Rocky Mountain High in Colorado

Although it does involve a one hour commute each way, we get to take in some of the most incredible scenery each day. Just as I was starting to catch the blog up "Rocky Mountain High"was playing on the Sirius radio station (thanks to Gary's son Scott who gave us this as a Christmas present !) Unfortunately the blog spot is currently refusing to upload photos...so in order to briefly bring everyone up to date we'll have to skip the photos for these updates....just imagine the most amazing peaks stretching forever, aspen groves, red rocks, pink sunrises and sunsets every day!

Once again the motorhome really is turning out to be the right decision for us!

The original "plan" was for us to spend March in Utah. Well, we've fallen in love with Colorado and have decided to stay on here till early April. A part of that decision had to do with Gary and I missing being a part of a ski school (the camaraderie and not being "a tourist") and it turned out that Beaver Creek has a huge Spring break series of weeks and they needed to add a few new instructors to cover the rush. SO...starting at 9:00 on Sat. March 5th we attended a 6 day training crammed into three days with awesome clinicians. Long days (our commute from Breckenridge is about an hour each way). Yesterday I had a mini "clinic freak out"...it sort of had that PSIA Exam feeling. But today we started teaching via auditing and it all came together in a great way. We still have another day of auditing which will give us more confidence in all the different "procedures" and terrain for teaching which level. Then orientation on Thursday. We should be teaching on our own by Friday. Here we are in our new Vail/Beaver Creek Ski School uniforms!

Just a short note on this ski school....they are SO welcoming to new hires it's been incredible!!!

Again a note to the Alpental crowd: After my clinic meltdown yesterday we were waiting for the bus to the parking lot and this booming voice calls out 'ALPENTAL!" I've just gotta say that a great big huge hug from AL OSBORNE was JUST what I needed!!

Yep....life is very good!!!

Keystone = Best surprise of trip!

Although I keep showing pics of us skiing all these beautiful and extensive resorts what I haven't admitted is how much pain and tentativeness I'd been skiing with. To say nothing of a lack of confidence...every unanticipated bump was a killer.Well for those of you who know Kirk Hardwick (who was the person who got me really skiing again after having ACL surgery many years ago), there are times when a new person comes into your life who provides just the right kind of fun, adventure and encouragement. Well....here she is....Meagan Blitzer!!

 At all of these areas they have really great mountain tours that the "Information" people (most volunteer one or two days a week)guide at different times of the day. Well onFeb. 23rd we joined one of these groups. Megan had run an earlier tour but we started talking and the rapport was instantaneous so she joined the other guide. It was just the five of us and one excellent snowboarder:

Fyi the mountain range you see in the background is Breckenridge.

Anyway, we hit some steep yet groomed terrain with perfect snow consistency and temp and I was finally flying down the mountain with total abandon and joy thanks to Meagan. Since then we've joined her very extended family (including darling 4 year old daughter Kiki who loves to fly through the trees!) for another great day of skiing. Then last Friday we had dinner at their house for killer pizza that her husband Brian made. We also got to meet her mom and dad and their 2 year old Chase.

The last 5 days have been unbelieveably busy for a new reason (next blog) so at least Meagan and I can stay in touch via text and Facebook. Again a note directed to my Alpental friends....she is a total ALNO !!!

A Basin

Not one of the most highly publicized resorts this place is VERY cool with a great laid back atmosphere. Hopefully this will give a glimpse of some of the beauty. (oh and btw the top of one of the chairs is

Vail

I realize a lot of people love Vail but it turns out it's been our least favorite for two main reasons. One is that parking is a nightmare.... well unless you consider that after paying $25 to still have to walk a REALLY long way to the slopes is ok. And the free lots are hard to figure out and even if you do find them you still get dropped off at a location that's quite a way from slopeside. The other thing that surprised us (remember this was a holiday weekend) was the much smaller number of runs percentage wise that were groomed...and ungroomed (due to lack of recent snowfall) equals Volkswagen sized bumps. Add in the Sun Valley injury and it was not a magical experience.  But really we will definitely need to give it another try!

However one kind of cool thing was that Michelle Obama and their two girls were there skiing so it was interesting to observe how security has to be high yet it's really not as obvious as I would have thought ...not nearly as exciting as the skiing scenes in that one 007 movie either!

Really Birds of Prey is at Beaver Creek not Breckinridge

What can I say...with skiing five areas in 7 days and then not doing the posts I'M A BIT CONFUSED! All the posts from a few days that say Breckinridge really are from Beaver Creek! Beautiful weather and the magnitude of these areas is truly amazing!

Beaver Creek Part One

Although our Epic Pass doesn't have any black out dates but a different Locals Pass does have a blackout o over Presidents weekend at both Beaver Creek and Vail we decided that just make it less crowded.  Not so sure about that....there was no parking left anywhere so they ended up letting you park along the road in no parking zones! We actually just got a "taste" for it (it was good!) and we've so been loving Colorado that we started rethinking our itinerary (remember that was part of our crazy decision to buy the motorhome life.

More later....

Breckenridge

They have the most amazingly convenient bus service imaginable.(ok so to those of you who know I am not a real consistent convert to public transportation must be laughing!) Truthfully day one figuring it out was a nightmare but after that a breeze.

After a couple warm up runs we couldn't resist Birds of Prey NOTE THT VIA EDIT TO A LATER POST ACKNOWLEDGES THAT I GOOFED....BIRDS OF PREY IS BEAVER CREEK

NOW....THIS IS BRECKENRIDGE!
Breckinridge is also the home of the highest lift accessed run at over 13,000 feet. We skied so many runs that day up on chair 6 and the T-Bar we didn't quite make the final hike up.But we did take off from this sign to ski an awesome run called "The Whales Tail. You can actually find it (a little bit like "Where's Waldo though) from this shot taken from Keystone looking over to Breckinridge:












The day we spent exploring the Entire Imperial Area was (no one laugh!) with an official "Over 50's group". Of course we were a little skeptical, but our guide Dick was great. Plus another skier in the group had previously guided for a long time...AND a little TV trivia for you...he and his wife competed in the Amazing Race a few years ago

In summary...we've been back to Breck for many more reasons than it's the closet resort to us!

EPIC PASS

Now to the real part of the blog...the skiing. We bought these Epic Passes that give us unlimited access to all of the Vail owned resorts here in Colorado and also Heavenly and now NorthStar in CA. Since we're living less than 10 minutes from Breckinridge we've already skied there 7 times. I'd so often heard how huge Vail was,  the sheer size and also amenities of Breck have pleasantly surprised us. We've spent 3 days at Beaver Creek, 1 at Vail, 1 at Arapahoe Basin, and 2 at Keystone. In the next series of blogs we'll summarize highlights from each resort.

Updates FINALLY now that we're settled in Breckenridge

Arrived late on Feb 17th at Tiger Run RV Resort

 (kind of get a kick out of the "resort part" but our spot is actually a nice size and we aren't looking into anyones windows). The best part is that they have a nice recreation facility with pool, a couple of hot tubs and a community center where we have already attended the "Saturday BBQ" and the Wed. "Wine and Cheese night". We've met some really nice people here at Tiger Run and one thing that this odyssey has taught us more about enjoying is "diversity".  Turns out that we really are pretty young to be retired! We also have had to learn about laundromats ...it's been a a lot of decades since I've had to do with out my own washer and dryer, but at least here if you time it right you can stuff a bunch of washers full and go take a hot tub before then putting it all into multiple dryers!