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It snowed all night. Our room has a view of the mountains, it was beautiful. Katie was very excited, it has been a while since she had been skiing. This year she was going to try snowboarding. I had been considering joining her, but I had some serious reservations. Someone of my years and girth are better suited to hot chocolate and books in the ski lodge. I had decided to try it anyway.

First we had to get there. There were 3-4 inches of snow on our car. Ice scraper? Hmmm, not standard issue in Houston. Katie and I proceeded to try and get the ice off by hand. When we were almost finished we found someone at the hotel who gave us one. Now to get the car started.

You have to understand, our car, a 98 Ford Expedition has been our trusted steed for 8+ years, never once giving us any trouble. But it was used to hot weather at sea level and now it was 15 degrees and over 8000 ft. It started but would not hold it’s idle, I had to keep my foot on the gas until it warmed up, then we left with a clean windshield and started up the mountain pass.

There was a fair amount of ice and snow but for the most part we were able to maintain our place in the procession up the canyon. There is nothing but mountains, rocks and trees for the next 18 miles or so although they look stunning with all the new snow and the bright blue sky. Eventually we hit the town of Nederland, it has 2 gas stations and no lights. From there we turn onto the road that will take us to the Eldora ski area about 5 miles away. About half way there we see a High School out in the middle of nowhere. We pass a sign that says “chains or adequate snow tires required”, we press on, and arrive safely 15 min later.

Sarah and I had made the same trip last spring break while Katie and Linda went to Carnegie Hall in NY. Skiing is always a popular choice of winter vacations in the Christy house. We picked this combination of Boulder Co and Eldora ski mountain for several reasons. Eldora is a small "local" ski mountain. It's plenty big enough for our meager talents but since it's not a resort it is far less crowded especially during popular times like spring break.

In Boulder there is a millennium House Hotel, sometime they run a special called 100 for a 100. Essentially this means you room costs $100/day but they give you $100 credit per day for food and drink! Fantastic! So that is what we are doing again this year.

After we got here on Sunday night we relaxed, got cleaned up then went down for dinner. Katie had the Cesar salad and the Gnochi with Bolognsese sauce, and I had the Wedge salad and Buffalo Ribeye steak. For desert we shared a Chocolate Pecan Caramel Tort. Yum!

Katie and I got up early on Sat. Morning so we could leave before the sunrise (she likes that). We didn't get far before we stopped for breakfast at our favorite on-the-road-breakfast-stop, waffle House. After stocking up on carbs and sugar we continued our trek north.

Another favorite traveling tradition is to listen to a book on tape. First up, "The restaurant at the end of the Universe" by Douglas Adams. This is the sequel to the "hitchhikers guide to the galaxy" another book we had listed to in the past.

Other than a perpetual traffic jam just north of Ft. Worth, the trip was un eventful. We stayed in Amarillo that night. Unfortunately we had picked a place next to a GIANT truck stop. It was far enough away that the noise and diesel fumes were not a real problem but the CONSTANT stream of trucks coming and going actually made it hard to get into and out of the hotel.

We got into Amarillo around 4:00 so we decided to take in a movie, while looking for the local features (isn't the internet great?) we saw that they still have a drive-in up in these parts! They even had a double feature. Although tempting, we did not want to stay up that late so we went to the local mega plex and saw "The Pink Panther". We had some time to kill before the movie started so we went next door to the arcade and played the usual sports - air hockey, pool and Return of the Dead shooting game.

The next mooring we were up bright and early as usual and ready to leave Texas, pass through New Mexico and start climbing Colorado. This is a fairly uninhabited part of the country and breakfast was a problem - no Waffle House. We ate from our cooler (another traveling tradition). We had also finished the Adams book so we moved on to "Harry Potter and the goblet of Fire". Although the movie just came out we wanted to listed to the story again, it is so much better than the movie. Other than a snow storm we ran into just south of Denver that stayed with us to Boulder, the trip went smoothly.

Next week is Spring Break for our school. Guess where Katie and I are going? That's right, skiing!

We are going Colorado, staying in Boulder and skiing at Eldora mountain. Sarah and I went there last year and had a great time. That was when Linda and Katie went to Carnegie Hall.

We are heading out on Sat, driving to Amarillo then on Sunday we will arrive in Boulder. We plan to ski Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday then start our journey back on Thursday.

We are both excited to go. We like driving trips. We usually listed to one or more books on tape and do plenty of snacking. This trip will be no different. I hope to post some details of our trip in future posts.