I spent the evening of Christmas through the New Year in Summit County Colorado. I can't recall a time that I have ever spent the Christmas holidays out of the state of Michigan. Although I have to admit, I'm not racking my brain especially hard. I may have spent one or two family Christmas' out of town either for a ski trip or in Florida, but I was always with family. Here I was, across the country, without family, for an entire week with someone that I had only met several months ago to celebrate the holidays or to avoid the holidays as it may have been.
Despite airport security threats and potential airline bombs in Detroit, I managed to leave the airport on the Westside of Michigan without any difficulty and actually arrived at the Denver Airport thirty minutes early! PM wasn't anticipating any early arrival and trying to navigate the airport, we found each other at the pick-up about the same time. The drive to Summit County was enjoyable and filled with conversation. We arrived and checked into the hotel, upgrading to a "deluxe non-smoking" room which included a much used microwave and refrigerator.
In summary, we went to Arapahoe Basin three days, one day which I bailed skiing after one run. My ankles and shins were killing and due to our late start in the day, the way the sun hit the mountain made navigating bumps rather difficult for me. I decided to recover and save my skiing for Breckenridge the following day. We skied Keystone on the third day and met up with PM's friend and some of his buddies. Initially, it was challenging skiing with six skiers of various experience, but it worked out well. Personally, I was all for letting them ski and me skiing solo to navigate my own greens and blues and enjoy some skiing while they did extreme skiing, tree skiing and what not; however, we managed to find middle ground and enjoyed the day. On New Years Eve Day we skied at Breckenridge, by far my favorite location. According to PM we tackled about two-thirds of the ski terrain, although I'm sure I would have been completely consumed and lost had I been skiing solo.
While Michigan had more snow than Colorado while we were out there, we had a fabulous time. I was able to ski more than I will when I'm joined by TS for our next vacation out to Colorado in a few weeks. She enjoys skiing, but she's not a hard-core skier and I'm afraid that her endurance and stamina could prove to be challenged. Needless to say, I'm glad that I purchased a ski pass!
There were very few issues during the week with PM. We managed to get along incredibly well, surprisingly. I can't speak for him, but I can honestly say at no point did I feel the urge to want to run or hitch hike elsewhere, or cause him bodily harm.
One day at skiing, we arrived at the car to find PM had left the driver side door of the car open. Surprisingly nothing was stolen - not his radar detector, gps, cb, my purse or any of the other belongings left for the stealing. We were dumbstruck by our good fortune as much as we were curious as to why no one even shut the door. One evening of cooking (illegally in the room) on the propane burners, we managed to smoke up the room and set off the smoke detector. Fortunately the smoke detector was battery operated and was quickly dismantled while I tried to de-smoke the room by fanning the door and opening the window.
Other than that, neither of us were injured. I was more than sore though, from months of inactivity and from skiing for the first time of the season. I think I struggled with some altitude issues as I had some nausea as well as frequent headaches and lack of appetite. Nothing a few ibuprofen couldn't handle.
We did some sight seeing, since PM had lived a winter in Summit County "back in the day". I enjoyed walking around Leadville, Vail and Breckenridge with my own personal "tour guide".
To anyone having reservations about whether to take the plunge and go on a vacation or to go out on a whim because you don't know the person very well, you don't have control of the situation, you are unsure of finances, you wonder "what-if?"...let it go and GO AND ENJOY!
I'm surely glad that I did!
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