Wow, the last entry I wrote was over 10 days ago! We have been busy, but the real truth is I’ve been lazy and just haven’t made time to write.

So, to catch up I will recount our adventures in Colorado. We flew out on Feb 12, arriving late in the afternoon. The day we arrived the weather was chilly – in the upper 40’s. There was snow on the ground in Denver but most of it had melted and/or gotten dirty. Icky snow, in other words. We rented a car and drove to Chuck’s sister’s house. She and his brother-in-law were still at work, so we played with their Cairn Terrier Frasier in the backyard (where there was still a good deal of snow on the ground). I was running around playing, and slipped on the snow and fell down hard on my butt. For those keeping count, that was my first fall. We continued playing a bit, and I thought it would be fun to make a snow angel. So I fell back into the snow. Only it wasn’t exactly snow. It was about two inches of snow and then hard ground. Ow. That was my second fall.

The next day we went running in the morning (it was cold – in the thirties). I nearly fell once, but managed to stay upright. We did, however, become quite breathless very fast – the higher altitude took its toll on us quickly. We spent a very nice day driving around Boulder and Lyons CO thinking about them as potential eventual retirement locations, then bought Chuck a pair of ski boots (which is a process that makes buying regular shoes pale in comparison), and rented some skis for the ski trip. We wrapped up the day at the most awesome REI I have ever
seen (the downtown Denver store). It was huge – three stories! – and
stocked with tons of cold weather gear that we don’t see here in
California. We stocked up on some odds and ends for the ski trip, and
marveled at the rock climbing wall and all of the neat trails outside
the building for testing out bikes and shoes.

We spent Valentine’s Day sightseeing in Denver enjoying amazing weather (the high reached 70 degrees!) and spending some time at the Tattered Cover, a wonderful independent bookstore in downtown Denver. We all went out for dinner to one of Dina and Kenny’s favorite restaurants, Rioja. While there, Chuck started regaling them with the story of his marriage proposal to me (he’ll never let me forget that rather than say, “Yes!” I said, “Yes, eventually”) when he got to the part about asking me to marry him, he pulled out a little red box, opened it, and inside was a beautiful diamond engagement ring! I know, I know – it seems weird to get an engagement ring after being married for five years, right? But back five years ago was quite opposed to the idea of an engagement ring – I thought it was just folderol and generally foolish. I knew at the time that this attitude disappointed Chuck, but he went along with it (figuring, I suppose, that if he could get me to marry him that was triumph enough). fast forward to this past year, and as we approached our five year anniversary, I thought to myself that it might be time to get that engagement ring. I guess I’m getting sentimental or something, but it just (finally) seemed right. I still had my standards, of course: it couldn’t be too big or grand. So Chuck secretly had our friend Perri (who was responsible for our wedding rings) get to work on the engagement ring. And that was what was in the box he opened for me on Valentine’s Day. Needless to say, this time I said yes right away. And then burst into tears. It was pretty neat, that’s all I can say.

The next morning we were off to the mountains but before we left I took Frasier out for a walk – and slipped on the ice and fell – for the third time. My already bruised tush was pretty unhappy about this, as was my left wrist that was catching all of my various falls. Thank goodness, I thought, that I was just going to be snowshoeing and not skiing. If I was doing all of this falling just trying to walk, who knows what would happen if I put skis on!

We drove up to Frisco, CO to the Galena Street Mountain Inn. Our room wasn’t ready, so rather than hang around there we headed up to Copper Mountain for some serious snow time. While Chuck, Dina & Kenny went off skiing, I had my first day out on the trail snowshoeing. I lasted about an hour and a half, getting completely exhausted just hiking a flat trail & breathing. Phew! Altitude is a real pain! Day two of skiing was also at Copper Mountain, but I made it a lot longer – closer to three hours snowshoeing. Chuck was also feeling more in tune, and they went skiing on tougher slopes (that I happily didn’t hear about until they were all safely back in one piece – well, three pieces in this case).

Day three we spent at Beaver Creek, a ritzy ski resort next to Vail whose motto is “Not exactly roughing it.” No joke there – they have employees who give you hot chocolate when you get off the lifts and escalators that take you from the ticket booth area to the ski left areas. 3pm is chocolate chip cooking time – chefs walk around with big platters of warm cookies offering them to whoever wants one (or two, or three). This was also by far the coldest, snowiest day of our trip with temps when we started the day hovering around 1 degree. I was feeling pretty ambitious as this was my third day snowshoeing so while Chuck, Dina and Kenny went off to ski on slopes with names like Birds of Prey, I decided to take a ski lift up to McCoy Park, a special area set aside for nordic skiing and snowshoeing. We agreed to meet outside Starbucks at the bottom of the lift area around 3pm. Before proceeding with the story, I should say here that the thing I am worst at in skiing (not that I’m good at any of it) is the ski lift. I am, in a word, terrified of them. I see a ski lift and I pretty much start to fall over approaching it. There is something about the constant motion, I guess, that unnerves me. If it weren’t for ski lifts, in fact, I might be a pretty decent skier. But I figured in this case – hey, it’s not like I have any skis to deal with! How hard can it be to get on and off a ski lift in hiking boots? So I get on the lift with three off duty instructors. And they say, just step to the side when you get off the lift and you’ll be fine! So I do what they say, step on ice and go sliding down, landing hard on the side of my knees, with my right one taking the brunt of it. Completely embarrassed, I hopped right up as they started to come over, saying, “I’m okay, I’m okay!” My knee was throbbing like a son of a gun, but it got better as I walked, so I figured I’d proceed with my hike as planned. About two miles out however, it really started to bug me, so I headed back to the lift. And in the spirit of full disclosure, I thought I’d call Chuck and let him know I was heading back to the resort and was done snowshoeing for the day. I reached in my pocket(s) for my phone and found, for the first time in the whole trip, that I had left it back at the inn. Argh! I made it down the lift without falling again (yay me!) and went off in search of ibuprofen and a pay phone. Finding a pay phone, I called Chuck’s cell and left a message, stating that I had whacked my knee pretty good so was done with the strenuous portion of the day and would meet them at a restaurant at the bottom of the main lift at 3pm (this seemed a much warmer place than Starbucks – did I mention that the temps had fallen all day and it was snowing? Well they had and it was) and oh, yeah, I had forgotten my cell phone so don’t bother calling me back. I then spent the next couple of hours looking around shops, resting my knee and generally killing time. Chuck, meanwhile, is on a ski tour and heard only the first part of my message – the part where I said I had fallen and hurt my knee. So there I was at the restaurant, going in and out looking for him, and he was at the medical area and Starbucks looking for me. I found him first and he was in between angry and relieved to see me. Didn’t you get my message? I asked. Well only in part. He quit listening after the whole knee part, and missed completely the part about no cell phone. All was soon forgiven, and we headed back to Frisco for a hot tub soak and dinner.

Our last day was a snowshoe day. I was a little concerned that my knee wouldn’t be up to it, but I woke up to find it feeling fine. So we went hiking up Lily Pad Lake Trail outside Frisco, a four-mile round-trip trek that was absolutely beautiful. It was Chuck’s first time snowshoeing and aside from overdressing he had a blast.

We headed back to Denver that afternoon, and flew home the following morning. All in all, a really relaxing trip! We took a bunch of pictures, and a couple of movies. The first movie is of Frasier, the second one is about making tiny snowballs roll downhill.