As promised, more about our AMAZING ski trip!!!

The trip out there was a bit slow – you wouldn’t think there would be that many people on the road at 7 AM. Rush hour just starts earlier and earlier these days, doesn’t it? I passed out juice boxes and granola bars since we didn’t have time to breakfast at home, but then Matthew talked me into stopping at the truck stop with the world-famous (or at least Colorado-famous) monster cinnamon rolls. So glad we did! The rolls were delicious! And about the size of dinner plates, too. I don’t even want to think about how many calories – let’s just say I should have hiked up the ski slopes instead of taking the lift, LOL!

When we finally got to the slopes they weren’t too crowded, since it was a weekday, but the guy in the rental shop told me that starting the next day the winter vacation crowds would start pouring in. I asked if it wasn’t a bit early for winter break, but he told me that colleges and a lot of private schools get out a week before the public schools do. Wow, that must be nice! A whole extra week of vacation.

Anyway, we first dropped Rachel off at the daycare where she was soon happily playing with a few kids – they were all kids of people who worked at the resort, the lady in charge told me. Well, Rachel seemed to be having a good time, that’s good, since it will be a few more years before she can ski with the family! After that the rest of us had to be fitted for ski equipment – we rented since, as I mentioned in my last post, we just haven’t been skiing enough as a family to have invested in our own skis and ski gear. They found something to fit everybody, and Cassidy thought the ski crutch was really cool – even if it wasn’t quite as fashionable as her “designer” crutches. Matthew rented a board, of course, that didn’t really have to be fitted but he still needed boots.

After that, we all went off to our different slopes. Jake joined the kids’ beginner class (they have classes for adult beginners, too, luckily I’m a little bit beyond that!), and Cassidy of course went with the disabled skiers group. She was really excited to see other people with disabilities skiing! Matthew quickly met up with a crowd of kids around his age, all of them snowboarding, of course. (Plain old skis just don’t seem to be “in” with teenagers any more.) Then I went off on my own for a day on the bunny slopes – it was great! I think next time I might be ready for intermediate! Of course the snow pack helped a lot – there was only a little snow today, but they’d had a pretty heavy snowfall (about 7”) a few days before and it was all packed down pretty good, made for easy skiing. Too bad the landings were harder than I’d have liked! (Yes, I still landed on my bottom a few times.)

Anyway, we all met up again at noon for a lunch of burgers (the kids) and French onion soup (me) in the lodge, then we took off for another afternoon of skiing and boarding. By the end of the first day Cassidy was so excited, she wants to know now if there is a Special Olympics ski team and can she be on it? Guess I better go back and do some more research on the net.