I’m in Breckenridge! I haven’t yet hit the slopes (nor have my skis) but that will be happening within an hour or so.

I left the house at about 7:50am on Saturday and drove down to St Louis to pick Brian up. I got there right at 11 (when I had planned to) and we quickly threw his bags into the back of my car and we headed on down to Rolla. Once at Rolla (got there about 12:35) we put all of our bags into the back of Bill’s Forester and got on the road.

When we got to Jefferson City we stopped at Backyard Burgers and had a late lunch. I had a bacon cheddar burger. It was pretty tasty. From there we went through Columbia and headed west on I-70.

We made it through Kansas City and headed into the dreaded state of kansas. Eastern Kansas isn’t too bad, because it still has the influences of Missouri acting upon it. So, it isn’t completely flat, and there are a few trees. We stopped in Salina, Kansas and ate at a family diner. They had a “garden salad” that was really good. It was a collection of raw vegetables (broccoli, cauliflour, carrots, sweet potato, onion, etc.) that had salad dressing poured over it. It was really good. I had salmon patties as the main dish, and also I had a homemade roll. After Salina we headed on to Hays, Kansas. We stayed at a Motel 6 in Hays.

When we got up the next morning it was 10 degrees. According to the TV, it was 0 degrees in Limon, Colorado, which we were driving straight through to get to Denver. But, it was supposed to warm up after that. As we made it into western Kansas snow start showing up regularly on the ground. At some points the fence rows were almost completely covered. This is, of course, the same area that had a blizzard just a month ago that killed several people. We saw several drifts that were about 10 feet high. Quite interesting.

When we stopped for gas in Limon, I talked to John and Natty in Denver and arranged a specific time to meet them at Casa Bonita. We drove on into Denver to I-25 and took it south for a few miles. Then, we turned west onto Colfax and went right in front of Mile High Stadium. It’s always neat to see places in real life that you’ve seen on TV. We obviously didn’t get very close, but that’s OK. No one was playing at that point anyway.

We headed farther west down Colfax and arrived at Casa Bonita where we met John, Natty, Gabe, and Rebecca. Casa Bonita is a mexican restaurant where the food isn’t terribly good, but the place has attitude. They do cliff diving there, they have regular shows, a puppet show, a cave with mean pirates that you can walk through, an arcade, bands that go around the tables singing, and a bunch of other stuff that I probably didn’t even see. Basically, you don’t go there for the quality of the food. You go there to see everything else. It’s a very kid friendly place. They are set up to handle a lot of people at once, and the seating is pretty neat. You don’t sit in a big flat room with everyone else. There are stairs and landings all over the place where they have tucked a table or two. One table was in the middle of this elevated gazebo. All things considered, I’m glad I went. I had never been there before, and it was definitely an experience. We said our goodbyes to John and family and headed farther west.

The trip from Denver to Breckenridge was totally uneventful. We had perfectly clear road the entire time, and the only thing of note was that traffic in the other direction was horrendous. It is definitely nice to be heading to Breck when all the Denver-ites are leaving it.

We got to Breck, found the Condo, got our stuff moved in, and went to the ski place. I needed to get my skis waxed, and Brian and Bill needed to rent theirs. We got that taken care of, and went to City Market, one of the local grocery stores. We bought food for breakfast and lunch, and then headed back to the condo. We didn’t do a whole lot else last night and turned in pretty early. I have a room to myself with a queen bed. Brian has a room to himself with 2 queen beds, and Bill has the living room to himself with a queen sofa sleeper. We have plenty of room.

More to come later….

City Market shopping list (my IGA card gave the discount, so be sure to take it next time):

2% milk - 2.99, D D Cheese - 3.50, Turkey Brst $8.49, Prsl Ham - 6.11, Havarti 5.49, Sunchips 3.49, Cheetos 3.49, Pretzel twists 1.00, KS Old fash multi bread 1.99, OW Lt Whole wheat bread 3.19, Mthrs ICD LM 4.19, Oroweat bread 3.09, raisins, 6 pack - 2.49, Nuts 2.00, Ch/Str shbrd 1.88, pecans 3.00, bigelow tea 3.19, squeeze mayo 1.89, v8 sp smthie 2.50, peanut butter 1.99, mini carrots 1.50, raspberry preserves 1.50, qkr regular oats 4.39, kroger juice 2.53, mplgrv czycttg s/f 2.49, cinnamon 2.59, granola bars 2.49, raisin bran crunch 3.99, oranges 6.89, bananas 2.35, pink ladies 4.30, cameos 6.57

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