What a weekend! I wish I had a new camera to share some pictures, but I’m still waiting on the stupid Circuit City gift card. It’s been like 2 months now.

Anyway, we get to Denver late on Friday night and go to pick up our rental car. We reserved a Dodge Stratus, but we ended up with a Jeep Liberty. Pretty nice little deal for the mountain driving we would be doing. So we head towards the mountains, with mapquest as our guide. We follow the highway to an exit for US 6, Loveland Pass. This small road takes us up a very windy snowy road up to the top of a mountain. We actually cross the continental divide, and then follow a similar course to the bottom of this mountain. Later on we realize that US 6 hits the highway in 2 spots. The other route makes you go further down the highway, but it provides a much easier and quicker route. This once again proves my theory that mapquest will get you there, but it won’t always be the quickest or easiest way. We did have a very scenic drive though, and since we weren’t in a hurry it wasn’t a big deal. After checking in we head out for a drink at a local bar. We soon realize that one of the great things about Keystone is they have free shuttle buses that run for all hours of the night. We enjoy a local band for awhile, but soon realize that we should be headed to bed for the big day of snowboarding ahead.

The next day we get our lift tickets for the two days and after a little time I get a snowboard rental for the two days as well. I guess the snow that they have been having isn’t very typical, so they weren’t very prepared. It took awhile to find the open stores, which were all at a different base than where we were staying. We then enjoyed the entire day on the slopes. Snowboarding must be kind of like riding a bike. At first I thought I was going to have to learn everything all over again, but I quickly remembered the basics and I was back to it. Keep in mind this is only the 3rd day I have ever snowboarded, and my first time ever in Colorado. The slopes in Colorado are quite intimidating, when all I am used to are the local Cincinnati and Kansas City ski areas. I took it easy at first, but after a while Kim was having a hard time keeping up with me. :) Actually she did say that I was riding at a level which took her a year or two to get to. Obviously she doesn’t take nearly as many falls as I do. After 4PM we headed back to the room to get changed for the night. We went to see The Swing Crew, a band that we had seen before with Doni. I guess they spend their winters in Colorado and their summers in Wisconsin (I think). Between the two seasons they play many shows along their route from the once home to the other. It was a really good time seeing them again, in a not so crowded bar. After they were done we headed to a local Italian restaurant for a big dinner and some wine. It was definitely one of the best restaurants I have been to in a long time. We headed in much earlier this night so we could be on the slopes for a full day on Sunday.

Although we were both sore, we spent hours and hours on the slopes Sunday. I don’t think I fell as often, but each fall hurt worse because of the pain from the day before. Kim was getting overly confident and was riding with the opposite foot in front. She actually caught onto it pretty well until one nasty fall ended our day on the slopes. She wasn’t really hurt, but the both of us had enough of it. We headed in and left Keystone even though we didn’t want to.

Hopefully we can get back there sometime soon, it was so much fun. I need to get Kim to work on a transfer to Denver. :)