Day Thirteen - Aspen, Colorado

We’re staying with cousin Kara and since she has a job (what’s that like?), we had the whole day yesterday to entertain ourselves. Avon, where Kara lives, is about two hours from Aspen, Colorado. [If Barry makes one more beerflowslikewine comment, I’ll kill him.]

We left here Wednesday morning and it looked like we would be driving into this:

 Luckily, it cleared up pretty quickly and the green machine was able to make the trip with no delays at all.

Driving through this canyon was beautiful.

I also like driving through the mountain.

When we arrived in Aspen, this is the first mountain with skiing that you see. I think it’s called Buttermilk. Check out the jumps.

To give you a better idea of the size of these ski runs and the jumps, here’s the other side of the mountain with tiny specks of skiers. Someone in town told us that a lot of the jumps are more than 100 feet.

Here are some downtown shots. The shops are fancy fancy. In typical fashion, the only place where we bought anything was the thrift store. It was full of all the name brands! Convenient. 

When we returned from Aspen, we went to the Crazy Mountain Brewery in Edwards, Colorado.  It was so delicious, we went and got our friend Joe from Put-in-Bay and he came with us for another beer!

 We're loving seeing everyone!

Day Twelve - Keystone and Avon

Tuesday morning, Scotty took us on a tour of Keystone and the area. Here Charlie and I are at the Goat, gearing up to leave.

This is the drive up to Montezuma, the tiny mountain town where Scotty lived for years.

Here are some shots of Montezuma.

This is a tiny house made out of a giant piece of pipe. A professor lives in it.

This house is for sale. I loved it.

Charlie met this pretty dog.

This is our tour vehicle, Scotty’s Jeep, on the road.

This is the one room schoolhouse.

The dogs in this town rule the road. They just lay in it.

After Montezuma, we went up to Loveland Pass.

Scotty and Charlie checking it out.

  

Charlie climbing the mountain. The view here was amazing but difficult to capture on film.

Posing.

On the way down from Loveland Pass, Bear stopped to drink out of a mountain spring.

After the tour, we headed for Avon, where Kara lives.  When we got there, we went for a walk on the golf course by her house.

We also took this lovely dog, Hurley. He's Kara's roommate's dog and Charlie loves him.

After that, we cooked dinner and hung out with these fine people. This is Steve, Rita, Kara, Amy, and Barry. Amy is our friend from Put-in-Bay, Rita is Kara’s roommate, and Steve is Rita’s boyfriend.

Day Eleven - Keystone, Colorado

Bear went skiing on Monday (also known as Day Eleven) with Scotty, Caroline's boyfriend / our friend / owner of the Goat.

I love chair lifts. I would like to have one instead of stairs. They’re so cute.

This place is on top of the mountain. They serve beer and that kind of thing. Does this seem like a ridiculous idea to anyone else? Get drunk and ski down a black diamond?

After skiing, Bear wanted to hot tub, which I’m always game for. Hot tub can be a verb. Anyway, it was in our hotel and it was gorgeous! It’s on the sixth floor and it overlooks the mountains. Plus, it’s outside on a deck. Love that. In other news, I’m wearing a strapless bathing suit. I’m not naked.

After that, we went to dinner and then hung out at the Goat for awhile, then went back to the amazing hot tub.

Days Nine and Ten - Denver, Colorado

Sometime on Thursday, I was looking at a Denver visitors' guide that cousin Jen picked up for us. She gave us a wonderful road trip friendly gift for Christmas with guides to the cities we're going, an atlas, snacks, and super cute coffee cups (which we've been using every day). Anyway, I was looking at the guide for Denver and circling things I wanted to do. We were planning to stop into the city on Saturday and then head west to Keystone, but I had circled so many things, I didn't think a few hours would be enough time!

P.S. This is where I got the coffee cup I was drinking out of while manically circling. Everything at Ericca and TJ's is made out of wood!

I headed to the computer and found an amazing last minute hotel deal for Saturday night. It was right downtown and Charlie friendly.

[Side note]
We thought it was pretty awesome, until we woke up Sunday morning and the hot water heater was broken! We took cold showers and while I was still angrily shivering, I called the front desk and asked what they were doing to compensate for the problem. They gave me another half off the hotel room, making the originally $160 hotel room about $32 with tax. 

This was the view coming into the city. It was snowing on top of the mountain.

Anyway, one of the main reasons we wanted to stay the night on Saturday was to be able to take a microbrewery tour, since we didn't want to drive after that! We also wanted to go to the art museum, which we wisely did before the brewery tour. It was beautiful and really big. Two different buildings that were both several stories high. Added bonus: the museum is free on the first Saturday on the month.

After the museum, we went to the Breckenridge Brewery to start the tour. We had three samples here.

Then we went to Falling Rock, where we had another three samples. I'm not sure if you can tell from the pictures, but there were hundreds of empty bottles everywhere. Love that they're using their trash as decor! Also, they had 120 beers on tap.

Here I am walking in the snow between breweries.

Apparently this was where we stopped taking pictures, but we went to two more breweries.

After the tour, we went to dinner. We went to this fantastic sushi place, Taki Sushi. The service and the food were awesome. Cute place, too.

Sunday morning, after the cold shower, we went shopping in Larimar Square for awhile, which was adorable. Plus, every store was dog friendly. Love that.

Then we went north to the city of Golden.

The Coors Brewery is in Golden. We went on a free tour and were given three free beers at the end. Is anyone sensing a trend here? Here's a picture of the giant kettles where they brew the beer. In addition to Coors, they brew Blue Moon, Leinenkugel, and lots more.

We drove into Keystone last night and went to The Goat! We knew everyone working there, which was so fun. Sorry for the dark and terrible picture.

We were planning to just stop in and then drive on to Avon to stay with cousin Kara. Scotty, being the amazing person that he is, had gotten us a hotel room for the night! It's a beautiful place with a spectacular view of the mountains.

I just took this picture with Photobooth from where I'm blogging in bed. Didn't move an inch. This is real time, people.

Bear is going skiing today and he is stoked. I'm going to ride the gondola to the top of the mountain and drink mimosas.

Rough life.

Day Eight - Last Day in Glen Haven, Colorado

We went to Rocky Mountain National Park on Friday! We went sledding and tried to drive up some mountains, although most of the roads were closed. It was gorrrrrgeous.

Here's a video of me sledding!

Barry and T.J. climbing up the hill.

After we went sledding, we drove to the highest point you can get to. A lot of the roads were closed because it's winter and the snow makes it dangerous.

Here are a few pictures from the top.

We also stopped by a frozen lake on the way out of the park.

And now I have a video.

This is maybe the coolest thing we'll post on this blog.

Are you ready?

It's elks! The closest one was about 20 feet away. There were another two sparring.

Here are some pictures.

After that, we went to Estes Park, the town near Ericca and TJ's house. Barry hung out with P. Diddy for awhile.

 

We're behind on posting, so I'll be back in a few minutes with more!