Life 102: Winter Park-Where's the snow?!

Well, I went straight from work to my friend Margaret's house on Saturday because we had planned a trip up to Winter Park. Now, Winter Park is a big skiing resort destination for Denver and I'm assuming for a lot of Coloradians. It's tucked up I-70 in the Rocky Mountains, about an hour and 30 minute drive from Denver. We saw some pretty amazing sights of the mountains on the ride and thanks to Margaret's great driving, we felt like we were living on the edge during some of the drive.

We were unsure of what we were going to do up there, we brought bathing suits, tennis shoes, a change of clothes and our cameras in hopes of many opportunities. I can say this, I wish I could see this place in the winter. Of course, you are surrounded by the mountains and there are Kodak moments every direction you face and the slopes, you can see where the runs are and there are a lot, many that can't be seen from "downtown". One of the pics shows a mountain from the "downtown" and you can see the runs (it's above this as I type, who knows where it will end when I publish the post). We tooled around the main strip and the Jazz festival was ongoing and we thought strongly about hitting that up, but at $35 a person and that just covered admission not drinks, food or anything else plus we had Joseph, who is 8 months old and not into loud events according to his parents. Although I have to wonder about that, but whatever. We decided to for-go the Jazz, not to mention Jonathan (Margaret's boy toy and her baby daddy) was chomping at the bit to get to the resort so he could do some serious mountain biking. Now when I say serious, I mean it, for those mountain bikers reading this, you can start to feel jealous at this moment. (I did not partake in too many adventures yesterday because I got no sleep from working my night shift and felt a bit sluggish and didn't want an injury, not to mention the lighting storm that was ongoing on the top of the mountain). So, the ski hills in the summer turn into a mountain bikers heaven, they ride up the chairlifts with the bikes (you can rent too) then ride down the mountain on the bikes...and it's not all downhill like I assumed. Jonathan was so pumped when he got down the hill the first time, he was huffing and puffing and flushed and had this shit-eating grin from ear to ear. He just kept pumping his arm in the air like he had won the gold metal in mountain biking. It was funny, needless to say, he went back for more. He said it was so fun, he got to ride all around the hills, took multiple trails that were at times a bit scary and he even got lost his last decent down the mountain. Pretty sweet sounding I suppose.
As for us girls, we had the baby but Margaret and her sister-in-law decided they wanted to par-take in the luge that was set up down one side of the mountain, again, I didn't want to injure myself and wasn't feeling too coordinated but I volunteered to wait with the baby, who turned out to be just as tired as me (he missed his nap) and we made a great pair! (c: They got to ride up the chairlift then ride a zig-zag shoot down the mountain on a scooter thingy. They had a good time and I enjoyed just chilling. We then, finally if you ask me, sat down for an adult beverage and enjoyed watching all the bikers and families walking around the resort. It took a while to find the guys (they did get lost, ended up in downtown Winter Park on their bikes) it's a long story but we all got out of there in one piece and headed back to Denver. I was so tired that I just came straight back to my apartment and when my head hit the pillow I didn't wake once until 10 am. It was one of the best sleeps I've ever had. Overall, a good day, and a nice town. Like I said, it would be pretty sweet to see that place in the winter with snow covered mountains, skiers zipping around, probably snow shoers trasping around and everything so chill. Nice.