LaCroix Cup, 2012

We were lucky enough to participate in the 2012 LaCroix cup this year. Our team was three due to Connor's fracture, but... We did pretty good!

There were about 85 people registered for the race.

Fiona placed second in her age category (girls)

Michael placed first in his age category (mens)

I got third in my age category (womens). I need to improve my time.

Drumroll.... Our team won the cup with the fastest time. We are so lucky -- we're the first family to win two years in a row!!! Go Skiing Dogs!!!

You may have noticed our outfits. We weren't being goofy - it was a luau theme!

The Gadgets and Gear that Helped Us Along

In addition to our ski gear, our electronic gear and gadgets helped make for a fun time capturing memories of the trip. We went out with as little as possible, but certain things had to be included.

Our phones. Really, a must-have. The side benefit was the navigation app we have (Navigon) that told us what routes to take. It was convenient and reliable. It even made some of the regular things fun. Take the tunnels... As we drove through them, it even changed the screen to be a tunnel :)

Our iPads. Loaded with books, music and movies, we had all the entertainment we could need. As a matter of fact, we only watched one of the four movies we brought (and I fell asleep during that one).

Our cameras. Mike shot using a Nikon AW100. This waterproof beauty also records GPS locations. Oooh, pretty maps... I shot with the much less expensive but capable Easy Share Sport 123. It is also waterproof.

Mike's snazzy snapcatcher

My durable do-gooder

All the gadgets required cords and chargers. We organized them in our gadget pocket and grid it.

Boot dryers. You can forget this baby. It keep our boots dry and our toes toasty. This was worth every bit of the $24.99 it cost. It has both a wall charger and a car charger so you are good to go.

That's it folks! I'll give you a rest from our trip. Now back to regular programming :)

Ski Trip Summary

Lest you think we are really that nerdy, the EpicMix pass we had for Vail Resorts really made the trip fun. The passes had RF chips in them that were read each time we took a lift and each time we had our pics snapped by the pros. The website tracked our vertical feet, organized our pics, and even gave us pins for accomplishments (like taking a lift 5 times, or skiing 75,000 vertical feet). I really wish the mountains in New England would add this ability. It was great fun for us and would be even more fun for kids.

Part of the capability was to create a collage of our trip. Here are ours:

Mike was clearly the rock star. He skied beyond what I did on Monday and Wednesday. He was terribly disappointed not to have reached 100,000 vertical feet

My vertical should be about 82,000; my pass didn't read for some reason, even though Mike's did. It was fun anyway!

We're looking forward to our next ski adventure. It will be fun to plan for!

Saying Goodbye and Coming Home

We had a great time in Breckenridge. We did a lot of skiing and enjoyed a little of the village atmosphere. Friday was the last day in the town and our only day of not skiing. It was strange to wake up and look outside at all the other people who were skiing. On the bright side, we missed the busy busy slopes that President's week brought. The lines were incredibly long.

We treated ourselves to breakfast out for the first time during our stay. We tried the Blue Moose Restaurant. It was good, prices reasonable, and a popular spot. On the way back to our room we stopped by Christy Sports to take a look around. We were shocked. Nearly 10 am and the ski rental line had at least 50 people waiting. We were thankful once again to have wrapped up the day before.

We wanted to enjoy a little more of the scenery before heading to Denver for our 5 pm flight. I took a last shot of Peak 9 from our balcony so I could enjoy it from home. Here's the panorama:

We sure would miss the convenience of stepping outside and to the lift line!

We made a last minute decision to stop by Keystone Ski Area and Arapahoe Basin Ski Area on the way out. Both were less than 15 miles away. We took Swan Mountain Road from Route 9 to Route 6. Whew! Switchbacks galore!

We got a few great pics of the view. Lovely!

My memories of Keystone are much dimmer than those of Breckenridge. I skied there with my family, but I think it was only for one year. I'd never been to A Basin before. Wow! There were several step blacks with moguls. Looked scary to me.

Done with exploring ski areas, we made a plan to stop along the way and see something else. Lunch time came when we were near the town of Georgetown, so we stopped for a bite. The town was cute, if small, and seemed to have an artsy edge. We did not do any shopping.

Lunch was at the Happy Cooker. If you know me, as you should, you can imagine what the name made me think...

 

As lunch drew to a close, our trip did, too. Denver-bound, we had to gas up the car, take it to the rental place and deal with the fun at DIA.

The return process was trouble-free. The guys at Hertz even took us to the airport in the rental car so we wouldn't to take a shuttle with all of our bags :) Our flight was delayed by an hour, so the night wore on a bit. We made it back to Northborough by 1 am.

Home Sweet Home. Kitty Sweet Kitty was purrfectly happy to see us!

 

So, that was the trip. I'll have a couple more little posts about it to wrap things up. Hope you enjoyed the recap as much as we enjoyed the trip!

Skiing, Day Four

Of all the days on our trip, the last day of skiing was The. Absolute. Best. Seriously. The conditions were perfect, the weather was beautiful, the trails were groomed. And we were ready to hit it. And, baby, hit it we did.

We played hard and long. If this day didn't make up for the travesty at Vail, nothing would. 32,130 vertical feet, 24 lifts, on the slopes from 8:30 am to 4 pm with only 45 minutes in breaks. It ROCKED!!!!

We also got some good pro pics :)

We celebrated the end of a great week of skiing at Empire Burger. I got nachos, but Mike enjoyed his burger.  We continued the t-shirt hunt and made our purchases. We ended up getting Connor's shirt at The Shirt Mine. It is close to the one below, except we got him red instead of tie dye.

We got Fiona a shirt at Breck Kidz. I can't find a pic (we forgot to take one), but it is pink and says "Ski like a girl... You Wish!"

We also got shirts for ourselves... I got this one

And Mike's:

 All in all, we had a super time! Thursday was the day!!

So, that wraps up the skiing recaps, but there is more to come! Up next will be adventures from the last day of our trip. Then a trip recap, followed by a gadgets and gear post. Stay tuned!

Skiing, Day Three

Mike was really looking forward to visiting Vail on our trip. We decided to this on Wednesday. We hopped in the car for the 45 minute trip to the bigger mountain (6 miles of skiing versus something like 4 at Breck). I wasn't feeling too zippy, which should have set off warning bells. But, alas...

The trails were nice and wide, the snow was groomed beautifully, and the mountain was our oyster (??).

We did some great runs in the Game Creek Bowl (and I did more tree peeing), then we headed to the Big Sky Bowl. Mike really wanted me to try the groomed intermediate bowl there, but I wasn't having any of that... I was scared and stubborn. So, we had to take a 4 mile traverse (in non-skiing terms, this is basically a snow covered road) to get to the bottom of the mountain. It totally sucked. Had I known how grumpy we both would be after taking it, on top of my leg fatigue from the day before, I would have skied the bowl. The things you learn in hindsight. Unfortunately, things went even more downhill (ha ha) from there. It was an altogether bad day. Mike was terribly disappointed and I felt bad for being such a PIA.

He did get this great pic, tho :)

The pros got a few pics with a great view...

We headed back to Breck at 1, after skiing only 12,335 vertical feet and taking 9 lifts. Truly suckilicious. Mike got some fresh air at Breck and skied another 6,000 feet (4 lifts) before calling it a day. In retrospect we realized we should have had a plan. Vail is just too big to blunder around, skiing here and there, without knowing where to hit and how. We're better positioned now for the next trip, and I hope to make amends for the foul up on this one.

Dinner out was a quiet affair. We headed to Downstairs at Eric's for pizza, then off to Crepes a la Cart for dessert. The pizza wasn't our favorite, but I could LIVE on those crepes!

We also began our search for the best shirts we could find for Connor and Fiona. This was no easy task...

One more day of skiing, then the trip home. Are you tired yet?

Skiing, Day Two

After a great start to our ski trip, I was psyched to begin our second day of skiing. The sky was clear, the slopes were beautiful corduroy, and I was RTG!

Heeding Mike's warnings about altitude sickness that can occur at 2 miles above sea level, I decided to drink lots of water. This was good, but did have a side effect -- I peed like crazy. I finally got tired of running to the nearest lodge and started a new solution. Tree peeing (yeah, most people do tree skiing -- not me). Hey -- it took care of the problem!

The day really rocked. We did 22,740 vertical feet and took 17 lifts. The pros uploaded 7 snaps of us (3 more just went missing -- they never got turned in :( )

Not only was Tuesday our second day of skiing, it was also Valentine's Day! Michael took me out to a lovely French restaurant, Le Petit Paris Bistro. The food was lovely and I was so lucky to have the best guy ever!

Skiing, Day One

Snow rained down on the mountain after we went to bed on Sunday night. We awoke to several inches of powder in the morning. I hadn't done real powder skiing since I was little, and I was pretty rusty. We also needed to take some time to get to know the mountain. What trails and lifts we would like the best.

Mike at Peak 10

One of the cutest things we saw was one of the many adventure parks for kiddos. Unfortunately, we were not able to go in :)

Connor and Fiona would have loved this

The day was good. I skied until 2 pm (we started at 9 am); Mike continued on his own for another hour. At the end of the day, I did about 14,000 vertical feet and 11 lifts. Mike topped out at 18,750 vertical feet and 15 lifts. Our EpicMix pass actually tracked all that info for us, along with giving us access to free pictures taken by pros at the top of certain lifts (you get to pay for high res images). The three pro photos from Monday are below.

We went back to the room and shed the protective layers that kept us cozy all day. We were so glad we brought enough gear to keep us comfortable in flying snow.

Yes, all of those clothes for just two people

We had a relaxing drink over at Cecelia's way before the raucous crowds arrived.

Then we headed to Hearthstone for an amazing dinner. All local Colorado foods, served in a Victorian home-converted-to-restaurant. If you go to Breck, this is highly recommended.

More to come; I still have 3 more days of skiing!