Breckenridge 2017 trip log.
We're the kind of people who plan vacations 6 months to a year in advance (thanks in large part to the races we sign up for, which require registering 6 months to a year in advance). We're also the kind of people who mostly just travel to go to races. So when facebook kept taunting me with pictures of our previous trips to Breckenridge, and I asked Matt if he wanted to go to Breckenridge spur of the moment, it was stepping pretty far outside of our comfort zone. But we both really needed to get away, and out of the heat, and take the dogs somewhere fun where they could actually go outside for more than 5 minutes.
And so we hit the road for Breckenridge, with our only goal being to enjoy ourselves and the weather.
Oh, and to take a thousand pictures. More than I even feel comfortable spamming social media with (!), so I figured I might as well write up a daily trip report, so I can remember this trip later, and as a dumping ground for my pictures. It's stupidly detailed about insanely mundane things, and smacks of useless navel-gazing, but .. I like writing, and hey, there's pictures, so you don't even have to read the words.
Day 0
Travel day. It took us 12 hours to get out of Texas, with a bonus chip in our windshield that required a trip to the auto parts store and a lot of sitting around waiting for epoxy to epoxicize. Fortunately the very handy Matt managed to take care of it and it didn't ruin the rest of our trip.
Road trip food! Only available in Canada and the middle of absolutely nowhere Texas.
Out of Texas, briefly through New Mexico...
This was our view immediately upon entering New Mexico, and it was exactly how we felt about finally getting out of Texas.
... and finally into Colorado, where we stopped for the night as planned in Trinidad.
Our dogs love a hotel bed. Any bed, really.
Day 1
We couldn't check into our house in Breckenridge until 4pm, so we tried to sleep in (mostly failed), and then rolled out of bed, ate some continental breakfast, and then drove over to the Trinidad Lake State Park. We'd seen a sign for it driving in the night before, and figured that would be a good way to kill some time and wear the dogs out before they had to get back in the car.
Trinidad Lake, I assume.
We did a little 1 mile loop, then drove down to the lake and did some sight seeing. Then back in the car for a ~5 hour scenic drive to Breckenridge. We intentionally took the longer, more scenic route, because there were signs on the interstate warning that traffic may be congested due to the eclipse.
Our dogs are so good at road trips.
Speaking of the eclipse, we did not intend to do anything special for the eclipse. The fact that we ended up in Colorado for it was pure happy coincidence, since in Austin we'd only have occlusion in the low 50%, whereas Breck would have occlusion in the low 90%!
We had a lot of hours to discuss our eclipse plan on our drive; originally we thought maybe we'd hike up somewhere and view from there, but then we decided to combine eclipse viewing with one of Matt's vacation goals: renting mountain bikes and riding up to the top of Peak 9. But that meant we needed mountain bikes! So our first errand upon arriving in Breckenridge was to drop the dogs and stuff at our house (which fortunately we were able to get into a little earlier than 4), and hustle over to the bike shop before they closed. We rented two mountain bikes and hauled them to the house.
Our backyard and our view. Amazing.
Then we saddled the dogs up and went out for one of our favorite Breck traditions: our nightly walk down Main Street. Because it was the weekend, and before dinner time, and right before the eclipse, there were more people than we've ever seen on Main Street, and tons of dogs, and it was lovely and in the low 60s and we were so happy we'd decided to make this trip.
Main Street stroll!
When we first got to Main, we popped into a pizza place, placed a to go order, and then walked for 20 minutes while they got it ready. On our way back, we picked up the pizza, walked back home, then ate pizza while watching Game of Thrones (thank you, ChromeCast).
Hilda said she fit just fine.
Then an early bedtime, since we were exhausted after 2 days of travel.
Sunset from our back yard.
Day 2
The dogs have no idea what time it ever is at this point, so I was up at 5am (local) to let them out, 6am to feed them, and then at 7 I decided to just give up and stay up.
They ran around like crazybeasts each time they went out.
Matt and I went to breakfast at our favorite breakfast place (Park and Main), then came back to grab the dogs to go to the dog park. The walk is slightly longer than from the house we've stayed at in the past, and slightly hillier, but definitely still doable. Of course by the time we got there, after that walk, they were already tired, plus even though it was 60 degrees, it was very sunny and warm, and there were a couple dogs that were more assertive than the dogs prefer, so we just sat there and chatted with a nice dog park patron for 20 minutes or so, then headed back.
We deemed the dogs sufficiently worn out, so we hopped on our bikes and headed for Peak 9. By way of the grocery store, to pick up sandwiches and apple pies as a peak treat.
As we headed from the grocery store to the mountain, we rode past people in eclipse glasses! Ohyeah! Eclipse! Lots of people staring at the sky, it was a bit surreal. One woman offered us glasses as we rode by, which was great, but we said we already had some.
Then to the mountain! I was a little nervous, since I'm a terrible mountain biker, but Matt assured me that it was mostly jeep roads. Which was true. But I underestimated how much the elevation would hurt. I figured.. I can just drop into my smallest gear and spin up. Which I did. But even with that, I'd get to a steeper part, and my heart rate would just shoot up, I couldn't breathe, I was so completely thirsty, and I just had to stop. Fortunately for me, there was a ton of traffic from people going to look at the eclipse from the peak (in cars), so we had to pull over a lot, and I could pretend like I was doing that instead of almost dying.
An amazing failed panorama.
These stops also gave us an opportunity to stare at the sun! We had our eclipse glasses in our back pockets, and we'd pull them out and check out the sun, then get back on our bikes to ride to the next steep spot. It was pretty amazing to be on the mountain during the eclipse. It never got Dark, but the light got very strange and dimmer and the colors weird.
I attempted to take a picture of the eclipse through my eclipse glasses. It did not work. But this is weird looking!
And when we'd ride under trees, the dappled light on the ground would be eclipse-shaped. Definitely a fun and unique way to experience it.
This is the best of the terrible eclipse glasses selfies. It's hard to take a selfie when you can't see anything at all.
I was pretty concerned for a while there that I wasn't going to be able to make it. My heart rate was SO high. And the switchbacks just kept coming and coming and the road never seemed to end. And have I mentioned I'm a terrible mountain biker? Slipping all over the place. Trying to start on an uphill and in a low, low, low gear, and having to attempt multiple times to get rolling. Matt tried to give me good advice, and I was frustrated and unkind and my head hurt and I wasn't having fun.
He still loves me, though. I think.
But I wanted to do this, and I knew it was something Matt really wanted to do, so I kept with it. And eventually it got easier. And I could breathe. And my heart rate dropped and stayed low, even when on the steeper bits. And the steeper bits eventually got so steep that we started to hike-a-bike rather than try to ride it. And it turns out I'm AWESOME at hike-a-bike. I decided to go into professional hike-a-bike. Which.. at that point, why even tote the bike along? I guess that's basically hiking. Or running.
Photo op during a rest stop.
Anyway, we kept going, it got easier even as it got steeper and more technical, and eventually we got up to the Ski Patrol near the peak. It was a logical ending point, very nearly at the top but just shy of the peak, and it had a picnic table.
View from the top.
So we parked, ate our turkey bacon sandwiches (well, half of them; turns out working hard at elevation kinds kills your hunger), shared an apple pie, and then turned around and headed back down.
Extra delicious at the top of a mountain.
And yes, it was MUCH easier on the way down. My terrible handling skills meant that the first part, the most technical part that we'd hiked up, was very white-knuckled, but I rode the whole thing, went over some rocks and low ledges, and didn't have too many scary sliding incidents. As we got lower, it turned into just jeep trail again, and the main fears were loose sand and sometimes small rocks, but I was able to go a little bit faster.
Whee, back down!
And then we were down at the bottom! And.. then we had to ride back to our house, which is uphill. Oof. But it was on blacktop, which felt so easy at that point.
Once we got home, we took a much-needed shower, ate some leftover pizza, did our daily duolingo lessons, then managed to drag ourselves off the couch and put on real people clothes again. We dropped off my bike (Matt is keeping his for a few days), finally did some cursory grocery shopping, and exited the grocery store into a loud and amazing thunderstorm.
We came home to some surprisingly calm dogs (given the thunderstorm). We fed them and then waited for the storm to stop. Once it finally moved out, we went out for our Main Street walk and discovered the storm had brought in 55 degree weather and a cool breeze. Enzo LOVES this kind of weather, and the dogs loved the walk, even though there was barely anyone out on Main Street (no longer the weekend, weather chased them away, during dinnertime).
Happiest little dude.
We came back and discovered that we were both finally hungry again (again, working out at elevation kills the appetite), and decided we couldn't deal with People anymore. So we ordered some takeout from Empire Burgers, packed up the tired dogs in the car and went to pick it up. When we got back to the house, a HUGE fox ran off our porch and down the streets. Fortunately the dogs were too tired from all their fun to notice.
Then dinner, daily write-up, some kindle, then bed!
Day 3
Up early again with the dogs, then slept fitfully until 7ish, when I gave up. A slow and uneventful morning, but then out the door with the dogs for Adventure!
When we were up here last year, we tried to do the Blue Lakes hike, but we didn't very far in the car on the road to the trailhead before it was completely snowed over, and super scary to even turn around and come back down. So we decided to give it another try! This time with 100% less snow!
But actually not a whole lot more success on actually doing the Blue Lakes hike. We found what we thought was the trailhead, which was completely unmarked. We started where we thought the trail lead, and eventually did get to a sign.. which mentioned nothing about being the Blue Lakes trailhead. It did say that this trail was difficult, often unmarked, and not for the faint of heart. Which really wasn't what we were after, with our dogs, one of whom is a rather spindly and out of shape greyhound.
The start of our hike.
We chatted with several other hikers out there, all of whom were in the same situation as we were. Everyone wanted the Blue Lakes trail, but nobody knew exactly where it was supposed to be or where to go. We finally decided to at least start on the trail and see what happened, knowing we could just turn around if it didn't work out.
A marmot that was yelling angrily at us.
Of course, first we had to get ON the trail, which was over a waist-high wall and then across some really terrible giant chunky broken up rocks. It required concentration for a human, and a shepherd was able to scrabble over it with a little effort, but there was no way Enzo was gonna get through there with all his legs intact. So Matt, wonderful dad that he is, carried Enzo over. And amazingly, they didn't end up BOTH with broken legs somehow.
He's a little trooper.
The trail, in fact, was very difficult to find. Some people were going basically straight up the mountain, which held little interest for us. Not with the dogs and all those rocks. So we followed a little pseudo-path that went down by the lake's edge, knowing Hilda would LOVE to get in the lake. And she did. Happiest shepherd ever.
That water was COLD, but that did not stop Hilda from repeatedly wading in and laying down.
We hiked as far as we could along the lake's edge, until it basically ended in a rock slide. We could see waaay on the other side that there might be more trail, but Hilda and I did some recon, and it was hard for us to get across the rocks, so we decided it wasn't worth trying to get Enzo over there (and then later get him back across). So we turned around and hiked back out, with Matt carrying Enzo over the wall again, and ended up with just over a mile for that hike.
At the lake's edge.
The dogs actually probably would have been completely satisfied with that adventure, but it was such a windy, rocky, bumpy, slow drive to get out there, we figured we should see if there was any other places we could check out. We drove back down the road a bit, and pulled off into another place some people were parked. At first it just looked like some folks fishing in the lower lake, but we found a road on the other side, and decided to see where it went.
The lower lake, with dramatic shepherd.
This road was more like the dogs were used to hiking at home.. mostly jeep trail, lots of puddles of gross water to tromp through and attempt to drink, some pretty little lakeside picnic tables. Then eventually it went into the woods and some wonderful loamy, pine-needly soil, and we could hear a waterfall ahead. We kept going until we managed to find it, and then decided to head back to the car.
About 1.4 miles for that bit of hiking, and the dogs were definitely done at that point. We drove back to the house, hosed them off the best we could, and then they were OUT. Mandatory dog rest time.
Worn. Out.
Which let us sneak out and get some lunch at Matt's favorite little cafe on Main Street. Then a little souvenir shopping on the way back home.
A valid vacation beverage.
And then people rest time! We needed some down time, so we uploaded photos, did duolingo, read the internet, laid on the couch with the dogs, and generally avoided moving.
Eventually we dragged ourselves up and showered (yes, we went unshowered that whole time, but hey, it was in the mid 50s.. we didn't SWEAT), then cooked up some pasta for dinner in anticipation of finally running on Wednesday morning.
Dramatic sky, no storm.
We hoped we'd have a nice evening thunderstorm again to watch from our balcony, but this one missed us, so we just got a lot of dramatic sky. The dogs made a half-hearted show of running around the backyard for a few minutes after dinner, but they were still so exhausted we decided to skip Main Street stroll for a night.
Exhausted greyhounds earn dinner in bed.
And then an early bedtime, in anticipation of a morning run!
Day 4
I didn't want to run in a strange place in the dark, and it was only supposed to be in the mid 40s in the morning, so I figured it would be okay to start my run at 8, which I'd NEVER do at home this time of year. Turned out to not be the best decision, because the trail is sunny and exposed, and that's kinda miserable even at low temperatures. But! I did my run!
My goal was to run 15 miles, which is 2 miles more than the longest run I've done since IMTX, but I was hoping that the cooler temps and lower humidity would make it less miserable than at home. I wanted to run along the hike and bike path that I've run on before, and that Matt and I rode on last year, but I know from experience that it's downhill all the way out, uphill all the way back. I didn't want that uphill part. So Matt and I worked out a plan wherein he'd drive up to my finish point with his bike in the car, then he'd ride back toward me and give me water when I needed it, and then go ride around and have his own fun, and then we'd both end up at the car and drive home. Except that the place we figured might be 15ish was only 10. So then I was going to run those 10, turn around and run 5 back (or however many I felt like I could do at that point).
I took off from the house and ran down to Main Street, opposite direction from my eventual goal, because I love running through that area. Stopped to pee half a mile in (stupid elevation), then hit the rec path, where I'd be for the rest of my run.
I stopped to take off my long sleeved shirt about 2.5 miles in, because even with temps in the high 40s, it was just too miserable with sleeves for me. (Everyone else I saw out there had sleeves, so I guess it's just me.) Right after that, I got to a place where the road crosses the path, and there was Matt! He cheered for me, asked if I needed anything, and then I ran on.
The run was okay. I felt very out of breath for the first few miles, and then.. well, I continued to feel out of breath, but I got used to it. It didn't feel great, but it was fine. And the first part is beautiful, so I just enjoyed that.
The beautiful part, that runs along the river.
Eventually it gets less beautiful, in that it's right next to a highway, and then there was construction. I actually saw Matt right before the construction, about 8 miles in, and he warned me that even though it was downhill most of the way to Frisco (our end point), there was a little ridge you had to run up and over to get there. We'd ridden it on our bikes, but when I got there on the run.. man, I just fell apart. My heart rate shot way up, my legs were burning, and I was miserable. Once I made it up the main slog uphill (and I'm not JUST being a wimp, this was an intense climb), it went up and down a few times, but my body was just DONE. I stopped at one point to just breathe. Then I made myself start walking for about 30 seconds, and finally convinced myself to run again. But I had slowed way, way down from before, and wasn't sure what this meant for the length of my run.
A couple miles later, I finally got to the medical center in Frisco, which is where Matt had parked the car. When we'd seen each other at mile 8, he'd told me he was going to go check out some trails in the area, and he gave me the key so I could refill water when I got to the car. I got there, assessed my state of being, and decided I could NOT run 5 miles back the way I'd just come from. Too many demons in those miles. Couldn't do it.
But I decided I COULD keep running further down the path, and see what was that way. Maybe it was also horrible hills, but at least it'd be NEW horrible hills. So I refilled, texted Matt my new plan, so he could come get the key from me, and ran on. I got about a mile down the road, then Matt found me. I gave him the key, and he told me my optimistic plan of running further down the path while he came and got me in the car wasn't realistic, because the path no longer ran near the road. Instead we decided I'd run one more mile out, then turn around and go back to the car and call it good. I think Matt thought that would get me my 15. I realized it would only get me 14, and I was JUST FINE with that. If I could get 14 feeling like I was feeling, I'd consider it a huge victory.
The last quarter mile of my run out was actually amazing. The trail finally got some tree cover (after basically 11.5 miles of complete exposure), and that dropped the feels-like temp 10 degrees. It felt SO good. Then I turned around, and it was slightly downhill, shady, and I had a breeze in my face (evidently I'd had the wind at my back the whole time, which added to the misery/heat). So I had a quarter mile of loving running again, but then it was back to sun and slightly uphill. But then Matt found me again, and he decided to ride in with me! Very, very slowly. Surprised he didn't topple over. Good bike skills practice.
Best husband ever.
After what seemed like a million, billion years, we finally made it back to the car, and I decided 14.25 miles was perfect. I didn't feel any desire to finish out that last mile. DONE.
We hopped in the car and headed back to Breckenridge, unfortunately arriving exactly at 11, which is exactly when Park & Main stop serving breakfast, which is the breakfast I was craving. Instead we went to Blue Moose, which was delicious, AND had a wonderful dog on the porch that I fell in love with. And got many accusatory sniffs when I got back to my dogs.
This is Marley. I almost stole him. Once I could extract myself from under his chin.
We got back home after breakfast and digested for a while, then Matt decided he wanted to make use of his last couple hours of mountain bike rental by doing one last ride. I decided to spend that time taking the dogs for a little hike, because they hadn't had any adventures other than running around the backyard a bit in the morning.
That didn't turn out to be a great idea, because even though it was only 70 degrees, it was sunny and too hot for the dogs to be out without shade. Plus I wanted to take them somewhere close, so I took them over to the trail above the Carter Park dog park. Last time I ran (slash walked) on those, I guess it was rainy and overcast, so I didn't realize that trail isn't shaded at all. The dogs were miserable and did not want to be involved in this plan once we got partway up the hill. So we turned around and came back home, ending up with a mile total, which is a solid hike for these dogs anyway.
Tired and thirsty tongue.
Once the dogs were firmly sprawled out on the floor, I finally showered (ew), gathered up recovery stuff for Matt, then headed out in the car to meet him at the bike shop to drop his bike off.
Once we'd gotten that taken care of, Matt asked if I wanted to go ahead and fast forward to our plan for later in the day, to take a free gondola ride, since we were right there. We drove to the gondola parking lot and found.. no moving gondolas. They had stopped them until they figured out what the potential weather system in the area was going to do. They told us that we'd know when they decided it was safe because the gondolas would start moving, so we sat in the parking lot and Matt ate recovery food and drank water and we did our duolingo lessons. And we watched the gondolas. And watched. And watched. And finally the weather got worse, and we realized this wasn't going to happen, so we headed home. As we walked in the door, the sky opened up and it started storming. Those gondolas are probably done for the day. (We can see them from our house, so can confirm that.) We'll try that again tomorrow!
Storm moving in.
Thunderstorm, cleared up, intense sun, then creepy clouds slithered over the mountains. But no more rain.
One hour later. So dramatic.
The dogs were far too worn out to do Main Street stroll again (we might have broken the dogs), so we ordered take-out from a place on Main again, and tossed the dogs in the car to go pick it up with us. We took the long way and drove really slowly, and managed to see one fox! We spend a lot of time looking for foxes here (and see a fair number of them). The dogs don't much care about chipmunks and pika, but they sure care about foxes. (Fairly sure Enzo thinks they're designer cats.)
He claims he's so tired he can't move, then he goes outside and tears around like a crazyman.
The dogs' lethargy was contagious, so we just settled in for an evening of reading, laundry, and dog snuggles.
Day 5
Since the dogs were so worn out from all their adventures, we figured we'd do a shorter adventure for our final full day. That meant sleeping in! As much as I can. Which is 7am. (Mountain time. Which means I'm screwed when I have to go home and return to waking up at 6am Central.)
Instead of eating and then waiting and starting much later, we decided to have a pre-adventure snack, and a real breakfast after the hike.
We had intended to park at the trailhead and hike up 0.8 miles to Sawmill Gulch and let the dogs play, then hike back, but we missed the trail head and ended up driving right up to the lake. Since the dogs were tired, and we wanted to make sure they enjoyed the actual lake part, we decided to just skip that first/last hike.
Wet dogs are happy dogs.
The lake was beautiful, and Hilda loved getting to swim around and fetch a bit. And Enzo loved wading and attacking Hilda every time she swam back to shore.
We hiked the perimeter of the lake, getting in every so often, until we got to the sandbar. I'd dressed for the possibility of getting wet, so I took the dogs and waded partway into the lake. It was pretty cold, but amusingly Hilda was the first one to wimp out and want to go back. I guess she'd been in the water for a while already, and was cold, or just tired of being wet.
In the middle of the lake!
We finished our lake loop, then dried the dogs off as best we could and headed back to the house. Rinsed the dogs more, dried them off, made sure they were comfortably passed out, then we went to finally get some breakfast.
Adventure shepherd.
Since I hadn't gotten to enjoy my post-long-run Park & Main, we headed there for a do-over, which was delicious. Then we strolled around Main Street a bit, getting Matt some bonus coffee. Then back home.
And then down-time! I have this habit of saying "Okay, we only have X days in this vacation spot, and I want to do these Y things. Any time we're sitting around inside is wasted!" Matt helps balance that part of me a bit, and he reminds me that vacation is also for resting and recovering. And so we spent a few hours digesting, sitting around in pajamas, reading our books, duolingo, and watching the weather over the mountains out our back window, hoping it cleared up in time for our gondola re-do in the afternoon.
We were right in the middle of our lounging when Matt looked the back door, bolted upright, and said, "Gondola's moving! Do you want to go now?!"
So we threw on some non-pajama clothes and rushed out the door! ... Except by the time we got there, the gondola had stopped again. We figured we'd give it a few minutes, so we sat there in the car, and sure enough, about 5 minutes later it started up again. We dashed over and gleefully jumped on.
Side note: The gondola, which is free, allows dogs. We briefly entertained the notion of taking the dogs, but realized that they would HATE it. Enzo freaked out in the metal-floored elevator at my workplace, and the gondola has a similar floor. And Hilda is not a bold shepherd, and would have hated the loud noises and the rocking. It would only be for us, if we did it, not for them. Our decision was reinforced when we saw the people in the car ahead of us taking their dogs on, and one of them had to be forced on, and evidently it cowered in his mom's lap the whole ride up. (And he was a somewhat tubby lab, so that was probably awkward.)
We rode the gondola up to the end point, peering down as we crossed Cucumber Gulch, where animals often are, but seeing none. We got off at the top and checked out the sort of amusement park up there: luge, roller coaster, zipline, etc. The only thing we were vaguely interested in was the chair lift up higher, but it was $20/person, and definitely not worth that much to go up and come back down. Instead we just walked around and looked at everything and hiked up the mountain a bit.
As we came back down, we noticed more menacing clouds gathering, so we ran back to the gondola to get back down to the bottom before more weather shut it down. We were only moderately successful, since when we actually got to the gondola, it wasn't moving. They said to go ahead and get on, though, and we only waited 2 minutes or so before it started again. On the way back down, it stopped maybe 4 more times, 1 time over some really boring construction, twice over some decent views, and once right in the middle of Cucumber Gulch! We got to see some really cute duck butts during that stop, bobbing in the water below us.
Cucumber Gulch! Blurry because the windows were all blurry and pocked.
We came back home after that and resumed our lazing until it was time for dinner. For dinner we tried a steak restaurant on Main, though I got soup and a beet salad, because I was feeling very Green Things deficient after a week of vacationing.
When we left the restaurant, it was raining pretty heavily, and we had parked several blocks away and had no umbrellas or raingear. We put up the hoods on our hoodies and quickly walked down the street in the cold rain. As soon as we got home, the sun came back out! ... but it was still raining. Our view of the mountain was beautiful from the back porch...
Clouds and sun and mountains.
... and from the front of the house we could see a full rainbow.
Rainbow!
Fed the dogs and let them run around in the rain, then settled in for the night. Packed up most of our stuff and straightened up the house in anticipation of leaving the next morning, then read until bedtime.
Day 6+
I wanted to do one last run before we started our drive home. I'd intended to do 3 runs, but so far had only done one. And when I woke up, I considered leaving it at just one. I didn't want to get up. But I knew I'd regret it if I didn't, especially since I had a very, very long car trip ahead of me with very little moving around. So I forced myself up and out of the house.
I got started at 6:30, and the sun was up, but still behind the mountains a bit, so it was fairly dark and cool. And in the lower 40s! Still, though, the second I hit some uphill, I nearly took off my long sleeved shirt. I just can't seem to do elevation and any hint of being warm.
Gonna miss this view.
Since it was early, even though I'm sure Breck isn't that sketchy, I decided to stick with a route I knew and was fairly public, so I hit the bike path again. I told Matt I was going to do 30-60 minutes, depending on how I felt, and it turned out that I felt like turning around exactly where Matt had cheered for me two days before, which was 2.5 miles. A 5 miler it is!
Sun peeking over the mountains, lighting the tops of everything.
The way back was tough.. almost all uphill (which is why I'd done my longer run point to point). When I got back to the street that led up to our street, which is a steep uphill, I went into full positive self talk mode. I can do this. It's only a quarter mile. I rode up this hill earlier this week, on a mountain bike, after riding up and down a mountain. At least it's shaded (even though the sun was directly in front of me and blinding me). Once I hit 5 I can walk. Etc. And I made it! I went in huffing and puffing, and Matt said I looked sweaty, and I said it was all from the last 3 minutes of the run.
Victory!
Ate some cereal to use that up, made some pb&j sandwiches for the drive, to use that stuff up, showered, packed, tidied, took out garbage, etc. Then we packed up the car and headed out, well ahead of our assigned check out time, to begin our long drive home.
We decided, since we really just wanted to be home, and since Hurricane Harvey threatened to make the weather in Austin very bad, that we'd just drive straight through. We've done it before, and Matt is really good at it (probably a long-haul trucker in a past life), but it sure is exhausting.
Fortunately the dogs were so worn out from the week that they didn't need to stop that many times, and in fact sometimes didn't want to get out to potty when we did stop. Enzo was grumpy and discombobulated, and didn't want to eat dinner when we stopped in Dumas. There was a FLY, and he HATES flies, and everything's dumb, and he doesn't want to eat, and he just wanted to be home. So say we all, Enzo. So we packed them back in the car and drove on. I offered him his food again half an hour later, and he happily ate it. Little trooper greyhound.
Dinner on the go. Shepherd photobomb.
We were really hoping to beat the rain back home, but we hadn't anticipated that we'd hit a DIFFERENT storm system as we passed through the Amarillo area. It POURED rain on us, reducing visibility to nothing, but fortunately not for very long, and it was on a big highway when it was still very light outside. No problem. We hoped that wasn't a sign of things to come as we went south, though.
Heading into the first storm.
And it wasn't! The weather was great. The roads were relatively unpeopled. The deer didn't try to kill themselves by running in front of our car. The dogs slept heavily and happily.
It wasn't until we were about 40 minutes from home, just as we drove past the sign for Williamson County, that we first got any rain, and then only a sprinkle, and only for a couple minutes. It started up again as we passed Lakeline Mall, again as a sprinkle, then built to a light, steady rain as we finally pulled into our driveway at 3:30am. SO happy to be home. Not quite as happy to unload the car in the rain when we were so tired, but we knew we'd be happier on Saturday (er.. later on Saturday) if we got it done then.
Hauled our stuff into the house, put Enzo up in his (our) bed finally, and declared our vacation over and a full success.
Oh, and one final general trip note:
Matt estimates we were in the car for ~40 hours during our vacation. For about 30 of those, we listened to The Beatles station on XM radio. That's a LOT of Beatles. And somehow (a) we didn't get tired of it, and (b) in the last hours of our trip, we were STILL hearing songs we hadn't heard before, either on the trip already, or at all. So this will forever be "that Colorado trip where we listened to The Beatles the entire time". Yay, memories!
The End.
And so we hit the road for Breckenridge, with our only goal being to enjoy ourselves and the weather.
Oh, and to take a thousand pictures. More than I even feel comfortable spamming social media with (!), so I figured I might as well write up a daily trip report, so I can remember this trip later, and as a dumping ground for my pictures. It's stupidly detailed about insanely mundane things, and smacks of useless navel-gazing, but .. I like writing, and hey, there's pictures, so you don't even have to read the words.
Day 0
Travel day. It took us 12 hours to get out of Texas, with a bonus chip in our windshield that required a trip to the auto parts store and a lot of sitting around waiting for epoxy to epoxicize. Fortunately the very handy Matt managed to take care of it and it didn't ruin the rest of our trip.
Road trip food! Only available in Canada and the middle of absolutely nowhere Texas.
Out of Texas, briefly through New Mexico...
This was our view immediately upon entering New Mexico, and it was exactly how we felt about finally getting out of Texas.
... and finally into Colorado, where we stopped for the night as planned in Trinidad.
Our dogs love a hotel bed. Any bed, really.
Day 1
We couldn't check into our house in Breckenridge until 4pm, so we tried to sleep in (mostly failed), and then rolled out of bed, ate some continental breakfast, and then drove over to the Trinidad Lake State Park. We'd seen a sign for it driving in the night before, and figured that would be a good way to kill some time and wear the dogs out before they had to get back in the car.
Trinidad Lake, I assume.
We did a little 1 mile loop, then drove down to the lake and did some sight seeing. Then back in the car for a ~5 hour scenic drive to Breckenridge. We intentionally took the longer, more scenic route, because there were signs on the interstate warning that traffic may be congested due to the eclipse.
Our dogs are so good at road trips.
Speaking of the eclipse, we did not intend to do anything special for the eclipse. The fact that we ended up in Colorado for it was pure happy coincidence, since in Austin we'd only have occlusion in the low 50%, whereas Breck would have occlusion in the low 90%!
We had a lot of hours to discuss our eclipse plan on our drive; originally we thought maybe we'd hike up somewhere and view from there, but then we decided to combine eclipse viewing with one of Matt's vacation goals: renting mountain bikes and riding up to the top of Peak 9. But that meant we needed mountain bikes! So our first errand upon arriving in Breckenridge was to drop the dogs and stuff at our house (which fortunately we were able to get into a little earlier than 4), and hustle over to the bike shop before they closed. We rented two mountain bikes and hauled them to the house.
Our backyard and our view. Amazing.
Then we saddled the dogs up and went out for one of our favorite Breck traditions: our nightly walk down Main Street. Because it was the weekend, and before dinner time, and right before the eclipse, there were more people than we've ever seen on Main Street, and tons of dogs, and it was lovely and in the low 60s and we were so happy we'd decided to make this trip.
Main Street stroll!
When we first got to Main, we popped into a pizza place, placed a to go order, and then walked for 20 minutes while they got it ready. On our way back, we picked up the pizza, walked back home, then ate pizza while watching Game of Thrones (thank you, ChromeCast).
Hilda said she fit just fine.
Then an early bedtime, since we were exhausted after 2 days of travel.
Sunset from our back yard.
Day 2
The dogs have no idea what time it ever is at this point, so I was up at 5am (local) to let them out, 6am to feed them, and then at 7 I decided to just give up and stay up.
They ran around like crazybeasts each time they went out.
Matt and I went to breakfast at our favorite breakfast place (Park and Main), then came back to grab the dogs to go to the dog park. The walk is slightly longer than from the house we've stayed at in the past, and slightly hillier, but definitely still doable. Of course by the time we got there, after that walk, they were already tired, plus even though it was 60 degrees, it was very sunny and warm, and there were a couple dogs that were more assertive than the dogs prefer, so we just sat there and chatted with a nice dog park patron for 20 minutes or so, then headed back.
We deemed the dogs sufficiently worn out, so we hopped on our bikes and headed for Peak 9. By way of the grocery store, to pick up sandwiches and apple pies as a peak treat.
As we headed from the grocery store to the mountain, we rode past people in eclipse glasses! Ohyeah! Eclipse! Lots of people staring at the sky, it was a bit surreal. One woman offered us glasses as we rode by, which was great, but we said we already had some.
Then to the mountain! I was a little nervous, since I'm a terrible mountain biker, but Matt assured me that it was mostly jeep roads. Which was true. But I underestimated how much the elevation would hurt. I figured.. I can just drop into my smallest gear and spin up. Which I did. But even with that, I'd get to a steeper part, and my heart rate would just shoot up, I couldn't breathe, I was so completely thirsty, and I just had to stop. Fortunately for me, there was a ton of traffic from people going to look at the eclipse from the peak (in cars), so we had to pull over a lot, and I could pretend like I was doing that instead of almost dying.
An amazing failed panorama.
These stops also gave us an opportunity to stare at the sun! We had our eclipse glasses in our back pockets, and we'd pull them out and check out the sun, then get back on our bikes to ride to the next steep spot. It was pretty amazing to be on the mountain during the eclipse. It never got Dark, but the light got very strange and dimmer and the colors weird.
I attempted to take a picture of the eclipse through my eclipse glasses. It did not work. But this is weird looking!
And when we'd ride under trees, the dappled light on the ground would be eclipse-shaped. Definitely a fun and unique way to experience it.
This is the best of the terrible eclipse glasses selfies. It's hard to take a selfie when you can't see anything at all.
I was pretty concerned for a while there that I wasn't going to be able to make it. My heart rate was SO high. And the switchbacks just kept coming and coming and the road never seemed to end. And have I mentioned I'm a terrible mountain biker? Slipping all over the place. Trying to start on an uphill and in a low, low, low gear, and having to attempt multiple times to get rolling. Matt tried to give me good advice, and I was frustrated and unkind and my head hurt and I wasn't having fun.
He still loves me, though. I think.
But I wanted to do this, and I knew it was something Matt really wanted to do, so I kept with it. And eventually it got easier. And I could breathe. And my heart rate dropped and stayed low, even when on the steeper bits. And the steeper bits eventually got so steep that we started to hike-a-bike rather than try to ride it. And it turns out I'm AWESOME at hike-a-bike. I decided to go into professional hike-a-bike. Which.. at that point, why even tote the bike along? I guess that's basically hiking. Or running.
Photo op during a rest stop.
Anyway, we kept going, it got easier even as it got steeper and more technical, and eventually we got up to the Ski Patrol near the peak. It was a logical ending point, very nearly at the top but just shy of the peak, and it had a picnic table.
View from the top.
So we parked, ate our turkey bacon sandwiches (well, half of them; turns out working hard at elevation kinds kills your hunger), shared an apple pie, and then turned around and headed back down.
Extra delicious at the top of a mountain.
And yes, it was MUCH easier on the way down. My terrible handling skills meant that the first part, the most technical part that we'd hiked up, was very white-knuckled, but I rode the whole thing, went over some rocks and low ledges, and didn't have too many scary sliding incidents. As we got lower, it turned into just jeep trail again, and the main fears were loose sand and sometimes small rocks, but I was able to go a little bit faster.
Whee, back down!
And then we were down at the bottom! And.. then we had to ride back to our house, which is uphill. Oof. But it was on blacktop, which felt so easy at that point.
Once we got home, we took a much-needed shower, ate some leftover pizza, did our daily duolingo lessons, then managed to drag ourselves off the couch and put on real people clothes again. We dropped off my bike (Matt is keeping his for a few days), finally did some cursory grocery shopping, and exited the grocery store into a loud and amazing thunderstorm.
We came home to some surprisingly calm dogs (given the thunderstorm). We fed them and then waited for the storm to stop. Once it finally moved out, we went out for our Main Street walk and discovered the storm had brought in 55 degree weather and a cool breeze. Enzo LOVES this kind of weather, and the dogs loved the walk, even though there was barely anyone out on Main Street (no longer the weekend, weather chased them away, during dinnertime).
Happiest little dude.
We came back and discovered that we were both finally hungry again (again, working out at elevation kills the appetite), and decided we couldn't deal with People anymore. So we ordered some takeout from Empire Burgers, packed up the tired dogs in the car and went to pick it up. When we got back to the house, a HUGE fox ran off our porch and down the streets. Fortunately the dogs were too tired from all their fun to notice.
Then dinner, daily write-up, some kindle, then bed!
Day 3
Up early again with the dogs, then slept fitfully until 7ish, when I gave up. A slow and uneventful morning, but then out the door with the dogs for Adventure!
When we were up here last year, we tried to do the Blue Lakes hike, but we didn't very far in the car on the road to the trailhead before it was completely snowed over, and super scary to even turn around and come back down. So we decided to give it another try! This time with 100% less snow!
But actually not a whole lot more success on actually doing the Blue Lakes hike. We found what we thought was the trailhead, which was completely unmarked. We started where we thought the trail lead, and eventually did get to a sign.. which mentioned nothing about being the Blue Lakes trailhead. It did say that this trail was difficult, often unmarked, and not for the faint of heart. Which really wasn't what we were after, with our dogs, one of whom is a rather spindly and out of shape greyhound.
The start of our hike.
We chatted with several other hikers out there, all of whom were in the same situation as we were. Everyone wanted the Blue Lakes trail, but nobody knew exactly where it was supposed to be or where to go. We finally decided to at least start on the trail and see what happened, knowing we could just turn around if it didn't work out.
A marmot that was yelling angrily at us.
Of course, first we had to get ON the trail, which was over a waist-high wall and then across some really terrible giant chunky broken up rocks. It required concentration for a human, and a shepherd was able to scrabble over it with a little effort, but there was no way Enzo was gonna get through there with all his legs intact. So Matt, wonderful dad that he is, carried Enzo over. And amazingly, they didn't end up BOTH with broken legs somehow.
He's a little trooper.
The trail, in fact, was very difficult to find. Some people were going basically straight up the mountain, which held little interest for us. Not with the dogs and all those rocks. So we followed a little pseudo-path that went down by the lake's edge, knowing Hilda would LOVE to get in the lake. And she did. Happiest shepherd ever.
That water was COLD, but that did not stop Hilda from repeatedly wading in and laying down.
We hiked as far as we could along the lake's edge, until it basically ended in a rock slide. We could see waaay on the other side that there might be more trail, but Hilda and I did some recon, and it was hard for us to get across the rocks, so we decided it wasn't worth trying to get Enzo over there (and then later get him back across). So we turned around and hiked back out, with Matt carrying Enzo over the wall again, and ended up with just over a mile for that hike.
At the lake's edge.
The dogs actually probably would have been completely satisfied with that adventure, but it was such a windy, rocky, bumpy, slow drive to get out there, we figured we should see if there was any other places we could check out. We drove back down the road a bit, and pulled off into another place some people were parked. At first it just looked like some folks fishing in the lower lake, but we found a road on the other side, and decided to see where it went.
The lower lake, with dramatic shepherd.
This road was more like the dogs were used to hiking at home.. mostly jeep trail, lots of puddles of gross water to tromp through and attempt to drink, some pretty little lakeside picnic tables. Then eventually it went into the woods and some wonderful loamy, pine-needly soil, and we could hear a waterfall ahead. We kept going until we managed to find it, and then decided to head back to the car.
About 1.4 miles for that bit of hiking, and the dogs were definitely done at that point. We drove back to the house, hosed them off the best we could, and then they were OUT. Mandatory dog rest time.
Worn. Out.
Which let us sneak out and get some lunch at Matt's favorite little cafe on Main Street. Then a little souvenir shopping on the way back home.
A valid vacation beverage.
And then people rest time! We needed some down time, so we uploaded photos, did duolingo, read the internet, laid on the couch with the dogs, and generally avoided moving.
Eventually we dragged ourselves up and showered (yes, we went unshowered that whole time, but hey, it was in the mid 50s.. we didn't SWEAT), then cooked up some pasta for dinner in anticipation of finally running on Wednesday morning.
Dramatic sky, no storm.
We hoped we'd have a nice evening thunderstorm again to watch from our balcony, but this one missed us, so we just got a lot of dramatic sky. The dogs made a half-hearted show of running around the backyard for a few minutes after dinner, but they were still so exhausted we decided to skip Main Street stroll for a night.
Exhausted greyhounds earn dinner in bed.
And then an early bedtime, in anticipation of a morning run!
Day 4
I didn't want to run in a strange place in the dark, and it was only supposed to be in the mid 40s in the morning, so I figured it would be okay to start my run at 8, which I'd NEVER do at home this time of year. Turned out to not be the best decision, because the trail is sunny and exposed, and that's kinda miserable even at low temperatures. But! I did my run!
My goal was to run 15 miles, which is 2 miles more than the longest run I've done since IMTX, but I was hoping that the cooler temps and lower humidity would make it less miserable than at home. I wanted to run along the hike and bike path that I've run on before, and that Matt and I rode on last year, but I know from experience that it's downhill all the way out, uphill all the way back. I didn't want that uphill part. So Matt and I worked out a plan wherein he'd drive up to my finish point with his bike in the car, then he'd ride back toward me and give me water when I needed it, and then go ride around and have his own fun, and then we'd both end up at the car and drive home. Except that the place we figured might be 15ish was only 10. So then I was going to run those 10, turn around and run 5 back (or however many I felt like I could do at that point).
I took off from the house and ran down to Main Street, opposite direction from my eventual goal, because I love running through that area. Stopped to pee half a mile in (stupid elevation), then hit the rec path, where I'd be for the rest of my run.
I stopped to take off my long sleeved shirt about 2.5 miles in, because even with temps in the high 40s, it was just too miserable with sleeves for me. (Everyone else I saw out there had sleeves, so I guess it's just me.) Right after that, I got to a place where the road crosses the path, and there was Matt! He cheered for me, asked if I needed anything, and then I ran on.
The run was okay. I felt very out of breath for the first few miles, and then.. well, I continued to feel out of breath, but I got used to it. It didn't feel great, but it was fine. And the first part is beautiful, so I just enjoyed that.
The beautiful part, that runs along the river.
Eventually it gets less beautiful, in that it's right next to a highway, and then there was construction. I actually saw Matt right before the construction, about 8 miles in, and he warned me that even though it was downhill most of the way to Frisco (our end point), there was a little ridge you had to run up and over to get there. We'd ridden it on our bikes, but when I got there on the run.. man, I just fell apart. My heart rate shot way up, my legs were burning, and I was miserable. Once I made it up the main slog uphill (and I'm not JUST being a wimp, this was an intense climb), it went up and down a few times, but my body was just DONE. I stopped at one point to just breathe. Then I made myself start walking for about 30 seconds, and finally convinced myself to run again. But I had slowed way, way down from before, and wasn't sure what this meant for the length of my run.
A couple miles later, I finally got to the medical center in Frisco, which is where Matt had parked the car. When we'd seen each other at mile 8, he'd told me he was going to go check out some trails in the area, and he gave me the key so I could refill water when I got to the car. I got there, assessed my state of being, and decided I could NOT run 5 miles back the way I'd just come from. Too many demons in those miles. Couldn't do it.
But I decided I COULD keep running further down the path, and see what was that way. Maybe it was also horrible hills, but at least it'd be NEW horrible hills. So I refilled, texted Matt my new plan, so he could come get the key from me, and ran on. I got about a mile down the road, then Matt found me. I gave him the key, and he told me my optimistic plan of running further down the path while he came and got me in the car wasn't realistic, because the path no longer ran near the road. Instead we decided I'd run one more mile out, then turn around and go back to the car and call it good. I think Matt thought that would get me my 15. I realized it would only get me 14, and I was JUST FINE with that. If I could get 14 feeling like I was feeling, I'd consider it a huge victory.
The last quarter mile of my run out was actually amazing. The trail finally got some tree cover (after basically 11.5 miles of complete exposure), and that dropped the feels-like temp 10 degrees. It felt SO good. Then I turned around, and it was slightly downhill, shady, and I had a breeze in my face (evidently I'd had the wind at my back the whole time, which added to the misery/heat). So I had a quarter mile of loving running again, but then it was back to sun and slightly uphill. But then Matt found me again, and he decided to ride in with me! Very, very slowly. Surprised he didn't topple over. Good bike skills practice.
Best husband ever.
After what seemed like a million, billion years, we finally made it back to the car, and I decided 14.25 miles was perfect. I didn't feel any desire to finish out that last mile. DONE.
We hopped in the car and headed back to Breckenridge, unfortunately arriving exactly at 11, which is exactly when Park & Main stop serving breakfast, which is the breakfast I was craving. Instead we went to Blue Moose, which was delicious, AND had a wonderful dog on the porch that I fell in love with. And got many accusatory sniffs when I got back to my dogs.
This is Marley. I almost stole him. Once I could extract myself from under his chin.
We got back home after breakfast and digested for a while, then Matt decided he wanted to make use of his last couple hours of mountain bike rental by doing one last ride. I decided to spend that time taking the dogs for a little hike, because they hadn't had any adventures other than running around the backyard a bit in the morning.
That didn't turn out to be a great idea, because even though it was only 70 degrees, it was sunny and too hot for the dogs to be out without shade. Plus I wanted to take them somewhere close, so I took them over to the trail above the Carter Park dog park. Last time I ran (slash walked) on those, I guess it was rainy and overcast, so I didn't realize that trail isn't shaded at all. The dogs were miserable and did not want to be involved in this plan once we got partway up the hill. So we turned around and came back home, ending up with a mile total, which is a solid hike for these dogs anyway.
Tired and thirsty tongue.
Once the dogs were firmly sprawled out on the floor, I finally showered (ew), gathered up recovery stuff for Matt, then headed out in the car to meet him at the bike shop to drop his bike off.
Once we'd gotten that taken care of, Matt asked if I wanted to go ahead and fast forward to our plan for later in the day, to take a free gondola ride, since we were right there. We drove to the gondola parking lot and found.. no moving gondolas. They had stopped them until they figured out what the potential weather system in the area was going to do. They told us that we'd know when they decided it was safe because the gondolas would start moving, so we sat in the parking lot and Matt ate recovery food and drank water and we did our duolingo lessons. And we watched the gondolas. And watched. And watched. And finally the weather got worse, and we realized this wasn't going to happen, so we headed home. As we walked in the door, the sky opened up and it started storming. Those gondolas are probably done for the day. (We can see them from our house, so can confirm that.) We'll try that again tomorrow!
Storm moving in.
Thunderstorm, cleared up, intense sun, then creepy clouds slithered over the mountains. But no more rain.
One hour later. So dramatic.
The dogs were far too worn out to do Main Street stroll again (we might have broken the dogs), so we ordered take-out from a place on Main again, and tossed the dogs in the car to go pick it up with us. We took the long way and drove really slowly, and managed to see one fox! We spend a lot of time looking for foxes here (and see a fair number of them). The dogs don't much care about chipmunks and pika, but they sure care about foxes. (Fairly sure Enzo thinks they're designer cats.)
He claims he's so tired he can't move, then he goes outside and tears around like a crazyman.
The dogs' lethargy was contagious, so we just settled in for an evening of reading, laundry, and dog snuggles.
Day 5
Since the dogs were so worn out from all their adventures, we figured we'd do a shorter adventure for our final full day. That meant sleeping in! As much as I can. Which is 7am. (Mountain time. Which means I'm screwed when I have to go home and return to waking up at 6am Central.)
Instead of eating and then waiting and starting much later, we decided to have a pre-adventure snack, and a real breakfast after the hike.
We had intended to park at the trailhead and hike up 0.8 miles to Sawmill Gulch and let the dogs play, then hike back, but we missed the trail head and ended up driving right up to the lake. Since the dogs were tired, and we wanted to make sure they enjoyed the actual lake part, we decided to just skip that first/last hike.
Wet dogs are happy dogs.
The lake was beautiful, and Hilda loved getting to swim around and fetch a bit. And Enzo loved wading and attacking Hilda every time she swam back to shore.
Click to viewWe hiked the perimeter of the lake, getting in every so often, until we got to the sandbar. I'd dressed for the possibility of getting wet, so I took the dogs and waded partway into the lake. It was pretty cold, but amusingly Hilda was the first one to wimp out and want to go back. I guess she'd been in the water for a while already, and was cold, or just tired of being wet.
In the middle of the lake!
We finished our lake loop, then dried the dogs off as best we could and headed back to the house. Rinsed the dogs more, dried them off, made sure they were comfortably passed out, then we went to finally get some breakfast.
Adventure shepherd.
Since I hadn't gotten to enjoy my post-long-run Park & Main, we headed there for a do-over, which was delicious. Then we strolled around Main Street a bit, getting Matt some bonus coffee. Then back home.
And then down-time! I have this habit of saying "Okay, we only have X days in this vacation spot, and I want to do these Y things. Any time we're sitting around inside is wasted!" Matt helps balance that part of me a bit, and he reminds me that vacation is also for resting and recovering. And so we spent a few hours digesting, sitting around in pajamas, reading our books, duolingo, and watching the weather over the mountains out our back window, hoping it cleared up in time for our gondola re-do in the afternoon.
We were right in the middle of our lounging when Matt looked the back door, bolted upright, and said, "Gondola's moving! Do you want to go now?!"
So we threw on some non-pajama clothes and rushed out the door! ... Except by the time we got there, the gondola had stopped again. We figured we'd give it a few minutes, so we sat there in the car, and sure enough, about 5 minutes later it started up again. We dashed over and gleefully jumped on.
Side note: The gondola, which is free, allows dogs. We briefly entertained the notion of taking the dogs, but realized that they would HATE it. Enzo freaked out in the metal-floored elevator at my workplace, and the gondola has a similar floor. And Hilda is not a bold shepherd, and would have hated the loud noises and the rocking. It would only be for us, if we did it, not for them. Our decision was reinforced when we saw the people in the car ahead of us taking their dogs on, and one of them had to be forced on, and evidently it cowered in his mom's lap the whole ride up. (And he was a somewhat tubby lab, so that was probably awkward.)
We rode the gondola up to the end point, peering down as we crossed Cucumber Gulch, where animals often are, but seeing none. We got off at the top and checked out the sort of amusement park up there: luge, roller coaster, zipline, etc. The only thing we were vaguely interested in was the chair lift up higher, but it was $20/person, and definitely not worth that much to go up and come back down. Instead we just walked around and looked at everything and hiked up the mountain a bit.
As we came back down, we noticed more menacing clouds gathering, so we ran back to the gondola to get back down to the bottom before more weather shut it down. We were only moderately successful, since when we actually got to the gondola, it wasn't moving. They said to go ahead and get on, though, and we only waited 2 minutes or so before it started again. On the way back down, it stopped maybe 4 more times, 1 time over some really boring construction, twice over some decent views, and once right in the middle of Cucumber Gulch! We got to see some really cute duck butts during that stop, bobbing in the water below us.
Cucumber Gulch! Blurry because the windows were all blurry and pocked.
We came back home after that and resumed our lazing until it was time for dinner. For dinner we tried a steak restaurant on Main, though I got soup and a beet salad, because I was feeling very Green Things deficient after a week of vacationing.
When we left the restaurant, it was raining pretty heavily, and we had parked several blocks away and had no umbrellas or raingear. We put up the hoods on our hoodies and quickly walked down the street in the cold rain. As soon as we got home, the sun came back out! ... but it was still raining. Our view of the mountain was beautiful from the back porch...
Clouds and sun and mountains.
... and from the front of the house we could see a full rainbow.
Rainbow!
Fed the dogs and let them run around in the rain, then settled in for the night. Packed up most of our stuff and straightened up the house in anticipation of leaving the next morning, then read until bedtime.
Day 6+
I wanted to do one last run before we started our drive home. I'd intended to do 3 runs, but so far had only done one. And when I woke up, I considered leaving it at just one. I didn't want to get up. But I knew I'd regret it if I didn't, especially since I had a very, very long car trip ahead of me with very little moving around. So I forced myself up and out of the house.
I got started at 6:30, and the sun was up, but still behind the mountains a bit, so it was fairly dark and cool. And in the lower 40s! Still, though, the second I hit some uphill, I nearly took off my long sleeved shirt. I just can't seem to do elevation and any hint of being warm.
Gonna miss this view.
Since it was early, even though I'm sure Breck isn't that sketchy, I decided to stick with a route I knew and was fairly public, so I hit the bike path again. I told Matt I was going to do 30-60 minutes, depending on how I felt, and it turned out that I felt like turning around exactly where Matt had cheered for me two days before, which was 2.5 miles. A 5 miler it is!
Sun peeking over the mountains, lighting the tops of everything.
The way back was tough.. almost all uphill (which is why I'd done my longer run point to point). When I got back to the street that led up to our street, which is a steep uphill, I went into full positive self talk mode. I can do this. It's only a quarter mile. I rode up this hill earlier this week, on a mountain bike, after riding up and down a mountain. At least it's shaded (even though the sun was directly in front of me and blinding me). Once I hit 5 I can walk. Etc. And I made it! I went in huffing and puffing, and Matt said I looked sweaty, and I said it was all from the last 3 minutes of the run.
Victory!
Ate some cereal to use that up, made some pb&j sandwiches for the drive, to use that stuff up, showered, packed, tidied, took out garbage, etc. Then we packed up the car and headed out, well ahead of our assigned check out time, to begin our long drive home.
We decided, since we really just wanted to be home, and since Hurricane Harvey threatened to make the weather in Austin very bad, that we'd just drive straight through. We've done it before, and Matt is really good at it (probably a long-haul trucker in a past life), but it sure is exhausting.
Fortunately the dogs were so worn out from the week that they didn't need to stop that many times, and in fact sometimes didn't want to get out to potty when we did stop. Enzo was grumpy and discombobulated, and didn't want to eat dinner when we stopped in Dumas. There was a FLY, and he HATES flies, and everything's dumb, and he doesn't want to eat, and he just wanted to be home. So say we all, Enzo. So we packed them back in the car and drove on. I offered him his food again half an hour later, and he happily ate it. Little trooper greyhound.
Dinner on the go. Shepherd photobomb.
We were really hoping to beat the rain back home, but we hadn't anticipated that we'd hit a DIFFERENT storm system as we passed through the Amarillo area. It POURED rain on us, reducing visibility to nothing, but fortunately not for very long, and it was on a big highway when it was still very light outside. No problem. We hoped that wasn't a sign of things to come as we went south, though.
Heading into the first storm.
And it wasn't! The weather was great. The roads were relatively unpeopled. The deer didn't try to kill themselves by running in front of our car. The dogs slept heavily and happily.
It wasn't until we were about 40 minutes from home, just as we drove past the sign for Williamson County, that we first got any rain, and then only a sprinkle, and only for a couple minutes. It started up again as we passed Lakeline Mall, again as a sprinkle, then built to a light, steady rain as we finally pulled into our driveway at 3:30am. SO happy to be home. Not quite as happy to unload the car in the rain when we were so tired, but we knew we'd be happier on Saturday (er.. later on Saturday) if we got it done then.
Hauled our stuff into the house, put Enzo up in his (our) bed finally, and declared our vacation over and a full success.
Oh, and one final general trip note:
Matt estimates we were in the car for ~40 hours during our vacation. For about 30 of those, we listened to The Beatles station on XM radio. That's a LOT of Beatles. And somehow (a) we didn't get tired of it, and (b) in the last hours of our trip, we were STILL hearing songs we hadn't heard before, either on the trip already, or at all. So this will forever be "that Colorado trip where we listened to The Beatles the entire time". Yay, memories!
The End.