Day 27 - First Day of Summer

Catching up from being out over the weekend ... Vail was absolutely beautiful. We certainly under appreciated the mountains in the winter. It's always hurry up and get on the lift - board down - and either get back in line or get in to a restaurant (or take a bathroom break) - and we don't really look around too much. Everything is blanketed in white and it's stunning, but we see it every winter. This was the first summer where we took a trip into the mountains. It won't be the last though. It's only 2 hours away but it's like a whole different place.

(From the drive up)

The weather was perfect - sunny and 70's the entire time. I only got a few shots with my phone on the drive up (Mike got more with his, those are below), the rest are on my camera. It was truly breathtaking. It was very relaxing. We took the shuttle into town Friday night for dinner, ate at a bar called the Tap Room. Saturday we got up early (credit to Tomo for the 7:00 am wake up call) and tried our hand at racquetball, which is my new favorite sport now and I'm going to try to pick it up after I heal. After that we played around on the basketball courts -- Mike taught me how to shoot properly as well as how to do a layup. I was better at the free throws than I was the layup -- getting the hand-foot coordination down is tricky the first few times. We had breakfast in the cafe and finished our coffee down by the river, sitting on the rocks. Afterward, we cleaned up, grabbed Tomo and took to the trails into the villages, Lionshead and Vail Village. We must have put in 6 or 7 miles walking around - and Mike did it all in flip flops! We improvised where the trails were closed -- going around the "Trail Closed" signs to stay as close to the river as possible and not on the main road. We see cars everyday. We weren't interested in walking next to them. At one point we had to cross over and follow the main road - but we quickly made our way back to the river. It was gorgeous. Mike was a sport -- I'm willing to take the trail as far as possible and improvise when I need to find a different path. Mike, being the more rational one who usually obeys "Closed" signs, indulged me and let me lead -- which meant climbing walls (passing Tomo up to me on top of said wall) and going through fences and squeezing in between gates in order to get where we needed to be. He had fun though, and even though he doesn't like the word "adventure" (because it usually means someone is lost) -- I think he liked this adventure.

(The roaring river)

Once we made our way into the villages, we ate and had a few beers. Tomo slept in my lap -- thoroughly exhausted from the walk. He NEVER sleeps in my lap, so I really took advantage of how tired he was. We made our way back to the resort, I napped and then we went to dinner (via shuttle) in Lionshead at a restaurant called Montauk. Mike indulged me again and we ordered a dozen oysters to start dinner off. Sunday we had breakfast at the resort, a lovely buffet, and took Tomo for another walk on the trail. We let him play in the river, which really surprised us both because he's such a priss sometimes that we never thought he'd get wet voluntarily! He really liked biting at the small waves and chasing down anything that was floating by.

When we got home, it suddenly dawned on me that this is the week everything happens. It snuck up on me. But like Beth said - that means the weekend worked.

(Summer Ski Lift)

(And finally, as Mike put it ... "My dog is wicked smart!")