Oh, hello! Long time, no blog. I have a huge backlog of drafts loaded up, but I just feel no motivation to post about pre-Thanksgiving things right now, so I'm starting at our most recent happenings and will fill in backwards (and forwards) as I get back in a groove (I hope).
So here we are: last week! (aka Tuesday, 16 Jan 2024 through Saturday, 20 Jan 2024)
We left home on Tuesday around lunchtime, stopped for a few minutes in Salt Lake for Gregg to check out a potential conference space for a potential conference he'd be organizing, and then continued onward toward the east. We stayed in the Comfort Inn (we have become Choice Hotels people and are loving getting perks for booking directly with them rather than through hotels.com like we had been doing for years and years and years) in Fruita, CO. We enjoyed some pool and hot tub time before sleeping.
On Wednesday morning, we grabbed a quick breakfast and then hit the road. It started snowing pretty quickly after starting our drive, and within an hour, right around Silt, CO, we hit snowpacked lanes on the freeway. Needless to say, our drive was slower than normal, but thankfully we made it to our next stop without any incident.
And where was that next stop? At the top of Tennessee Pass at Ski Cooper! This is the only resort I've skied at in Colorado, and I happen to love it and it has been probably 12 years since I skied there (before I was pregnant with Cal!). The kids were excited to ski in a new state, and Gregg was excited to ski some fresh powder. Our original forecast showed some snow starting up in the afternoon, and our plan was to be heading to the hotel by the time the snow started. But obviously we had been driving in snow for hours and it was still dumping when we got to the resort and it just never stopped. Which is great for most people, but not super great for me. I just can't see when it's snowing and I'm skiing. I can't see the difference between deep powder (which I hate) and more manageable terrain. I can't see because my glasses are fogging up and my eyes are getting pelted with snowflakes. And my sweet new goggles don't help because they make my glasses fog up. It's not great. And Cal was having a similar issue, plus she was just really cold. So we did two runs, one off each lift, and then we hung out in the lodge and looked at things without foggy glasses while we got warm. Gregg and Sam got a few more runs in the sweet snow, and then we all ate our lunch and then we hit the road again.
We made our way back down the mountain on the other side over Fremont Pass, and since we were a little early for check-in at the hotel (Comfort Suites - sweet! two beds and a couch that turns into a bed!), we drove directly to Keystone, where Gregg changed his clothes, shaved, and fixed his hair in the parking lot and then headed into his conference. (Yep, this was a work trip that we got to tag along on!) The kids and I made our way to the hotel in Dillon, about 6 miles down the road, and luckily by then we were able to check in. We got settled and then headed down to the pool, which was closed! Boo! So we went back up to our room and ate some dinner (leftover soup that we had brought and warmed up in the microwave) and hung out and tried to find the Food Network on the TV (it wasn't on the channel that the channel guide said it should be on and it was quite frustrating!).
When Gregg was done at the conference, I went solo to pick him up (big kid perks! they can stay alone watching youtube while I go get Dad!). The roads were nasty and gnarly and I went super slow and we made it back just fine. Then we all enjoyed some hot tub time in the outside hot tub . . . in the dumping snow! We all did some polar bear plunging (my first time!), which was quite invigorating! Then, back up to bed.
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| Arrived and ready to roll! |
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| On the lift and all smiles to start. |
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We were snowmen by the time we made it to the
to top of this very, very long lift. |
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I love the logo and the name - we gotta get
nephew Cooper up here someday to ski. |
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| Happy to be warming up in the dry lodge. |
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Boys are refueling. (We made a whole mess of crispy
chicken wraps and crispy beef and bean wraps (basically
just leftover taco meat cooked the same way as the
chicken wraps) and we ate them
warm and we ate them cold our whole trip!) |
On Thursday morning, it was still snowing. (Insane!) I didn't feel like driving on the nasty roads, so Gregg took the car to Keystone for the morning sessions. The kids and I played in the hot tub (again), watched Food Network (found it! channel 78 instead of 55!), played games, ate lunch. Then Gregg had a break mid-day and the snow was lessening and the roads were not quite so sketchy, so he came back and we took him back and we headed to Frisco to find a tubing hill.
The tubing was a blast! The sun came out for a quick second and the view was gorgeous! When we were worn out and wet, we warmed up and rested at the library (of course!) until Gregg was done. We wanted pizza for dinner and drove around to a few different places, which were either full or basically bars, which wasn't exactly the vibe we were going for. We ended up getting dominos and taking it back to the hotel to eat it (while watching Food Network (ha!). More hot tubbing, and then bed.
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Before Gregg left in the morning, he spied on us in the hot
tub from our window. |
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Sam had my phone and snapped this of me warming
up lunch. But it gives you a tiny glimpse of the living
area of our room. |
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The Christmas tubes get used at last! They were epic!
Big and fast and awesome. |
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Turns out hiking back up the tubing hill
at 10,500 feet is pretty exhausting. |
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| Pooped! |
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They were kind enough to share.
(And luckily Gregg didn't need his snow pants
at the time, and luckily they were still in the car,
because mine had been left in the hotel.) |
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| Ahh! I love that blue sky! |
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We were trying to get up the little rise
to that tree. This was our furthest run, so
not quite, but pretty good run! |
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| Library lovers. |
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When he got bored with his minecraft books,
Sam started climbing on and driving these little
stools around. |
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They had a fun puzzle set out on a table, so
Cal and I worked on that for a while.
(And Sam snapped a pic.) |
On Friday, the sun was out and the roads were clear and we were headed back west. While I packed up the car, the kids tried out the pool that was finally open. Turns out it was ice cold (they said it was colder than the snow!), so they enjoyed the hot tub one last time. I drove and Gregg worked and we finished listening to our audiobook (The Very, Very Far North = excellent!), and somehow we made it 5 hours to Goblin Valley just like that!
We checked into our yurt (yes, you read that right - a yurt!) in the campground and then hustled over to the Valley of Goblins to stretch, run, climb and explore. We love this place. It never gets old (this was Gregg and my 4th visit together, 3rd with the kids). In fact, I think it gets better every time. The kids are bigger and can climb higher and walk further and this year we went up to the top of the mesa that looks out over the valley . . . twice!
When we were tired, we went back to the yurt, grilled up some hot dogs, and had ourselves a little feast. (Note to self: if you're gonna bring rootbeer (leftover from pizza night the night before), then it's a good idea to have cups to drink it from! but if you don't have cups, then bowls are a passable alternative.) Sam, Gregg and I went out again for a quick few holes of disc golf. We played games at the table and got a little loopy and giggly. And then it was time for bed. Sam won the coin flip and chose the top bunk, Gregg and I were on the bottom (very noisy mattress), and Cal got the futon. No one slept very well, but it was still a fun time.
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Love that blue sky and clear, wet roads view from our
hotel room. |
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| I thought this was adorable and cleverly written. It’s the tale of (gently) adventurous Duane the Polar Bear who meets lots of new friends and learns how to handle different personalities. Cal liked how the narrator broke the 4th wall by talking directly to us readers. It has been compared to Winnie the Pooh in tone, and I would agree. Just a sweet story of friendship full of lots of arctic characters. We started with the physical book and finished it on audio on our road trip. Both are excellent (the narrator is so good and the book has a few cute pictures sprinkled throughout). I think you might like this for a quick, comforting read aloud. |
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The kids just took off running as soon as we got to the
bottom of the steps at the valley floor. |
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| Disc golf on the moon? |
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Is it me or does this prickly pear have
a purplish hue? |
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| Isn't that just so picturesque? |
On Saturday morning we were treated to the most glorious desert sunrise I've maybe ever seen! It was spectacular. I walked down the road past our yurt, past the amphitheater, where it dead ends, just soaking it it and taking way too many pics. Gregg got some great shots back at the yurt with the kids. We had breakfast (have you ever toasted bread and pop tarts on a grill?!). We played some more card games. And then we went out to explore and play in the hoodoos again.
We were surprised to see lots of vans with cameras and equipment in the parking lot and a tent and generator and film crews and even an actor set up on the valley floor, right at the base of the stairs, right where hundreds of visitors walk to get to the goblins. Alrighty then. We explored in a new area that we've never been in before, and then made the same loop up to the top and back down through the same canyon. By then, we were hustling to get back so we could eat a quick lunch and pack up and check out of our yurt.
By the time we had finished lunch and loading the car, we were ready to make our way home. The kids got their junior ranger badges, and then we hit the road. We made one stop in Price to visit the Prehistoric Museum at USU Eastern, which we had free passes for in our PBS Kids passports. That was a fun and educational pit stop. By the time we reached I-15, it was raining (ick! I hate rain in January, but it was better than our snow drive earlier in the week). We came home to 5 heavy, soggy, sloshy inches of snow on our driveway and decks, but luckily our new snowblower arrived while we were gone and saved Gregg's back from having to shovel the wet cement!
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| Just look at that bright orange rock in the back! Wow! |
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Breakfast set up: our little camp stove heated
up water for oatmeal and hot chocolate (which, yes,
had to be slurped from a bowl), plus grill for toasting
bread and pop tarts and warming up beans (left over from
hot dogs, but good for breakfast on toast!). |
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| This was a cool one - with a hole in the middle. |
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Skies were grayer this morning, so it felt
cooler than yesterday's glorious sunshine. |
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| I spy sky through that rock window. |
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| Atop another white dome in the new area. |
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| So many trails and paths visible over here. |
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| Isn't this giant broken boulder kinda cool? |
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This cave when back pretty far and pretty
deep. |
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| Popping up out the top. |
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| Back on the top of the world. |
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The craziest thing I learned at the Prehistoric
Musuem is that many dinosaur tracks were
found on the ceilings of coal tunnels since
the coal formed from the peat that the dinosaurs
had walked through. |
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| Mastodon in the Prehistoric Museum. |
