Breckenridge Ski Trip
This trip was just Stephen and me with Dean joining us one day. We stayed in the same Trails End condo #215 we've used for several years. It's getting a bit shabby but it is ski in-ski out and the price is right.
We flew using paid tickets on UAL-TED since I didn't want to risk standby during the Season.
Skiing was wondrous. The trip up the mountain from Denver was murder. My headlights were covered with ice/shush and I couldn't see a thing. Just followed taillights of the cars ahead and tried to stay on the road. White Knuckle driving. Trip took almost three hours instead of 1 1/2 in snowy conditions. Traffic crawled along sometimes under thirty mph for long stretched. The Alamo Rent a Car Pontiac G6 was a piece of crap. The key stuck in the ignition and we never knew if it would finally release, and even when clean the headlights didn't. It ran okay though.
We had
over a foot of new powder while at Breckenridge. We were up to our shins in the
stuff at times but that's really more work than I care for. Alternated between
the blues on Peak 9 and blacks and blue-blacks on Peak 10. Carving turns in deep snow, which had
been turned into moguls, was tiring. The final day of skiing was newly
groomed with about two inches of fluff, which was perfecto. My grandson Stephen
and I skied Peak Ten that whole day which is nothing but blacks and blue-blacks
and they skied like greens on the smooth fluffy surface. I loved Cimarron a
long steep black diamond that I can handle when it is groomed. Stephen
also did a couple of double blacks, which I refused. He's definitely the
alpha male skier in the family now at age (almost) fourteen. I'm in awe of him.
Finally I just let him go and do his thing when he rags me about skiing
too slowly (and I ski faster than 90%).
Our last day we were going to ski in the morning but there were fifty
mph winds at the top and it was miserable so we decided to head down the
mountain early to avoid an oncoming blizzard. They were predicting eighty mph
winds on I-70, but we never got anything significant.
No falls,
no injuries other than my perpetually aching lower back.I could hardly unbuckle
my boots after a day's skiing. The first two days I thought more about my
back hurting than my skiing, but the last two I was almost pain free and my
skiing reflected that. Don't know why it started feeling better. My son
Dean came up one day and it was fun skiing with him.
We were
going to check out Keystone in preparation for the February Coester Clan trip
but it was just too good at Breckenridge so we didn't go.
Stephen
and I ate out twice. First an $84 meal of prime rib at Briar Rose and then
Bubba Gumps for fish and chips for me and chicken for Stephen at about
$35. We ate lunch on the slopes
and they really charge for the food up there. We ate breakfast (Cheerios and
tea) and the other suppers (soup and spagetti-o's) in the room.
The trip
back to Denver during the daylight went perfectly with dry roads and no traffic
snarls. Took the advertised 1 1/2 hours.
We missed
the loving care of Yvonne who stayed home to cook and clean and do whatever
grandmothers do before Christmas.
She wouldn't have approved of our Spartan living conditions but we
survived our guy trip and Stephen was probably more adult than me. Good company.
Then on
the way to DEN we stopped by his house in Parker for about eight hours where my
other two grandkids, Kris (12) and Nick (8) had just arrived to spend Christmas
with Dad. So I got to play with all three of my grandchildren.
I got
stopped by the Parker police for driving through one of their idiotic right
turn lanes but he just warned me.
Turning in the car, checking in with United and going through security
were all comic events worthy of further chat, but not now.
Redeye
home was a bitch but I slept a little on the plane and again today at home..