Our CP guest and his friend have been absolutely charming and we were sorry to see them go, we will certainly have to look them up when we get back. He was going back to a retirement party to be held in his honour after working at Corus for 47 years. His friend who had driven them around and arranged the trip, lessons etc., works in the laboratory testing new steel formulations. He said that it took 20 years to get a new steel fabricated, proved and tested which seems pretty long but there you go! He also said that Tony had saved Corus hundreds of thousands of pounds over the years by turning off the lights whenever he found them on after hours. He had been taken on on a trial basis for a month and was leaving after 47 years. After we had been talking of places to go in Colorado, he turned up with a guide to the National Monuments and Parks which had maps, walks, history and everything else about loads of interesting places to go to. How kind is that?
We are almost decided not to go touring to San Fransisco as there seems little point in traveling thousands of miles to see natural phenomena and cultural gems when there are loads on the doorstep. We will see if we can base ourselves here and tour out on three day loops.
They had just visited the water / road tunnel and it is about 12 feet tall and roughly circular and 7 ½ miles long! It carries water from a reservoir through the mountains to Leadville valley. Once the road from Aspen to the Reservoir has been blocked by snow in November, the maintenance guy’s only way out until it cleared in the spring, was to enter the tunnel and drive out to Leadville. Can you imagine entering the tunnel at one end and wondering if anyone has entered from the other end?
Our other visitors are building up numbers by the day and I estimate we are now feeding well over twenty visitors a day. That’s right; our bird feeder has really taken off and is established on the local bird population’s radar. We now have regular diners of Mountain Chickadees, Black-Capped Chickadees, a pair of Pine Grosbeak, a Nuthatch, two Common Red Poll, at least three Magpies, a Steller’s Jay, a Crow and a flurry of the ubiquitous House Sparrows. It is situated right outside the kitchen window so we can see them as they fly in and eat and they will now stay and eat as we are standing there watching. The nuthatch jams the seeds into a crack in the wooden platform before pecking it open, the Grosbeak uses its crossed bill to crush and open larger seeds, and the magpie just carries off the broken pieces of cold toast and other items to admire them later. As you walk up the road, there is generally no noise other than from traffic, until you get to our house where there is a constant chatter, twitter and call from the birds – great. Although the birdseed will have to go through the budget as Muesli.
Off to the slopes so, to be continued.
Some time later - A super day out on the slopes. We made our way over to Vail via the Café we spotted in Minturn last week and had the wonderful breakfast we were hoping for. Scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage and a bread that had dark rolls of rye through it rather like a Swiss roll. Together with a wonderful view, coffee and a hot cinnamon and pecan roll that was like a Danish Pastry. Delicious!
We also found out the route to Minturn from the back of the piste at Vail. This is interesting because it is an about 5 miles of off-piste trail that ends in Minturn from where a taxi could take you back to Avon.
We went on over to Vail and parked in the main car park which is a rare treat as it costs $25 a day. However it did mean minimum stumping in ski boots to the slopes which was the pay-off. We set off up the mountain with it snowing pretty hard which is double-edged as the snow is very welcome but while it is falling, the visibility is very poor and that means the possibility of going into moguls at speed is increased and as we have both had nasty experiences doing just that, we are naturally a little hesitant. Up to the top and thence to the top of the Back Bowls where we went a couple of weeks ago with some guests.
We set off down a light blue and paused as the visibility was really bad. Having decided to cut and run when we could, we carried on to the bottom when the snow lifted a bit and we decided to try another couple of runs.
We were glad we did as they were absolutely great with about a foot of fresh snow and as we dodged in and out of the trees it was clear why this is such a world-renowned ski area. Weaving between trees has its problems if you cut it too close and I managed to fall into a tree hole as I tried to go in front of a tree. It was about two feet deep and I fell into it without my skis breaking away. The irony is that I have been looking for a real tree hole, to examine the problem as described a couple of weeks ago in this blog when a lady instructor died in one. All I had to do was roll around so that my feet were downhill and then slide downhill and out. It took me about ten minutes and Sue had plenty of time to come over and start videoing the last few minutes of the floundering. I thought of the lady instructor and realized that if the hole had been only a couple of feet deeper, I would have had serious difficulty in getting out on my own.
We ventured into another of the bowls and the area in front of us and available to ski was enormous. We decided to go off down a ridge because we could see all the way to the valley and because we could always track out either left or right if it became intimidating. The scale of the slopes is just fantastic and really we could have gone in any direction we wanted. Down through fresh powder snow up to our knees and loving it and it didn’t even hurt when the inevitable slow falls happened (to me).
This was the longest day’s skiing we have attempted for ages, and a vital intake of Chocolate / Coffee was the next requirement before a gentle tree-dodging ski back down the mountain from the very top and back to the car and home. What a great day out!
We have been enjoying watching the American Olympics.
Just because it is set in Vancouver and there are one or two competitors from other minor countries doesn’t mean that there should be any air-time wasted on them. We have been thrilled by Shaun White (USA) snowboarder, Lindsay Vonn (USA) skier, Shani something (USA) speed-skater, and a whole lot of other American competitors, some of whom have medal potential, but far more importantly, perfect teeth and glossy hair. Vonn had a serious make-up malfunction during her tearful post gold-medal winning performance interview. Her mascara was spread evenly down her face along with her tears of joy and I’m sure she will be signed up by now by a make-up company who offer waterproof mascara so she can feature as the ‘before’ photo. Let no marketing opportunity go unexploited.
Sue has made an appointment to see a muscle specialist in Edwards and this evening we had a telephone call from the surgery to request a confirmation (that she would attend), and to remind her that she would need to arrive twenty minutes early to take a history, and to bring the all-important medical insurance card. Another example of superb customer relations and a fine example to us all.
Finally, I thought you might like to see the fruits of my labours breadwise. I call it Father's Pride.
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