colin returned from ski school. He said he had the best instructor ever! He was so excited about his day.

We relaxed before heading out to a nice dinner! I decided to make our last meal at a nice steak house, Beaver Creek Chophouse, and it did not disappoint! Steak is the way to Colin's heart so no objections from him. His only question, "was do they have a tomahawk?" To which I said not on the menu! As we were seated the menu had a special for the night. Yep a tomahawk! It was huge so he agreed to share with me. I celebrated with an espresso martini . . . 

. . . or two. We chatted and rated our trip. It was nice to just chat and laugh and talk about how ridiculously priced this trip was but we had fun so money well spent. Our meal arrived . . . 

. . . and in no time it was gone! He could not resist!

We took one final walk around the village before heading back to the room to pack.

Beaver Creek, Colorado day 2

 Another day and another beautiful view . . .

. . . the weather today is suppose to be fabulous with sunshine. Ski school was full so Colin decided he wanted to just ski by himself so we bought a one day lift pass. (Sticker shock but thanks to an amazing military discount it was not bad considering we bought it that day.) I am taking the day off too and headed out on a snow show adventure solo. How sad we are both solo today but as only children we know the drill! This also means we do not have a time to be anywhere so we ate breakfast in the restaurant this morning. I was so thrilled to see these on the morning buffet . . .

. . . they are called Blintzes and sooooo yummy! I think of it as a crepe meets cheesecake and throw some berries on top to make it healthy! We had a nice slow breakfast and chatted about our day ahead before heading off to separate lift areas. Lifts for snow shoeing? Oh yes I found out the snow shoe area was on top of one of the mountains which meant I had to ride an open ski lift while holding my snow shoes (not allowed to wear them) and not falling off the lift because my hands were so full I could not pull down the safety bar. I sort of had a bit of a panic attack just thinking about it! It was awful for me, but I managed to survive and then realized I had to ride it back down! So I find a bench and gear up . . .

. . . only to not find where the actual snow shoe trails were located. It took all I had to not be knocked down by skiers at they exited the lift and whizzed by me. I asked but no one seemed to know so I sort of just wandered around and finally found a sign. By this point I am out of breath, because I am at about 10,000 feet elevation which will zap your energy. Of course the start of the trails were uphill and quickly thought of turning back and quitting but the views were so nice . . . 

. . . so I kept going. Due to the extreme cold, my phone battery died in about 10 seconds but thankfully I had my old school point and shoot camera with me to capture some of the views.  I stopped often to catch my breath and enjoy the trees and snow hoping to see some sort of critters lurking in there . . .

I don't think I smiled much today but I really did enjoy myself and glad that I got outdoors and enjoyed the beauty . . .

My goal was to do Morning Star, Marmot Way, and Ermine's Trail before calling it a day. I managed to do the first two but when I hit Ermine's Trail I just kept going back down to the lift. 

I did stop for a sweet treat at the Candy Cabin . . 

. . . of course the candy was a least five times the normal cost but fun no less to grab a treat after working hard. I grabbed all my stuff and headed back to the ski lift back down. It was worse going down because I was tired and harder to focus on not falling off the lift. I was never so glad to be back at the village and knew that I would not be going on this adventure again. The best part of Colin not being in Ski School was we could meet for lunch and then head off in different directions. We grabbed a bowl of chili at the C Bar and it was yummy!

I headed back to the room to relax and watch mindless television shows since we don't have cable at home), and Colin hit the slopes . . . 

Two things about this photo . . . my snowshoes are in the background . . . and there are blurry spots on the photo because at some point I dropped my camera and it got wet.  I tell you I was a bit of a hot mess on the mountain trying to juggle all my stuff.  Colin racked up some good stats and really had a good day on his own . . .

I find it a bit sad he skied alone but it is part of being an only child. We only children get it; we are used to being alone and adapt. It really was a perfect weather day and of course we ended it at our favorite place . . .

Beaver Creek, Colorado day 1

It is a beautiful day . . .

. . . well maybe not exactly but it isn't horrible either. Colin is looking forward to hitting the slopes while I hit the computer. As part of my Hyatt status we get free breakfast. Trust me we will be taking advantage of it since it is valued at $38 per person and they even let you get it to go! I would prefer to eat at the restaurant but trying to get someone out the door on time is a bit difficult so I must adjust and lower my expectations. My breakfast in a box was yummy . . .

. . . but with my view it couldn't be bad. Even though Colin is a teen, he is in the adult ski class today, why? He is not vaccinated and in order to be in a youth class you must show proof of vaccination, however if you are over 15 you can join an adult class and opt out of showing proof of vaccination . . . go figure, right! They are still requiring a proof of vaccination to eat inside on the mountain dining restaurants but he can go inside to get his food but must eat outside. It was a trade off and will see how that works out for him. 

I returned to the room to do my work. The state of Texas passed a law (HB 3) in 2019 that all teachers in grades K-3 must take a Reading Academy to "learn" how to teach reading. It is a 60 hour online course that you have one year to finish. I started in mid-July of 2021. Now let me just complain for a bit. I teach math but since I am in a building with 3rd graders then I must take the class. I have not taught reading in over 20 years so you can imagine my excitement when I started this journey. As I started the class, I read every single slide, watched every single video, took notes, and stressed over every quiz question/discussion post. Oh yes there are quizzes and you must make an 80 to move to the next section. The class has 12 modules with 2 projects. As you can imagine this has been a huge task and required a lot of time. I am thankful I have a very flexible schedule but feel bad for regular classroom teachers trying to get this done. "They" said it would take sixty hours and let me tell you I spent that many hours on the first half so I don't know what genius did the entire course that fast but man it is a lot of work. I was determined to get the last project in Module 10 done today and that I did! I had already spent a ridiculous number of hours on the draft and fixing mistakes my cohort leader said needed attention, but it was submitted!

Anyway . . . Colin finished up his first day of ski school . . .

. . . and somehow he bypassed indoor dining restrictions at lunch and was able to eat inside with his group. He had a nice ski group of two moms one which was apparently a super cool surgeon. I picked him up from ski school and we headed out for dinner at Coyote Cafe.  I had some decent street tacos . . .

. . . and then to one of the best things about the Park Hyatt Beaver Creek . . .

  

. . . a fire pit and free s'mores kits. It was so fun, warm, and yummy. 

Hello Colorado!

Well hello there travel . . . it's been such a loooooong time!  It seems like forever that we have been on a planned trip and well there are mixed feelings.  Don't get me wrong; I love to travel BUT . . . the packing, restrictions, cancellations, and all that sort of take the fun out of it but here we are!  Last year I promised Colin if he did not show chickens at a major livestock show (Houston), I would take him skiing on Spring Break.  I keep my promises and let me tell you showing chickens would have been way cheaper but a lot more work.  So here we are at my favorite overpriced airport hotel, Westin Denver Airport watching it snow and hoping that we get out of town before the roads become too bad.  Our shuttle departs at 9am so I am hopeful we are good.

There was no time for breakfast and we quickly met the shuttle driver and off we went.  Jerry had already made one run this morning and said it was getting bad in Denver so we needed to get loaded and on the road.  Thankfully the other 9 people in our group were not messing around and were ready to go too.  At this point I am thankful I am not driving because it is really not great outside but the traffic is moving and our driver, Jerry, is very cautious with his driving.  The weird thing is once we get out of Denver the roads were better.  It should have been about a two hour drive but today was closer to 3 hours which was fine with me as long as we arrived safely.  

Remember I do not ski, but Colin loves to ski.  I sort of dropped the ball on this trip thinking he would forget but no such luck.  So in the matter of a week, I planned and man was it tough to get it all confirmed.  My biggest obstacle was getting a shuttle from the hotel back to the airport and then once I finally confirmed a shuttle then one day of ski school was booked.  It was a no win situation but it all worked out.  I switched locations half a dozen times but finally managed to get most of what we wanted in Beaver Creek, Colorado.  Since we arrived before the guaranteed check-in at 4pm, our room was not ready so we dropped our bags and headed out for a late lunch.  We both wanted pizza so off we went to find Blue Moose Pizza . . .

. . . it wasn't anything special but when you are hungry it was good.  We saw a gelato place, Remini, and decided we needed a sweet treat . . .

Isn't it so pretty?  I had the dark chocolate and Colin had lemon . . . that set me back $20!  Yes, $20 for two really small cups . . .

It was okay but not $20 melt in my mouth heavenly.  At this point I am starting to see a pattern . . . this ski village town is super expensive!  I mean skiing is not cheap but this area was super crazy expensive.  We finally received a text that our room was ready so we stopped by to pick up all Colin's ski gear and headed to the room.  The biggest expense in always lodging so I wanted to use a free night certificate and points so that part of the trip would be free!  Let me just show you how much this room would have cost if not using points!

Absolutely insane and no way could I afford that or even think about paying that much for a standard room with two beds . . . I mean this is the room and would you pay that much?  

I reminded myself this is exactly why you hoard points so you can splurge and have trips to places that an average person can not afford. Oh but what is on the other side of those doors?  

Okay now I get why it is so expensive because I can literally throw a snowball at the ski lift.  Personally I still do not think the price is worth it but when you use points (that I got as a credit card bonus and yes, I pay the balance in full every month) and it is free; it is nice.  We unpacked and headed downstairs for an evening "snack" . . . 

. . . and chatted with the nicest bartender.  When we returned to the room we had another treat waiting for us . . .

. . . and this is exactly why the Park Hyatt Beaver Creek is so nice, and I am really going to try hard to enjoy the next few days because it is free.