Getting There

My mom came by to give us a ride to the airport.  She was waiting outside the house at 6am in order for us to catch our 7:40am flight direct to Denver on United.  Everything went pretty smoothly at the airport and we enjoyed a pleasant flight.  The in-flight movie was  “Secretariat”.  With the 2 hour time change, we landed around 11am local time.  We got our bags & caught the Hertz shuttle to pick up our rental car, a black Cadillac Escalade.

By the time we started driving away from the airport, everyone was starting to get pretty hungry.  Dan really wanted to eat at one of his favorite fast-food restaurants, “Del Taco”.  Since our car had Hertz’s Never Lost GPS system, I pulled over to the side of the road and found the nearest Del Taco.  It was about 4 miles off our course, but Dan was really craving it, so we decided to give it a try.  As we followed the GPS directions, the neighborhood went downhill fast.  We became increasingly skeptical that it was actually leading us to a Del Taco restaurant.  Our fears were confirmed when the final direction turned us right into a run down trailer park!

Much to Dan’s disappointment, we abandoned our quest for Del Taco (for now) and decided to get back on the highway and find something else along the way.  We had a nice lunch at Chili’s and then got back on the road.  Soon, we were past downtown Denver and began the treacherous climb up into the mountains.   The outside temperature dropped quickly below freezing  and we had intermittent snow flurries.  The roads were wet and I was concerned about ice forming, so I drove extra slow.  Sure enough, as we exited a long tunnel, we saw a car that had recently flipped over and burned.  I slowed down a bit more still after seeing that wreck.

We finally made it to Breckenridge around 2pm and found the big house where we’d be staying:  The Little Mountain Lodge.  The 13-bedroom lodge used to be a bed & breakfast, but now is available for rental to private groups.  We couldn’t check in until 4pm, so we rented our equipment, bought our lift tickets, and picked up a few supplies at the grocery store while we waited.

By the time we got back to the house, it was almost 4pm and the rest of the gang had arrived:

JJ & Melanie J

Brian & Susannah M

Todd & Karen J

Lance & Cathy P

John & Jenn K

Kris P (arrived the next day, Elizabeth couldn’t make it –kids sick)

The management company showed up right on time to let us in.  The house was AWESOME!  It had plenty of room for everybody to spread out and have some privacy along with several good rooms for gathering together as a group.  Perfect!

Everyone was a bit winded after carrying the bags & supplies upstairs.  The elevation in Breckenridge is almost 10,000 feet and everyone had some altitude sickness symptoms to some extent.  Most had headaches and shortness of breath, while some had nausea and trouble sleeping, as well.  We all drank as much water as we could stand, since we had been told that it would help ease the symptoms.  Most also laid off the alcohol the first night, took it easy, and turned in early.  I went to bed shortly after 8pm.

Our room, the Buchanan Suite, was just off the kitchen.  It had a Queen bed downstairs and a twin bed in the loft.  Michele graciously volunteered to sleep in the twin so that we would both have more room and (hopefully) get a more restful night’s sleep.  Even though we had the thermostats set on 65 degrees, it was much too warm and we both slept fitfully.