The weather was pretty good and the lodging was pretty nice. I had never been to a ski resort before, so I really can't say that I know what a 'nice ski resort' is like, but this one had enough stuff to keep everyone occupied for the weekend.

     Alan, Gerald and I drove up on Friday and arrived around 8 o'clock. We hung out in the suite until Kelly and her group got back from dinner. Everyone else showed up at different points in the evening and we sat around playing games, drinking and chatting until about 4 AM. Around 8 AM the next morning, the majority of the group went out to hit the slopes. Alan, Kelly and I took our time getting up and cleaned up the condo in the morning. Around noon, Alan and I hit the slopes. We did the twilight ticket as opposed to the day ticket. (Same price, longer hours for skiing.)

     I managed pretty well for not having skied much. Alan ran me through the basics and we ran for a few hours on the beginner's slopes. We found the rest of the crew who all pretty much decided to snowboard. It was pretty funny watching them go a couple hundred feet and fall... short distance and fall... Turns out Jeanne hit something pretty solid and ended up going to the hospital for an X-Ray. Everything came out pretty clean, but she was still well bruised. They finished up around 5 or so and Alan I called it quits around 8. We went back to the condo, changed up and went different ways for dinner.

     Another night of chilling and talking around the fireplace. In the morning, we all cleaned up and headed home. Here's the rundown of the pictures:

    1.

     We worked a half-day on Wednesday and took off for Colorado that night. We landed in Denver around 6:30 and then finally made it into the airport half an hour later. (We're guessing that the pilot landed at the wrong airport and then taxied to the right one. It took at least a half-hour.) We grabbed our stuff and then headed to a ski rental place. I picked up some 176 cm skis... quite a bit longer than the 130's that I had gotten used to on the few trips to Wintergreen. We then headed to Ed's place for some food and some rest.

     Ed's place is in Littleton (now known as Centennial) which is close to the Columbine High School which is famous for not good things. We downed some awesome food thanks to Ed's parents and then chilled on the couch for a bit. David & Kathy drove down to visit for a bit and we spent a little time planning out the next few days. So much to do, so little time!

     Thursday came about and we rose at 6 AM to head out West to the mountains of Colorado. We arrived at Vail Village around 9 and grabbed our tickets and headed to the lifts. All I can say is my God Those mountains are frigging huge! The lift took quite a while to get us to the top and after looking at the trail map, I couldn't tell which way was up or down. I just followed the guys around on the mountain and attempted to stay upright. We did a couple trails on the front side of the mountain and then headed to the back bowls.

     I had no idea what a 'bowl' was until that day. Basically you're standing at the top of a mountain and somewhere at the bottom is a small trail leading to a lift. Your challenge: Find the trail without dying. Greg and I took off on a slightly different trail and I slowed him down quite a bit on the way down. I toppled several times and each time it was harder and harder to get the skis back on. The bowls aren't groomed and there are no defined trails. Just trees and snow. I missed all the trees, but underneath all that unpacked snow, there are a lot of unseen rocks and dips, which just make it interesting skiing.

     When we got to the bottom of the bowl, we met back up with Ed and Brian. They had been waiting for about 15 minutes for us, but they couldn't go anywhere anyway because there was a ski patrol loading a stretcher on the ski lift. After a bit, we hopped onto the lift and then ended up getting stuck about halfway up while the stretched was unloaded at the top. I now have redefined my definition of cold! Sitting on a lift in 15 degree weather with the wind blowing you back and forth... Plus I had some snow and ice in my clothing from all the falls, so that didn't help a bit.

     After all that, we grabbed some lunch. $15 worth of food that was only worth about $3. Ouch. After that, we stuck to the front of the mountain and did all sorts of runs. It's just incredible. My balance got better towards the end of the day, but my legs were tired when we called it quits around 4. We stopped at the village bar for a drink or two and then headed back to Denver for a shower and some dinner.

     We ended up at a Brazilian place for dinner. A unique experience to me... They have this unlimited dinner buffet where they keep bringing you meats until you tell them to stop. They had all sorts of interesting meats, like rattlesnake and alligator and such. I preferred the stuff I could recognize. Good stuff, but I was very full in a hurry. After dinner, it didn't take long for us to crash.

     Keystone is laid out a bit different than Vail. Instead of being one large mountain, it is more like 3 mountains from front to back. You can go up one mountain and then ski down the back and take the lift up to the next mountain. We hit all 3 mountains, each one slightly higher than the last. I was scared shitless at the top of the last mountian. The top is above the treeline and looking down from there gives me a serious case of vertigo. I managed to ski down it a few times, but I still didn't feel good staring from the top.

     It was on this mountain that Greg busted and hurt his knee. David and I were skiing on our own and sitting at the bottom when they came down. We started the trek back to the front mountain and Greg managed to keep skiing. I made a not-so-graceful bust on the lift going up to the first mountian. (First time I'd met a lift with individual gates.) So after all that, we ended up with a full day and Greg with a bad leg. I headed out with David and went back to his and Kathy's new house just outside of Boulder.

     I was given the quick tour of the house and then we grabbed showers and went downtown for dinner. Boulder has a pretty nice downtown area. I guess I expected the city to be bigger, but maybe it's just designed right so that it doesn't seem big. The downtown area was very nice (and clean!) and we had a nice Italian dinner. After that, we headed back to the house and talked a bit more before sleep. Their house is still in the 'move-in' stage, so I'll have to visit them again when they get everything situated. The cats seem to like it. :)

     We stopped at an ice-covered lake for a quick half-mile hike. We were passed by several other groups of people, mainly wearing snowshoes. The ice was pretty thick, some people took the direct route across the lake. The weather was cold, but the air was very clean. The scenery is just awesome.

     After the hike, we stopped in Estes Park for a bite to eat. We went to a little sandwich place that had a guitar player in the corner playing an interesting variety of tunes... Not often you hear Jimmy Buffet in the midst of Colorado. After lunch we took off and drove back to Boulder.

     I had to be at the airport around 5 to check in for the flight, but that gave a little extra time, so we drove over to Colorado University and walked around campus a bit. Nice campus, but right in the midst of the city. There were some students walking around with shorts on... to them it was a warm day because the temperature was above freezing. All in all an awesome trip. I'll have to make it back out there this fall!