March 23-25, 2011 Glenwood Springs, CO with Dave and Ellen

We made it over I-70 West with good weather conditions—light patchy rain but mostly roads were bare and dry. Loafy climbed the highest pass yet, Loveland Pass at 11, 350 ft! Loafy was cruising along in 3^rd gear at a whopping 35 mph and had to drop into 2^nd gear to make it over the last 1/10^th of a mile at 25-30 mph!! Let’s just say we got to really take in the beautiful scenery. The layers of huge, rectangular rocks in the grand and steep canyon walls with the milky green Colorado River at the valley bottom was lovely to look at. Sadly, the spruce budworm is decimating a large number of trees here in Colorado as well. Once over the top, we cruised right along a gradual grade into Glenwood Springs to visit Jason’s Aunt Ellen and Uncle Dave. A fruitful stop in at the Gear Exchange for bike wheels for Sonia’s bike and lots of information on great Mtn Biking in Fruita, CO. These guys at the bike shop were hilarious and extremely helpful. They get an A++ for customer service in our books. We got a used rim for Sonia’s bike(it doesn’t match her bike but it’ll have to work. She doesn’t like it b/c the rim is silver and her bike is gold—she’s got this thing with gold/silver not matching…too bad) but it’s the same rim as the back tire. They even hooked us up with discounts after hearing the story of our wheels getting ripped off in Chicago. They gave us some valuable information about Fruita, CO-the up and coming new Mtn Biking mecca-free-camping, names of a few great rides and the name of the local bike shop to buy trail maps. Sweet. We can go to Dave and Ellen’s and put our bikes back together finally. What a hassle it has been to track down wheels, tires and rotors without spending a fortune. Damn thieves…they’re gonna get what’s coming to them-the hex is on them! If its not yours, DON’T TOUCH IT! Countless hours were spent on craigslist searching and making calls, sending emails, etc. Alas, the bikes are functional again.

We arrived at Dave and Ellen’s beautiful mountain home just 3 miles outside of the cute little town of Glenwood Springs. GS is famous for the Hot Springs outdoor pool (which is huge) and the Colorado Hotel where famous people have passed through-Al Copone, Teddy Roosevelt and some others. Doc Holiday is buried on one of the hills in town. It is also the gateway to Aspen, CO—where the rich and famous ski and vacation. We caught up with Ellen and Dave on travel stories and such over the next couple days. Dave and Ellen are well-traveled and have had lots of cool adventures and stories to share. They sailed for 1 year on the East Coast from the BVIs to Maine. Motorhome travelled all through Europe and have travelled a lot in the US as well. It was a lot of fun to swap stories about travel with them.

Ellen scored free passes to Snowmass Valley Ski area for Thursday—which was also Dave’s B-Day. We convinced Dave to take the day off work and go skiing instead…a hard sell. Like the bumper sticker says, “Ski Today Work Tommorrow “. Thursday morning we packed up and headed out for what turned out to be a great day of skiing. It was cloudy and snowing on the mountain. Colorado and its big mountains offered lots of great terrain to entertain all levels of skiers. We skied the morning together and had a blast. Good carving snow, a few stashes of powder here and there. After lunch, Jason and Sonia headed out to explore different parts of the mountain. The winds were staring to pick up and the visibility was poor. We were riding up the chair when it stopped several times due to high winds—it was nasty…is it too far to jump down if we have to?? We made it to the top around 11, 300 ft. It was cold, windy and no reason to linger.

We headed down different runs. Jason intending to ski the double black diamond runs and Sonia not….but ended up on Black Diamond mogul runs anyway. She made it down with her confidence up to ski more diamond runs to challenge herself. We skied a few more steep and SUPER fun runs before getting tired and cold. We headed in to meet Ellen and Dave for happy hour beers. A great day of skiing was had by all. Thanks for the tickets, Ellen!!

We left Snowmass and took a drive up valley to Aspen. We’ve never seen a big mountain ski area like Aspen and probably won’t ever ski there. Lift tickets at $105/day!!! It’s a huge mountain with very steep terrain-its known for its steepness. There were runs that were all tight mogul fields and would suck to ski down. Dave took us on the driving tour while it was snowing and cloudy. Crowded neighborhoods of old Victorain homes that have kept the original shell of the house but have added on monster additions—some were nice, others were just ugly. These are $2-3 million dollar homes. Then we drove up the hill to where the monstrosities are built. 10-20, 000 square foot homes—where the billionaires live. OMG—these houses are outrageous!! It would be great to visit or party there but not to actually own one! The weather broke-the sun was shining and we walked around Aspen Village. Plenty of art galleries, fur retailers, gear shops, eateries and bars. We went to the consignment and thrift stores—we know our limitations. Stopped in an Irish Pub for happy hour and apps then headed out of Aspen. We stopped for Tapas at a cute restaurant in Basalt, CO-just 15 miles from GS. An excellent day of skiing and checking out how the other side lives. We’re pretty happy with our simple little life in the Loaf and Leavenworth. If we hit the lottery—we’d be ok with that too.

Friday morning, we had Chocolate chip and walnut waffles and fruit for breakfast before packing up and heading out to Fruita, CO to Mtn Bike. We are excited for the last week of the Loaf Love Tour. We’ll be camping, biking and hiking again before heading north to home. It’s been a great trip so far and even though we are sad to end the road trip we look forward to the next chapter of our life.