Day One - Denver to Breckenridge, CO

Sunday, February 3, 2008

Tom and I are awake at 7:15 AM. I slept fairly well despite the small bed and Tom's knees in my kidneys, but upon awakening, I feel like I have been out bar hopping all night. My sinuses are clogged and the room is spinning at a fast rate. I lie back down and worry about what ailment I may have caught on the plane. I try to read a book, but the words on the page are revolving around each other. Tom informs me that is due to the change in altitude. I say I will muddle through.

We eat breakfast at the hotel, get a grocery list from Dick and Clint, make a Walmart stop, eat a taco burger from Taco John's (that is for my SIL, Susan), load everything into the Caravan and merge on to the interstate. The car gives a "beep" noise.

Tom: "What was that?"
Me: "That means a door is ajar."
Tom: (looking at the controls) "It isn't showing any door opened."
Me: "Then don't worry about it."

We merge on to 70 and start down the hill. A gust of cold wind blows the back of our heads.

Tom: "What was that?"
Me: "The window is open."
Tom: (looking around) "Where?"
Me: "Who opened the window?"
Tom: "Is the back hatch opened?"

I turn around and sure enough the back of our van is wide open and flapping in the Colorado wind as we travel down the hill. We have to pull over to the side and carefully get out to close the hatch. Everything is safe and accounted for so we laughingly set off again to Darcy's "Where is the snow?"

The scenery is beautiful. In front of us the mountains loom, rising up into peaks, some covered with a layer of light snow, the others green with the pine trees. The girls are entranced and spend most of the travel time looking out the window. We speculate how Laura Ingalls and family traveled the mountainside in a horse-drawn covered wagon. When you travel between the mountains on a nice paved road it is amazing to think how they did it. As we get farther up the mountains, and at a high altitude we start seeing snow. It starts out slow, but as we go up, up, up, the sides of the road get higher and higher with piles of snow. Darcy is thrilled.

We reach Breckenridge around 3:00 PM. We stopped at an information station in Frisco and I now have a magazine with an interesting article regarding altitude sickness. Dizziness, headaches, and vomiting are all symptoms. The treatment is to avoid alcohol and drink tons of water. We should also be peeing twice as much as usual. If we aren't, it is bad, bad, bad. I read that breathing will be more difficult as we hike around so we are to take it slow and easy. All good info to have.

We are staying at Valdoro, a Hilton timeshare resort, that Dick and Clint own points in. They have invited us to share a one bedroom condo, but we must quietly sneak the girls in as four is the limit in the one bedrooms. Tom checks in and returns to let us know the lobby is empty. He is nervous. He parks in the underground parking area and instead of entering through the lobby, we go up one flight, walk over the lobby, and haul our luggage downstairs to our condo.

It is a small one bedroom with a kitchen, full bath, and living area. We deposit our luggage, put on our hat and gloves and head out into the frozen tundra. There is snow everywhere. Darcy and Madison engage in snowball fights and soon their hair is wet and snow is down the backs of their coats. We hike up a hill and head into Beaver Run, one of the many peaks for skiing and classes.

Unfortunately, we are up too high. All of our reservations are down past our resort. The lady sends us out on to the ski trail to walk down into the "village". Adults and tiny children ski past us. The girls climb the many mountains of snow and watch the skiers as they ski or ride up in the lift. I begin to think that I can do this type of skiing if I'm on this hill. I'm getting excited picturing myself slowly descending the hill on purple skis. Then we come to the point where we must cross the trail and head down the hill to the village. My vision pops.

Me: "I can't go down that hill."
Tom: "What do you mean? It's just a tiny hill."
Me: "I can't do it." I start down the hill and suddenly I'm slipping and sliding, my arms twirling wildly as I reach out for something, anything, to save me. "My boots aren't getting good traction. Help! Help me."

My family looks at me as if I'm an alien. I feel like one. I'm now a Floridian stuck in the middle of snow. That is alien if you ask me. Tom takes my hand and guides me down the hill. We watch the kids in the ski school. Tomorrow Madison and Darcy will attend this school. They will be skiing down the slope we just hiked down. Tom stands in line for his rental skis and boots and then we hike back to the resort. We are about 5 minutes from the village.

We meet Clint and Dick at the ski check-in at the resort. We spend the latter part of the evening watching the Super Bowl, eating unhealthy snacks and chatting. Dinner consists of frozen pizzas and beer. I'm over the dizziness, ignore the article and down a Corona. We hit the sack, the guys in the bedroom, Tom and Madison on the pull-out sofa, Darcy and I on the blow-up mattress in the kitchen.

We must have the girls at school by 8:30 AM tomorrow. Snow is forecasted. The Giants have won the Super Bowl. What a day!