Table of Contents
Main help menu
Close help
 
Our Colorado Adventure!

Evergreen, CO

 

Our trip started out in Evergreen at our friend's house on top of Bear Mountain. Evergreen acted as the bookends of our trip, we stayed here the first and last night of our 5 nights in Colorado.

 

A quick story I must tell is how we ended up at this particular house. Last year Shannon and I became friends with a wonderful couple from Ohio on our Europe trip, Robin & Tom. Well it just so happened that Robin's daughter, Casey, who is our age lived about 10 minutes down the street from us near Orlando. Robin flew down a few times to visit her daughter and we had a couple dinners with her before finding out Casey was moving to Robin's second home up near Denver to get a fresh start. Invitations were given out for us to visit and we took her up on it. We're so glad that we did!

As you can see the house is large & beautiful with spectacular views out of every side, but especially the backyard. They even have a barn which Robin says is used to store all their crap. :)

 

Before proceeding let me say that on the night we flew in we went to The Yard House with Casey which is just outside of Denver. That place was awesome, food was great and they had an amazing beer selection. Well over 100 beers on DRAFT alone! We got some great local beers, yum yum.

On Thursday morning we headed down the mountain to "downtown" Evergreen to have some breakfast at Wildflower Cafe which was a neat little spot with good food. In the afternoon we did a beautiful hike that had some stunning views and multiple "zen" moments. It's a hike that is mostly across private property that only the locals living on the moutain know about. One of the best hikes we've ever done, I think the pics show why.

While on the trail we stopped to do some snow angels. Believe it or not, this was the first time we ever  did snow angels together.

Above is one of our favorite pics ever, from anywhere we've been. It almost looks fake, but I assure its not as we took it while on our hike. 

Breckenridge, CO

 

After our Bear Mountain hike, we loaded up the car and made our way over to Breckenridge which was about an hour drive plus a stop for some wine. Checked into our condo (Columbine Condos) unit, enjoyed a bottle of wine and then headed out to town. The great thing about Breckenridge is it's a fairly big town but it's walkable from almost anywhere you stay. We were a 3 min walk from Main St. Had dinner at Giampietros which was delicious.

Woke up the next morning and it was snowing pretty heavily. Great news considering in a few hours we'd be hitting slopes for the very first time to ski!

 

We took the advice of many and decided to take some lessons, that was definitely sound advice. Thanks everyone.

Luckily Shannon and I caught the hang of it pretty quick and got moved up in our class to the next level pretty fast. By lunch we were already doing the real slopes. We mostly did the Silverthorne and Red Rover green runs. Lean forward, weight on shins, little toes smashing grapes to turn (lesson speak)

Post Ski Relaxation!

 

Started off with some wine and cheese in front of our condo fireplace while looking out our porch to 5-6 feet of snow in some places and listening to some great music by DJ  Ja.

 

While relaxing we had a great chat with Casey. It was fun getting to know each other better.

We then went out to get some dinner at the Breck Brewery and saw a TV "star" from the Bachelor. After that we hit some bars, an Irish Pub and then a sweet place called Cecillia's. Best bar tenders in the world, ..right Casey?!

 

Ran into a group from Jacksonville and then a fun group from Australia & South Africa. But who can forget Davie Jones and Scotty. Fun times!

This was our snow pathway to our condo from Main St.

The next morning we took a walk around the town of Breckenridge.

Had lunch at a great local spot called Clints Bakery before heading back to the condo.

After the walk around town we headed just outside of Breck to Good Times Adventures to do some Dog Sledding! Talk about a fun time, we went out to the middle of no where in the woods and took turns guiding or riding in a dog sled for an hour. Even though I personally am not a huge dog lover it was very cool to work with the dogs. They really feed off our energy. I'm proud to say I wiped out twice while dog sledding, thank you. Be sure to check out the video on my blog to see how fast we were going.

 

Our Guide

Although it looks like all fun and games, it actually gives you quite the workout too. The dogs need help going uphill, and you're the help!

After dog sledding we dropped Casey back off in Breck and headed 30 minutes down a scenic road to the resort town of Keystone.

 

Our first trip is for us to do some night snow tubing, but tomorrow we will be returning to ski here based on advise we got.

For the snow tubing we had to take a gondola ride up to the top of the summit which is over 12,000 feet high. On the way up we got to see great views of the town and of all the night skiers.

 

But once we got up to the top the views were spectacular as the sun had just set.

At night we did snow tubing which was a blast and required no effort, which after the exertion of skiing and dog sledding was a welcome change of pace. There were workers at the top of the hill that would push you down and spin you around, even in tandem if you preferred. After snow tubing we took the gondola back down and had dinner at a fun place in town called Kickapoo Tavern.

On the drive back to Breck it snowed at a pretty good pace as you can see here. We were exhausted so called it a night.

For our last full day we chose to ski over in Keystone due to its long ski runs. It also had great views from the summit! Blue skies!

I'd be lying if I didn't say we struggled at the beginning. I think it was a mixture of a couple things, but the main difference was the slopes on the green Schoolmarm run here in Keyston were much steeper than what we did the other day in Breck. The pic below is the first slope you go down. Compare pics from above and you may see what I mean. So all the confidence we gained from our lessons and the praise from our instructor went out the door, at least temporarily. 

Luckily while we took our many breaks on the 3.5 mile run downhill we had great scenery to admire. 

And sure enough, slowly but surely we built our confidence back up and had a great time going down the second half, of course it being a bit less steep helped. I must say that I personally enjoyed my two wipe outs & Shannon had no issues with her wipe outs as we had a thick layer of fresh snow. Be sure to see the vids of us skiing on my blog.

After getting in our skiing we ate a quick late lunch at the top of the summit before heading back down and meeting up with Casey who stayed behind in town. We hopped on I-70 and made the drive back to Evergreen. For dinner we hit another "Robin gem" called Whippletree, which despite it's name is a Mexican joint-- great food! After some chit-chat and a nice impromptu piano concert by Casey it was off to bed to pack and prepare for our flight back home.

We had a wonderful 5 days in Colorado, absolutely loved it. The skiing, the hiking, the dog sledding, and all the wonderful time spent with our new good friend Casey...it was all perfect! I think some of the pictures here help capture the beauty we saw all trip!

 

Thanks to those back in Orlando that let us borrow ski gear, you saved us a ton! Thanks to Casey for being such a great "host" in Evergreen and "guest" in Breckenridge. Shannon and I loved getting to know you better and we definitely had some great memories! Thanks to Robin for really making this all possible by being so cool in Europe, having a great daughter, and of course for having a SWEET crib in Evergreen! :)

-Jason & Shannon
COMMENTS
Snooway said at 9:33 a.m. on Mar 17, 2008:
Congrats on TOD--looks like a fun trip. Loved the Dog-sledding photos!
Debdog said at 10:10 a.m. on Mar 17, 2008:
congrats on TOD :) Colorado is one of my fav places!!!!!!!!
Phbascon said at 10:31 a.m. on Mar 17, 2008:
Congrats on TOD. Very nice layout. This is like looking at a very creative picture album. A real picture album, not the digital kind. I love it!
EMA said at 11:06 a.m. on Mar 17, 2008:
What a nice live story! Great trip! Congrats on the TOD.
YorkJodi said at 5:14 p.m. on Mar 17, 2008:
What a wonderful travel journal / scrapbook... great photos!! Good job!!
ConnieL said at 8:24 p.m. on Mar 17, 2008:
Congratulations on Tabblo of the Day! Thanks for sharing your trip with us. :)
Siagian said at 11:45 p.m. on Mar 17, 2008:
congrats on TOD! looks like a grand time...=)
Welshchick said at 12:52 a.m. on Mar 18, 2008:
You two know how to have FUN together~ God Bless and congratulations~
Krisu said at 1:18 a.m. on Mar 18, 2008:
Wonderful tabblo! Congrats on TOD!!
Northof40 said at 7:07 a.m. on Mar 19, 2008:
Congrats on TOD.....Looks like U had a great time.....Interesting and cool Tabblo.... Nice work
Add a comment
Flag this tabblo as "may offend"