One Post Blog of Last Week's Trip

After a year off recuperating from neck surgery, it was great to be back skiing in Steamboat from Feb. 14-22. I do not like to spend too much time on the computer while on vacation, so I thought I would do a 1 entry blog to summarize our awesome trip last week.

My wife and I flew in from Atlanta on the direct flight February 14. We got delayed by 2 hours for a medical emergency with one of the passengers. We decided that we preferred to spend a couple extra hours in ATL getting the guy some help versus having do an unscheduled landing in Memphis or Oklahoma City. Our daughter joined us for the week from Chicago on that direct flight, and it was over 2 hours late, which seems to be the norm for that flight.

Without too much prose, here are the specifics:

Lodging - stayed at a condo we own at Champagne Lodge at Trappeurs Crossing Resort. It is great to go from one home to another home that you know and are comfortable in. We looked at a model unit in the new Bear Lodge - very nice!

Dining: We ate in the condo 4 nights and ate out 4 nights. Our nights out were at: Rio Grande for Mexican (best Margaritias I have found in the Boat), Steamboat Smokehouse for BBQ (had a nice chat with a couple guys from London while we were waiting for our table), 8th Street Steakhouse, and Mahogany Ridge. We had brunch one day at Creekside and even though the wonderful outside dining is not available in the winter, the food is awesome. We also had lunch at Slopeside one day.

Activities: Lots of skiing, of course. The conditions were highly varied. There was not a whole lot of new snow over the course of the week, maybe 8". There were a couple of ugly, overcast days with very little new snow (if it is going to be overcast, it should at least be dumping snow -IMHO). There were some days of mixed sun, clouds, snow. Our last day on Saturday was a perfect bluebird Steamboat day that we thoroughly enjoyed and ended the trip on a fabulous note. See my post elsewhere about demo'ing skis - it was a great experience with the guys at the Yurt.

We also went snowmobiling for an afternoon with Saddleback Ranch. They do a first class job and I was very impressed. We have done 2 previous outings with Steamboat Snowmobile Tours, and I think we preferred the Saddleback guys, but not by much.

Of course, the ladies did their bit to help the economy by doing some shopping downtown.

On the down side, our daughter got to feeling a bit poorly and went to the Steamboat Medical Clinic (on Pine Grove Road next to Ski Haus and Safeway) and got a look-over and some prescriptions. She got a nice follow-up call from them the next day.

Social Life: We are starting to get a little social life going in Steamboat. We met Switchboard Kent and his wife Julie for drinks and appetizers one evening. It is always fun to get the inside scoop on life in Steamboat. Then we met some friends from Atlanta that have a condo in Clock Tower. We tried to connect with our decorator, but never managed to make the connection work.

As usual, we hated to leave, but we will be back sometime this summer. Our daughter had not been on a snowboard for 8 years, but she got back into it very quickly and was doing black runs on the second day. Her last time in Steamboat was 11 years ago, and she couldn't stop talking about how much she enjoyed the town. I think her inner boarding bum is showing up again as she talked to every local on the slopes and around town about moving to Steamboat. It would certainly beat visiting her in Chicago in the winter!