Cecily did great on our longest driving leg from Denver to Alamosa. We made a couple stops along the way to break up the road trip which worked out great for everyone. Enjoyed a new area of Colorado we’ve never visited along with new national park.

We’ve been to Colorado numerous times over the years, but mostly in the winter for skiing and never spent any time in Denver. We took an opportunity to visit Colorado for 17 days this summer and spent the first few days in downtown Denver.

Rebooting the travel blog with our inaugural summer family trip. Our first stop was Chicago to visit family for the 4th of July holiday.

We left Breckenridge about 5 months ago, but I am just now getting to writing on the blog.  We’ve been busy…

Breckenridge

So, I’ll start off by saying, this beach girl LOVES the mountains! Being from Florida, a lot of people asked me if I was too cold all the time.  While there were a few days here and there that were pretty darn freezing, for the most part I wasn’t cold.  I’ve felt colder during the winter in Jacksonville than in Breck.  And Breckenridge doesn’t hold a candle to how cold it feels in Chicago.  And skiing is fun, so you just don’t think about how cold you are.  At least not for a whileJ  And while we’re talking about skiing, I really got a lot better!  I outgrew the skis that I bought at the beginning of the season, and unless we were on moguls or going through trees, I could keep up with Chris.  But I went down moguls and through trees which would not have happened before.  Not bad for learning how to ski at the tender age of 30!  And I totally get where Charlie gets his need for speed.  Yeah, that would be from me!

I also went back to work serving at a restaurant for the first time in 17 years. And while I’m not 25 anymore, I learned that this mama’s still got it!  (I even got a shout out on Yelp!). I also learned that the restaurant industry hasn’t changed much over the years.  And while the restaurant I worked at had its challenges, I made the most of it, made decent money, met great people, and had fun.  The free season ski passes for me and my family weren’t bad either!  I worked with some cool and interesting people, and working made me feel “localized” to Breckenridge in a way.  It was also the first time I went to work full-time since Charlie was born, giving Chris the opportunity to be a full-time parent which was a great experience for our family as well.  I worked the evening shift, so, I would ski and/or play with Charlie in the morning, and work at night.  My days were long and often tiring but it was fun!  Here are some more things I learned while waiting tables again:

• I like a job where I get to move around and talk to people.
• You can tell a lot about a person by how they treat those in the service industry.
• Most people are nice.
• However, #texasweek is a thing known among the service industry in Breckenridge. And I experienced it in all its glory.
• It was fun to meet people from all over the US and the world, especially since I had recently traveled around Europe, and not long ago traveled the US.
• I feel like I “fit in” in Breckenridge in a way. People are pretty laid back and happy, my kind of people!

Europe

Traveling to Europe was incredible and a dream come true! Chris and I had planned to travel around Europe as part of our sabbatical before Charlie was born, but we decided to extend our RV travel in the western US instead.  I am so glad that we got the opportunity to do this with our son!  It definitely gave us a perspective that we would not have had otherwise. Our goal most days was to spend about an hour doing “tourist” stuff and the rest of the day finding a playground, place to swim, etc.  We got such a great education on parenting and families in different cultures and met some amazing people!  Spain especially was a very family-oriented place- parents brought their kids everywhere.  It was fun to see Charlie make friends on the playground- they usually couldn’t communicate with words but would figure out how to communicate through play.  I learned that parents and children speak a universal language.  And playgrounds in Europe are pretty awesome!  Not only was the play equipment pretty sweet (and probably less safe than in the US), but they were often accompanied by a small snack/bar.  So parents would get a drink, sit on the bench and watch their kids play.  It is fabulous!  Anyway, here are some more things I learned from our time traveling in Europe:

• Smoking is still definitely a “thing”. And smoking while drinking espresso is really a thing. I would often walk by cafes and try to look at the food people were eating and they would just have a cigarette and an espressoJ
• The flavor of foods is more important than quantity, especially meat. And people linger over their meals much longer than Americans.
• People seemed to talk to each other more, and spend less time on their phones than Americans.
• Breastfeeding, especially in public, is totally normal (and moms don’t cover it up). I watched a group of moms and dads at the park in Spain talking to each other and one mom was breastfeeding her baby (no cover) and nobody seemed uncomfortable with it. There were many more examples of this too.
• Most people are good. And we are all more similar than we are different. My favorite moment of this: singing nursery rhymes to our children with a Muslim family from Dubai on a train in Switzerland. There were so many examples of people being kind to us, I could go on all dayJ
• Charlie learned how to count by counting the stairs in Europe.He learned to count pretty high (there are a lot of stairs)!
• Charlie (and me and Chris) learned how to count to 10 in Spanish, French, and German. Charlie learned the fastest!
• Charlie also decided to potty-train AS SOON AS WE GOT TO EUROPE! I tried for months to potty-train him before we left to no avail. As soon as we got there, he told me that undies are for daytime, diapers are for nighttime.  We experienced a lot of public bathrooms (water closets) in Europe…

People often ask me what was my favorite thing in Europe.  It’s so hard to say, each place has its own special experiences.

• Spain had awesome playgrounds, and cheap (but good) wine.
• The vineyards in southern France are absolutely beautiful!
• Italy has the BEST gelato (the rumors are true)!
• The people in Slovenia are incredibly friendly.
• Sunset time in Croatia, where we would buy a beer at a grocery store or market and find a spot along the water to watch the sunset.
• The summer toboggan in Austria.
• Sausage and beers in Germany.

It was an amazing year.  The best part about it all was experiencing it with my boys. We grew closer as a family by stepping away from the day-to-day routines and traveling together.

We completed our Colorado adventure with a week spent exploring Glenwood Springs and Colorado Springs.  We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves the last 3 months and plan to summarize our thoughts in an upcoming blog post.

Our sweet ride for exploring some new areas of Colorado

Charlie enjoying the van’s entertainment system

Park pit-stop in Vail while enroute to Glenwood Springs

A surprise found in the park’s grill

Sampling bloody mary’s @ Westside Cafe near Vail

Airbnb camper living near Glenwood Springs

Successful hike up to see Hanging Lake near Glenwood Springs

A fellow hiker snapped a Polaroid of us while hiking

Feeding some animals while exploring Aspen

Parks are always a favorite of Charlie when exploring new areas

Charlie and camper neighbors enjoying smores

A number of 14’ers enroute from Glenwood Springs to Colorado Springs

Fishing at a reservoir near Pike’s Peak

Beautiful, sunny days in Colorado

Glad we brought jackets!  70s at the base and 30s at Pike’s Peak.

We cannot take credit for hiking to the peak, but maybe our next trip

Same spot from the 60’s with Cindy’s mom, uncle, aunt and grandmother

The ultimate arcade in Manitou Springs

An amazing variety of games and rides from the 40s to current

A great day for hiking around Garden of the Gods

Colorado Springs Pioneer Museum

Our time in Breckenridge has to come to an end, but it has been a fantastic experience for us!  We spent the last couple weeks hiking, fishing, visiting with friends and even skiing one last time at a nearby resort.  We moved out of our slope-side condo at Peak 9 at the end of April and into a timeshare condo nearby for a week (courtesy of our gracious friends Tony and Rhonda).

We plan on renting a car, then spending a week exploring Glenwood Springs and Colorado Springs before we fly from Denver to Chicago to visit family and friends.

We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves taking full advantage of our slope-side accommodations and ended the season with the following skiing stats.

Chris: 500,000 vertical feet and 48 ski days

Cindy: 300,000 vertical feet and 35 ski days

Charlie: 130,000 vertical feet and 24 ski days

Doug and Beverly picked a great time to visit us for a week, with a mix of warm, sunny days and a couple snowstorms.  Cindy was able to get a week off from work to enjoy spending  time with them.

Things have become quiet around Breckenridge as we approach the last ski day on 4/22 and the start of “mud season”.  The trails have been mostly empty, so we’ve felt more comfortable letting Charlie ski without the harness.  The unorthodox method of ski instruction seemed to work for Cindy in 2006 and Charlie in 2018.  The method could be summarized as “Skip the green runs, head up to the uppermost blue run and go for it.”

Cindy’s remaining days of work at the Living Room are underway with the restaurant closing the same day as the mountain.  We plan to hang out in Breckenridge for 2 more weeks before a 7-day road trip to visit Glenwood Springs and Colorado Springs.  Afterwards we’ll fly to Chicago to spend a few weeks with family and celebrate Charlie’s 4th birthday in late May.

After this weekend’s snowstorm, the weather should be warming up and we look forward to getting out for some hiking and fishing around the area.

Snow forecast was looking good this weekend, but the Friday night snowfall blew out the forecast.  14″ of fresh but a bit heavy with temperatures higher due to all the moisture from another Pineapple Express.

Dropped Charlie off at the daycare at 8:30 and Cindy and I headed out to the slopes.  A rough start to the day with the Peak 8 Superconnect starting late due to digging out of the unplanned snow amount, but it all worked out.

Made our way across to peak 7 and slid across on Wanderlust to check on the peak 6 lift status.  Just as we arrived, the lift was opening. It was us and about 10 other people for the first 3 chairs working out the thighs in some truly thick powder.  A great half-day of skiing!!