Greetings, y'all!
Yesterday we returned from a long trip to Colorado. We left on Thursday the 17th and didn't come back until, well, yesterday (obviously), the 26th. From Thursday to Wednesday we stayed in Breckenridge, CO with my mom's sister and her family.
*The accompanying pictures are not all mine; some were taken by my brother, Ethan, and my dad, because they have portable iPhones with rather wonderful cameras. :) And two or so were taken with my iPod--you can probably guess which ones by the obviously lower quality haha.
Day 1 (Thursday): We started driving around 11:30-ish and kept on until we reached our hotel in Raton, NM. Not much happened, haha.
Day 2 (Friday): More driving. On this particular day we stopped in Colorado Springs, CO, to eat at Pei Wei and visit the Focus on the Family HQ.
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My fortune cookie from Pei Wei. It sure made me happy...I'm positive
I left my million-dollar fortune in the sandbox at the local park when I was 5... |
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Heading over to the Bookstore (they call it a bookstore, but
it's more like a bookstore/museum/play place/soda shoppe) |
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| It's totally a Power Ranger car! :D |
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Clay thought he should try out the show biz. He was quite
entertaining, I'll give him that. |
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| Practicing his robot |
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| And they had a "Face-In-Hole" stand so we had to try it out. :) |
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| Through the War Drobe from the world of Spare Oom |
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Walking down the hall--it was full of pictures that
represented what I'm guessing were the "milestone" Adventures
In Odyssey episodes. |
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| The in-flight entertainment: "Finding Nemo" |
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| Almost there! |
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| The moon looked rather cool that evening. |
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| Our first outside view of our cabin |
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| Inside: the living area on the first floor |
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| This is where Clay and I slept. Haha, we had three beds apiece. |
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The second-floor living area. It had a total of three floors, but I never
took any pictures of the third. |
Day 3 (Saturday): We decided to just chill at the cabin for today; play in the snow, rent skis, jump in the hot tub, that sort of thing. It was really nice to just relax for a day.
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| The next morning, when we saw the cabin in the light |
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| Of course I made a snow angel. :D |
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| The view from the cabin |
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| Ahhh...happiness. A book and a view. :D |
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Gracie and Zoey (our cousin) playing an old-fashioned pinball-type game.
Sorry, I don't have a picture of the game itself...I'm not sure why... |
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| One of the...interesting...interior decorations. o.O |
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| Filling out the forms for ski-renting |
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Ethan getting his helmet fitted. Haha, whenever he sees me taking
a picture of him, he puts on the same odd facial expression... |
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| Getting our boots fitted |
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Willow (our cousin--she's 16 months old) and her strawberry-chocolate
cupcake. It wouldn't retain its shape for long. |
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| Gracie, picking out her cupcake |
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| ...and what happened to Willow's cupcake. She was rather proud, haha. |
Day 4 (Sunday): Our first day on the slopes! And the day the snow and weather were the best. Sunday the snow was rather decent, Monday it was rather meh, and Tuesday it was rather bleh. It was a glorious day. :D
Gracie and Zoey were in ski school, Dad and Clay were in snowboarding school, Brett (my uncle) took off on the hard runs, and Ethan and I took it easy the first day and mostly did blues, until later in the day when we did a few blacks. Mom and Vanya (my aunt) stayed back at The Maggie (a restaurant at the base of the mountain) with Willow, though Vanya did go out on a few runs with Brett.
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| Preparing for the long march to the lifts |
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| The slopes! We're waiting to get our lift tickets. |
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This is where Ethan and I ate lunch. We both got the Epic Mountain
Burger. It was pretty good, but not $13.25 good, so we brought our
own lunches after that. |
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| That's me in the green. I'm not sure what I'm doing... |
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| A panorama of the view from...the top of the C Chair lift, I think. |
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| Oooh, moguls. Ugh. I can't do them worth beans. |
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Gracie had just finished her first day ever of ski
school, and was ready to go down the actual mountain
the next day. :D |
Day 5 (Monday): The second day on the slopes, and the day I nearly died twice. Ugh.
Ok, so lemme tell you a story:
Ethan and I were just riding up the lift when we see this run below us. We both think, "Hey, that looks fun!" So when we get to the top we decide to go down it. Ok, well, it wasn't too bad at first, just really narrow so you couldn't do a side stop. It was about the level of a black, even though it wasn't marked, and there were a few moguls, but they weren't bad, so I was feeling pretty good about myself, you know?
Well. Little did I know that there was a good-sized icy patch that I was coming up on. I was behind Ethan and he did fine, so I went down this 50-foot or so stretch of hill pretty fast, but when I got to the bottom, it was really icy and I couldn't stop *or* slow down. I started thinking "Oh gosh oh gosh I'm about to die I need to stop right now" but hey, I couldn't stop, and then....I hit a little bump. And took a little tumble. Gosh it hurt, haha. It sure knocked the wind out of me. I just laid there for a while, hoping I didn't break anything. And I even said, "I hope I didn't break anything." And Ethan, being the loving brother he is, said, "Well, it sure looked like you could have." Yeah, thanks, that's encouraging.
But one good thing came out of it: I had always wanted to have a wipeout where my ski got stuck in the snow, like it always does in movies. :) And I felt fine about 10 minutes later, so that was good.
Luckily, Ethan was wearing the GoPro while this happened, so we have a video of it. I put it at the end of the post for your enjoyment. :D It keeps me humble, haha.
Ok, now lemme tell you another story:
It was getting close to the end of the day (about 2:30--the lifts close at 4) and Ethan and I decided to go up to peak 10 with Brett, who has been snowboarding pretty much forever. Peak 10 was only blacks. Now, I can do blacks, but they're not my favorite (see above). But hey, I'm a guy, and a guy can't be shown up by another guy, right? So, against my better judgement, I went. Now, Peak 10 was also rather icy...I did not know this.
We got to the top of the peak and, as soon as he straps himself in, Brett is off down the mountain. Ethan and I follow. So I'm at the back, being conservative with my speed (I had already had one wipeout due to going too fast), but it's not really working. And then the slope starts getting reeeally icy, like, yards and yards of ice. I can't stop. I'm doing everything I can to slow down, but it just isn't working. At all.
And then... I see that I'm headed straight for this huge wooden pole that's the start of a fence dividing two runs. And I think, "Oh gosh. It sure wouldn't be fun to hit that." I start panicking and trying to divert my course. I think, "I'm seriously about to die." I was so freaked out my life didn't even flash before my eyes. Luckily, right before I hit the pole, I remember something my mom told me: if you're headed towards a tree, fall backwards. So I fell backwards. I think my legs hit the pole, but I can't remember. All I know is that I was heading towards the pole, I hit it, and the next thing I know is that I'm lying on my face, facing up the mountain. I must've done several flips in the air or something. And then a very nice guy with very...um, "colorful" language comes up to me and helps me get up. (Brett had no idea what happened, so he just kept going down the mountain. Ethan saw the tail end of it, and, concerned for my well-being, took off his skis and walked up the mountain to me (which is no small feat in snow boots).)
Anyway, the guy who came to help me basically said, "Aww, maan, that was sooo awesome! You totally ate crap! And my friend had just jumped over me and knocked me over and we had an epic wipeout, so it was like two epic wipeouts in a row! Aww, man, it was sooo awesome! I wish I was wearing my GoPro, it would've been so sweet!"
Haha, it's funny to think about it later. Because of what he said, my pride was actually hurt less than my back/tailbone...which are still both sore.
So after I got up I took it veeery easy down the rest of the slope, called it a day and went on to the Maggie to chill with my mother. I got a wonderful nap out of the deal, so I suppose it was all good.
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| Gracie, ready to go with Dad |
Day 6 (Tuesday): The ice was reeally bad on Tuesday. So bad that I called it a day around lunchtime. (My back was also pretty sore, so that contributed to the decision, as well. And I didn't want to fall again, haha.) Then, after returning my skis, I moseyed around Main Street of Breckenridge and looked at the shops, waiting for my mom and Gracie to finish their "Mommy and Me" pedicure. I started out at a fine arts gallery and ended up at the Breckenridge Welcome Center/Museum about the mining history of the town. By then, Mom and Grace had finished, so I hooked up with them and went over to Bubba Gump's Restaurant for lunch.
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| Baby Willow, shopping with her mama |
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The spa where Mom and Grace (and later Vanya and Zoey) had
their Mommy and Me pedicures |
Day 7 (Wednesday): Our last day in Breckenridge. :/ On the way out, we stopped to see how the Budweiser International Snow Sculpture Championships were going. It was only the second day, so they weren't incredibly developed yet, but a few of them looked pretty cool. :) Also, the participants were (like the title said) from all over, so that was pretty cool, too.
Day 8 (Thursday): Ethan's first day at the college. He, Mom, and Dad all went in the morning to tour the Colorado Christian University campus, listen to lectures and such. About 12 Dad came back to the hotel (which I kept under control by sitting Clay and Gracie in front of Looney Tunes while I did my classes) and took us to Chipotle's for lunch, then we picked up Mom at the college and went shopping until 5, at which point we returned to the college for a dinner. Ethan spent the night at the college.
Day 9 (Friday): This was the day where Ethan was interviewed by two faculty members for the scholarship. He'll know...sometime...if he got the scholarship or not. We picked him up around 1 or 2-ish and began the long journey home.
Day 10 (Saturday): We drove...and drove...until we finally arrived back home around 4:30. :)
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The first thing Gracie did when she got out of the car was
get on her scooter and ride around singing Tiny Tim's
"Tiptoe Through the Tulips." (You can find a link for that
here...it's a rather weird song. I wouldn't necessarily recommend
watching it...it's nothing bad, just...odd. Don't ask me where she learned it, haha.) |
The video quality kinda died when I uploaded it to Blogger....sorry 'bout that.
