Recap of March 1-3
My weekend kind of started out a bit early, with my company’s annual ski trip to Winter Park. However, this year’s trip was a bit out of the norm. We loaded up the bus at Dinosaur Lots as usual, but our bus driver seemed a little odd. I didn’t pay too much attention – I was just excited as it was snowing hard in the mountains, and we were about to have a great day!
Unfortunately, that feeling about the bus driver turned out to be prophetic. As we were heading up the pass to Winter Park, our bus started sliding a bit here and there, and we could visibly see the driver getting nervous. Fortunately, we made it to the top of the pass without incident – and a slew of snowplows pulled out in front of us, which we figured would make the rest of the drive much easier. Unfortunately, our bus driver had a complete panic attack, turned the bus around (on a very narrow spot on the pass), and insisted on going home rather than continuing or even pulling over to wait out the snow. While we understood concerns about the weather, we were already well past the dangerous part of the drive, and the speed with which he went careening back down the pass (despite us begging him to pull over or at least slow down) made it clear that there was something more to this than just the weather. Even when we got back to I-70, where the roads were dry, he was swerving back and forth across multiple lanes and speeding like crazy… so while we weren’t happy that our ski day was canceled, we were very grateful to make it off the bus without a crash!
After getting back to the lot, we all went different ways – some people called it a day entirely and headed home to catch up on work, a few people drove to Winter Park on their own, and a few of us decided to head to Breckenridge instead. Since I was headed out to Vail for the weekend, it made sense for me to start making my way out that way!
My colleagues Branton and Mike and I had fun getting in a few runs in at Breck (we didn’t get there till 1pm, so there wasn’t a ton of time), but unfortunately, I found that my legs were already pretty sore. I’ve been working on a project in New York lately, and my hotel there has Peloton bikes in the gym, so I’ve been enjoying getting back into spinning there. (If you use Peloton and want to friend me, my username is 50by25.) However, I hadn’t realized that biking uses similar leg muscles to skiing… until I got on the mountain and my quads were already screaming on my first run. Oops! I was kind of glad I wasn’t trying to get a full day of skiing in, and also glad when Mike suggested we not even try to ski all the way to last chair.
For apres, I headed over to Breckenridge Brewery, to meet another colleague who was in town for the weekend with his fiance. Colin and I had a great time catching up over pints, and while I was disappointed I didn’t get to ski with him (either this trip or his last trip, to Vail earlier in the season), I was glad he had gotten another weekend of great snow 🙂
I finally headed to Vail around 6pm – a little later than I planned, but grateful for the catch up. While I always go out to the mountains on Friday nights thinking I’ll venture out to one of the local bars/restaurants and meet some new friends in town, this week was no exception in that I instead chose to cook a quick dinner at home, catch up on some emails and reading, and go to bed early.
While I normally try to get out to the mountain close to first chair (8:30am), Saturday I had a leisurely morning catching up on some work emails over coffee, then heading to Beaver Creek around 10am. I had so much fun doing the Talons Challenge the week before, I thought I would do it again on my own. However, with my late start and the realization that my legs were already really sore (darn – the extra night’s sleep didn’t help), I decided I’d cut it down to a half-Talons-Challenge, and pushed myself to do all seven runs on Grouse Mountain. That included several very steep double black mogul runs that had worried me last week, so I was thrilled to head down them easily this week – turns out that Falcon Park is indeed lovely when it’s not crowded! I really liked having a goal to work toward while skiing, and look forward to doing this more in the future.
We were getting a massive snowstorm on Sunday, so with my legs already totally spent, I decided instead of staying in the mountains the rest of the weekend, I’d head home and try to beat the storm. On the way, I reached out to a few friends to make plans in town, and soon had a full weekend planned! Dress shopping with my friends Chris and Kate Saturday, a Bodypump class with my friend Heather Sunday morning, and brunch with my friend Lauren after that.
When I got home Saturday afternoon, I unpacked and took a quick shower, then headed over to Chris’ house, armed with three potential flapper dress options for the 20s gala we were going to in a few weeks. While I modeled the dresses for the ladies, Chris’ husband Mark served us champagne. Well, that’s a fun way to kick off dress shopping 🙂
We then headed over to Flatirons Mall, and had a blast trying on all kinds of dresses – some serious, some ridiculous. Our rule was that you had to try on everything the others found for you, which meant that I ended up trying on a pink sequined jumpsuit… that actually wasn’t half-bad, and I seriously considered buying to ski Pink Vail, since it was so heavy and warm. In fact, my favorite dress ended up being one that I initially tried on as a bit of a joke, since it was really over the top poufy and sparkly:
Chris already had her dress (though we made her try on a few more just for fun), and by the end of our shopping expedition, Kate too had picked out a slinky red sequined number that we agreed made her look like Jessica Rabbit (in a fabulous way). I was still undecided, though there were several options I liked. But with no rush to decide, since the event is in April, we called it a day, and headed over to Bad Daddy Burger Bar on the other side of the mall, where Chris and Kate’s husbands had brought all the kids for dinner. The snowflakes were swirling like crazy, so I was glad we were able to get a bite so close to home and then call it an early night!
Sunday morning was pretty snowy first thing in the morning, and it took me longer than usual to get to the gym. Since Bodypump is one of the most popular classes, I was worried I wouldn’t get a spot, but I lucked out – Chuze was pretty quiet, since a lot of people had stayed off the roads. There was a sub teaching the class, who I didn’t like quite as much as the regular teacher, but I was still really glad I had gone.
Plus, Heather and I got to catch up over coffee after! I like starting Sunday with both the gym and seeing friends 🙂 And I got to do more of that after coffee – I headed from there up to Lafayette for brunch with my friend Lauren. Maybe it’s weird to go from coffee straight to brunch, but I was just grateful I was able to make all the puzzle pieces of the plans fit together so nicely.
I headed home for a shower and some chores, but the time flew by, and soon I was due at my friend Christy’s 50th birthday party. Lucky for me, Christy lived just down the street – I figured I’d pop in for an hour or so, skip the alcohol, and then run a bunch of errands and take care of some chores at home. However, the birthday bash proved to be way too much fun, and I found myself staying nearly six hours until I was eating pizza for dinner with Christy and her family! Whoops, so much for chores 🙂 But there’s always next weekend…
Does that blue dress have pockets?! Finding a formal dress with pockets is pretty much my dream 🙂 (And it’s also a really beautiful dress, although I can see how it might seem over the top at first)
It does!!! I ended up going with a different dress, though, which doesn’t have pockets 🙁