Hiking the Continental Divide

This summer has been weird. First, Mr X missed several weeks of the beginning of it away for work. I'm going to miss several weeks of the end of it away for work. And it's been really rainy. In short, I feel like I got shortchanged on my summer. Not nearly enough time was spent hiking, biking or camping. :-) But then again, I think this very same thing every summer. I guess that's just how it goes when your summer is a mere 4 months long. We typically get our last snowstorm of the season(and when I say snowstorm I mean 12+ inches) in May and our first one in October. Anyway, so I'm bummed about the prospect of summer quickly coming to a close. But just give me a week or two to get over that and I'll be really antsy for our first fall snowstorm already. 

Anyway.....

So we did manage to go on a few glorious hikes this summer. Here's a few photos of us hiking the Continental Divide and enjoying the extended wildfire season (due to the aforementioned abundance of rain this summer). 

A New Mountain

There are 27 ski resorts in Colorado (I could be wrong on that, but I think I'm close). I told Mr X when we moved here that I want to eventually have skied or snowboarded at all of them. Then I found out that Silverton is for experts only and you have to have a guide and you use ski cats to get around and people die there every year. I'm not that brave. So I amended my original request and told Mr X and I'd like to eventually go to 26 of the 27 resorts in Colorado.


Here they are:

Ski Granby Ranch, Howelsen Hill, Durango, Sunlight, Beaver Creek, Keystone, Vail, Telluride, Eldora, Snowmass, Powderhorn, Loveland, Winter Park, Crested Butte, Copper, Aspen Highlands, Aspen, Buttermilk, Snowmass, Ski Cooper, Breckenridge, Steamboat, Wolf Creek, Monarch, Silverton, A-Basin,
and Purgatory

So far I've been to 9:

A-Basin, Monarch, Steamboat, Copper, Crested Butte, Winter Park, Breckenridge, Vail, and Keystone

I have a long way to go. Each year we try to go to one new resort. The first year it was a bunch since it was our first year here. The second year it was Crested Butte. The third year it was Steamboat. This year it was Monarch.

We spent two days there and the snow was incredible! The first day we had almost a foot of fresh powder. The second day we had 14 inches of fresh powder. That much snow was exhausting - and I mean that in the most exciting and fun way possible. My only two complaints about this place was that the crowd on Saturday was a little much (the mountain is rather small so it doesn't hold a crowd well) and that the runs are pretty short. Most are only about a mile and I think there's a couple that are 2 miles. Of course load of fresh champagne powder trumped both of those issues.

I didn't take photos (again, I know, I've been bad about that lately) so these are courtesy of the interweb:

This resort is 3 hours away from our house so we decided to stay overnight since we wanted to go for two days in a row. We like to try out hot springs here and there and we've sampled many here in Colorado. Pagosa Springs was our favorite to-date. But this place, Mt Princeton Hot Springs, took over the top spot for us. Great facilities, lots of soaking options, great water temperatures, very low on the sulphur-smell factor, beautiful scenery. Mr X especially enjoyed the natural pools nestled in the rocks next to the river. You can hardly make them out in the first photo but just look at the river and the rocks on the left-hand side of the photo contain some scalding hot pools of water. You can arrange the rocks so that more river water comes in to cool down the water temp.

Snowshoeing in Rabbit Ears Pass

On our way home from Steamboat we stopped at the top of Rabbit Ears Pass to go snowshoeing. It was 9 degrees (F) outside. We had a bottle of water stashed in Mr X's backpack and about an hour or so into our hike we pulled it out to have a drink - it was half frozen already. Mr X had to poke a hole in the neck and then shake it up like crazy to break up the ice enough so we could actually drink from it. 

We were essentially making fresh tracks as you can see the previous tracks are nearly covered with new snow. It is exhausting to make fresh tracks.

When we started out we were both pretty chilly.

Once we got going we quickly started roasting

 

Mr X, catching his breath and waiting for me (I'm a bit slower, as usual).

 

 

Mr X trudging up, making nice tracks for me to follow.

Heading back the way we came, using our old track, thank goodness!

 It was fun, but maybe next time we'll try it with cross country skis instead. We'll see.

Snowboarding @ Steamboat Again

Mr X and I fell in love with Steamboat last winter. We have been eagerly looking forward to enjoying Steamboat again in the winter for nearly a year now. Finally last weekend we headed up there to play. And we got really lucky/blessed because it dumped snow before we got there and while we were there so we were, once again, able to play in fresh "champagne powder". Yay! 

I did a bad job of capturing the fun on camera. I was always either too busy or too exhausted to pull out my phone and snap a few pictures. This is really all I managed to get. Sorry! I'll try harder next time, I promise! 

You have to take off your board/skis to hike up to this spot, but it's worth it. We do it over and over again because it's so great. Every time I'm doing the hiking part I'm thinking, "I'm NEVER doing this again!" and then once I get to the top, catch my breath and float down the beautiful untouched powder I think, "I HAVE to do this again!"

Our favorite run is technically out of boundaries and therefore not really a run.

Mr X is antsy to get going here.

Since I failed to get good pictures of what this place looks like with my own camera I found some photos courtesy of the interweb of how beautiful Steamboat is:

A view of the slopes from the main street.

A view of the surrounding landscape from the gondolas.

So much powder everywhere!

Riding in Aspen trees is my favorite and there are loads here.

This is exactly what the aspen branches look like after a good snow storm here - it's beautiful!

 

I'm already looking forward to our next Steamboat weekend.

Stock Show Excursion

In mid-January Mr X and I went to the Denver Stock Show to check it out. I guess it's a pretty big deal here in Colorado so we thought we should see what all the fuss was about. 

We watched a show with trained pot belly pigs - weird but amusing.
We saw a chainsaw woodcarving demonstration - interesting and loud.
We went to a big, fancy rodeo - always entertaining.
And we perused the show animals - my favorite part. You should see them groom these animals for the judging - it's like an animals spa complete with hot showers, hair cuts, hair styling (using giant blow dryers, some sort of hair spray stuff, etc) and brushing/combing. All of the animals really do look like they are really enjoying all of the pampering. It was funny. The best part though was seeing how impressively HUGE some of the animals were. Some of the returning champs even had plaques and ribbons hanging above their stalls.

I didn't get many photos of the animals but the guys below impressed me enough that I overcame my photography laziness and tried to snap a few: The Texas Longhorns and the Brahma Bulls. These were monstrously huge in person!

Even though the stock show & rodeo were interesting and well done, I'll probably not go again due to the sheer number of people there. It was maddening. Awful. By the end of the day there was nothing more I wanted than to retreat to the foothills and hide from all humans except Mr X. I couldn't get out of there quickly enough. That being said - I'm glad I attended this event once.

SD Favorites

In San Diego, during the holidays, it's always nice to drive by the San Diego Temple and see the beautiful light displays there. Plus this is my favorite temple. And the most beautiful (my opinion, I know). It's where Mr X and I got married so I'm very partial to this temple. Here are some photos of it in all of it's holiday glory:

And on a completed different note - I've told you before that every time I'm in San Diego I HAVE to stop by the Blue Market Grill for fish tacos. Hands down the best fish tacos I have ever had. This particular trip was long enough that I was able to eat here several times. 

This trip I had the grilled Jumbo Shrimp taco (my favorite), the beer battered lobster taco (now my second favorite), and a grilled scallop taco (probably fourth favorite, after the halibut taco). These are SO GOOD people! My mouth is watering right now just thinking about them. And no, I'm not getting paid to say these things, unfortunately. Nor am I getting any free tacos. Also unfortunate.

Beer Battered Lobster Tacos.

Grilled Scallop Taco.

Grilled Jumbo Shrimp Taco.

Kicking Off December in San Diego

I was in San Diego for the first two weeks of December for work. It really made it feel like I skipped a large chunk of time for holiday preparation and festivities. During any time off from work I tried to squeeze in some festive fun. Mr X even made a whirlwind trip just for the weekend to see me. 

We happened to be in San Diego during the weekend of "December Nights". It's a holiday event that they do in Balboa Park every year for one weekend. Lots of vendors, holiday shops, free access to the museums, Christmas music, lights and performances. We showed up right when it opened because we didn't want to have to deal with parking problems or drive in traffic. Our plan worked.

 

The architecture of the buildings in Balboa Park is beautiful.

Behind that giant tree is an enormous pipe organ that was played later. In this photo a bunch of little kids are dressed up and singing Christmas songs & doing dances.

The Arboretum at Balboa Park.

The Old Globe Theater's Grinch Tree.

We checked out the Museum of Natural History. It was great fun!

Mr X's older brother came down from LA to visit us while we were in town. It was really nice to see him. He came to December Nights with us.

The food highlight of the evening was a food stand called "Sweiners". I suppose that's is a combination of Swiss and Weiners. Mr X and I have had something similar to this before in Vienna several years back. I remembered them being really yummy so we decided to see how these fared in comparison.

Basically they take a half of a mini baguette, punch a hole in it, fill that hole up with melted Swiss Raclette/Gruyere cheeses, stuff a roasted sausage in and then put a pump or two of mustard on the top. They are so, so delicious. I will admit that the ones we had in Vienna were better, but these certainly were not far behind.