Snowbowl Day

Dylan and I had the bright idea to do a quick mid-week Flagstaff run to take advantage of the snow that fell over Christmas. With the timing of the new baby last year, neither of us had an opportunity to get on the slopes, so we knew we should jump on any and all opportunities to ski before the season had passed by us again. Hopefully we'll get another day or two...or three...under our belts before the snow is gone!

Luckily my mom was brave enough to take the boys on Tuesday night even though Graham was feverish and miserable with a double ear infection. We met my parents in the Target parking lot after picking up a prescription for the baby, and then Graham barfed all over himself and Dylan when we tried to give him some ibuprofen. We sent them on their way with the medications and wished them luck. My mom got the meds into Graham at home, and I was so relieved to hear he slept all night and felt much better by morning. I had a heavy dose of mom guilt for handing off my sick baby...but I really wanted to go skiing, and I'm glad that we went.

We picked up our friend John at 6:30am on Wednesday and headed up I-17. It was crazy crowded by the time we got to Snowbowl, and we had to park so far away. The line to buy lift tickets was insane, but luckily we have our own equipment because the rental line was even worse. Somehow, though, the mountain didn't get too crowded, and we never waited in a lift line for longer than five minutes! The new 6-seater express lift certainly helped things. We found tall beers and street tacos for lunch, and after about a dozen runs our quads were spent and we made our way back to the truck.

The boys had some fun of their own with my parents.

The snow was better than expected, the crowds were smaller than expected, and apparently Snowbowl thinks it's located in Colorado or Utah because the lift ticket prices were higher than expected. It was a fantastic day worth every penny spent and every mile driven. I hope we can get out there again soon!

Adventures in the Sun and Snow

Second weekend was all about the great outdoors. Gavin had a sleepover with his grandparents, and D and I headed north to Flagstaff to grab one last quick day on the slopes before the season wraps up and the snow disappears. It was actually a lot better than I thought it would be! The snow was a bit hard, and Snowbowl isn't the grandest of ski resorts, but the sun was out, and it wasn't very crowded considering it's spring break. We fit in a good amount of runs with our friend G (as in G from DBD not Baby G) and had a midday beer break with some pals. Dylan caught some footage on the GoPro, including my first fall in skis in about a decade. I don't even know what happened...I was barely moving, and then I was on my butt. Haha. The rest of the video is Dylan and G hauling butt down the mountain, leaving me in their snowdust. No friends on a bluebird day...I know the rule. We headed off the mountain shortly before the lifts closed and went back home to grab our Baby G before his bedtime.

Two hours to snow!

Balloons in Cave Creek on the way to Flagstaff

Our Wednesday began at swim school. Gavin is doing great in the water! He doesn't mind flipping to his back or being dunked. Next, we met our friend Ali at the Gateway Trailhead, and then Dylan drove us to the Tom's Thumb Trailhead on his way home. We hiked the 7.5 miles through the McDowells and back to our cars in about 3 hours. Ever since we hiked Tom's Thumb in January, we had hoped to do the trailhead-to-trailhead hike, and then we finally had the same week day off to do it. It was actually a little overcast and not nearly as hot as I thought it would be.

G's new flops that Nonna and Papa brought him back from Maui

Thumb's up!

Possibly getting a drink. {Gross.}

King of the mountain!

Picking the few flowers that remain.

Scowl.

The weather forecast tells me our outdoor activities may be wrapping up here a little sooner than expected. Ugh, summer. I shudder at the thought. Even Gavin goes immediately to the door to the backyard as soon as we get home and yells "SIDE!" for "outside." All he wants to do is play in the fountain, mosey around the yard, and pick flowers. What will we do when we're confined to the indoors? I am, however, rather pleased with the number of days I was able to saddle up on my bike or put snow under my skis this winter, and I can be thankful we weren't buried under snow for months like the eastern 2/3 of our country. Spring is a beautiful time of year, and I'm hoping we can hang onto it for a few more weeks...

Leaving is the Hardest Part

Dylan and I made it home today from a really fantastic trip to Aspen. He flew there for work on Wednesday, so I brought G to stay with my parents and joined him a day later. Everything went seamlessly with my arrival. Dylan had scored a condo in town for us and Kevin, and he picked me up in Grand Junction on Thursday afternoon. It was warm and sunny and perfect. We met Kevin down by the gondola when we made it to Aspen and enjoyed some Moscow Mules while watching the skiers wrap up their day. We brought happy hour back to the hot tub and met some interesting people while we soaked, then it was dinner at Su Casa.

On Friday, Dylan and I took the bus to Snowmass for a full day on the slopes. It was cold but awesome. The winter storm blew in somewhere around 2pm while we were on the lift. I do not exaggerate when I say it was blizzard-like conditions for a few minutes. We could hardly see the chair in front of us, and they kept stopping the lift because of the wind. For a moment my imagination got away with me and I even thought, Will we die on this chairlift? I didn't mention that to Dylan because I knew he'd think I was ridiculous. We finally got off the chair and made it back to Snowmass Village in incredibly low visibility while horrific visions of being buried by an avalanche danced through my mind, but before I knew it we were aboard the bus back to Aspen. All in all, it was actually a pretty incredible day of skiing. We hit most every corner of Snowmass and the snow was better than we thought it would be. However, it was amazing to get back in the hot tub that afternoon, and then the three of us had a nice Italian dinner.

Sunny and warm on my first day in Aspen. Luckily, Kevin wasn't embarrassed at all to hang out with us.

We did not partake.

Happy hour at the bottom of Ajax.

Snowmass summit.

The fun did not stop there. On Saturday, Dylan and I boarded one of the first gondolas to the top of Ajax to put in some fresh tracks. Finally, my new powder skis got to meet some powder. We zoomed up and down a good five or six times before Dylan and Kevin decided it might be good to check on the airplane given the current and forecasted weather conditions. Easy enough, we just popped off our skis and walked back to the condo and hopped in the car to the airport. While the guys assessed the condition of the runway and the amount of work and time it would take to de-ice the plane, I basically stood around and was no help at all just trying to stay warm. We grabbed a quick lunch, then it was back to the top for D and me. It hadn't stopped snowing, and the snow was soft and incredible. Everything was so quick on Ajax...no lines and speedy lifts. We fit in a bunch more runs in a short amount of time before I declared myself nearly frozen, and we capped off our time in Aspen with sushi for dinner.

Some sunshine for a hot second on Saturday.

The guys had their work cut out for them.

A hot icicle.

Dylan showing me where to stow away.

Brrrrrr

After checking the forecast a million times and continuing to see the persistent threat of a winter storm warning, the guys decided that an early departure would be their best bet for getting the airplane out of Aspen. No big deal, we just had to explore some other options for getting me back to Grand Junction for my flight since Dylan would no longer have time to take me. After some research and phone calls, here were our positively crappy no-win options:

1) Take a shuttle. Except that no company offers an Aspen-Grand Jct shuttle, but oh, I could hire a private car for over 3x what I paid for my plane ticket. No thanks.

2) I could stow away in the luggage compartment of the Challenger. Obviously, this was a stupid and unrealistic option, but I think this blog post sounds better with three options than with two.

3) I could rent a car, and as a person who has no business driving on icy roads in winter weather, I could drive myself the 2.5 hours back to Grand Junction.

Obviously, I had to go with option 3, but nobody was happy about it. The guys dropped me at the arrivals terminal early this morning while they headed over to where the ballers park their airplanes, and I waited patiently for Avis to open. Finally, the guy told me "We've got a Ford Focus if you want to go right now." Yes, yes I did want to go right now.

So, he handed me the keys and told me to turn left when I walked out the door, and there I found the tiny Ford Focus completely buried in snow. I was at a loss. So I opened the door and threw my stuff inside and found an ice scraper. I was able to get most of the snow off, but there was still a considerable amount of ice. Do I turn on the heat? Or do I turn on the defrost thing? I tried both for a while and then decided to just go. I put the car in reverse and it could not go. The parking lot was completely packed snow. The Focus was not having it. So I scooted forward a bit and tried again, and then the car went, and I proceeded to turn it in the opposite direction of the exit. So then I had to perform a 3-point turn in the parking lot and couldn't see anything out of my mirrors. Each time I went to reverse, I spun out. I had mere inches to work with while trying to get the car into a sweet spot where it would not spin out, and by the grace of God, I made it out of the parking lot and onto the highway. I scooted along at 35 mph for about 45 minutes while the snow flung off the car. My pits were way sweaty from the anxiety. After a while, I reached a low enough elevation where the weather was much better and the roads were much safer, and the Focus and I made it to Grand Junction in plenty of time to catch my flight. Knowing this adventure was upon me, I constantly checked road conditions the night before and learned more about the landscape and geography of western Colorado than I had ever hoped to know. The advice and guidance I was offered was "The bridges freeze over first," which I already knew because I've driven on highways with signs at previous times in my life. And when you're driving over mountains and through valleys, basically the entire highway is a bridge. Not comforting. In the end, it all ended up okay. But, I promise you this drama queen will not be volunteering to drive during a winter storm in Colorado again any time soon.

Dylan scooped up Gavin from my parents' house when he made it back to Scottsdale, and a few hours later I rolled up to our house to two happy boys. It was a long day, and I was relieved to be home. It was a really, really awesome trip, and everything was completely worth it. Next time, though, I may take a more proactive role in making my travel arrangements.

Gavin took many adventures over the weekend with Nonna and Papa!

Suitcase rides are now a thing at our house.

My favorite photo that my mom sent me from the weekend.

Rollin it out after a great weekend.

I'm not ready for Monday tomorrow, but I care very little about that. I'm just hoping to get some sleep, and I'll take care of everything else later!