Vail, Colorado

October 20-27, 2006

In October, 2006, we were off to Vail, Colorado. Not only was it a vacation get-away for a week, but we were rendezvousing with Jeff and Mariana for a long weekend. And that's where the real "news" of the trip happened. Jeff proposed to Mariana on the ski slopes at Beaver Creek! You can see photos and read all about it on their engagement pages. So, they each went to Vail with girlfriend/boyfriend, but left with fiance.

We were greeted with a surprise snow storm. Just as we arrived, it began coming down. Unfortunately, Jeff and Mariana had to white-knuckle through it as they drove up from Denver. The next day the four of us went out exploring, thankful that Jeff had rented a four-wheel drive. Proof that indeed it did snow, here we are all bundled up for the snow.

Actually, the pictures above are of the first premature winter storm. We had another one four days later which actually dumped more snow. It was severe enough that this San Diego chicken remained firmly ensconced in our condominium. We could see I-70 from our window. Needless to say, it provided fascinating entertainment, true reality TV. However, there were no California idiots out there. Everyone kept the same pace and remained in their lane. You get a sense of the driving conditions in the next couple of photographs.

After Jeff and Mariana headed back to D.C., we did manage to get out before the second storm hit. One excursion was to Georgetown, a quaint little town about half way between Vail and Denver. The mountains rise very sharply as you can see in the first picture below.

I loved this door and just had to include it:

We also took a day and drove a circle route up through Steamboat Springs. That too was an interesting drive. After one gets north of Winter Park on US 40, I would characterize the drive as going through the "real" Colorado and not the "tourist" Colorado. Although we didn't take any photos, we had a great time, arriving back at the condominium just as the second storm began pelting us.

We went south from Vail to Leadville, Colorado, which bills itself as the highest city in the United States. Our route took us up over Loveland Pass, which was probably the highest point of our trip.

After crossing Loveland Pass, we stopped and looked back across a snow-covered, frozen resevoir. The considerable snowfall is apparent.

Leadville has an excellent museum of mining, well worth the time to meander through it. It's not all that conducive to picture taking. I did capture a mock up of a miner drilling into the rock. That had to have been a tough life.

Below, you see downtown Leadville.

From Leadville we continued heading south to Cortez, CO, routing ourselves through South Fork and Durango. We re-crossed the Continental Divide twice in the process. Once again, we were in the "real" Colorado. One of the interesting thing about the drive is it takes you through the headwaters of two rivers, the Arkansas River and the Rio Grande. Below you see a snapshot of the headwaters of the Rio Grande just north of South Fork.

We headed west from South Fork to Cortez, our jumping off point for visiting Verde Mesa, another highlight of our trip. You can view a sampling of our photos by clicking on Mesa Verde.