BrandonoBrien.com

Brandon O'Brien

Travel and Adventure Journal

I wanted a place to journal all my travels and adventures around the world. I always enjoy going back and reflecting on my past travels and getting to relive them through my words and photos.

Just some fun trips

These are my short trips that don't fall into any of the other sections. Most of these take place around the Southwest, many of which are adventures on my motorcycle

You're reading the General Travel section. Return home.
Page: 1 2 3 4
2011 Labor Day Motorcycle Ride - Day 2 - Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Forest

2011 Labor Day Motorcycle Ride - Day 2 - Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Forest

Sunday, September 4, 2011 @ 7:00 PM in General Travel

We noticed we had some new neighbors next to us when we woke up. All the screaming and barking was from them. They must have got in after dark and set up their camp site. It was a mom and dad with their 2 year old girl and 2 small yappy dogs. The dad took more care of the dogs than the kid, and you could tell the wife wanted nothing to do with the whole situation because she just sat in the car wrapped in a sleeping bag. Whenever we saw them, you could cut the tension between the mom and dad with a knife. She did not want to be there and she was so annoyed at the dogs and kid. They had also killed their battery in their car during the course of the night, probably due to sitting in it with the heat on but without turning the car on. They had to ask the host to jump it for them.

After eating breakfast, we backtracked to Gunnison to fuel up, then headed west on US 50 to US 92. It was about 66 miles from the campground to north rim of Black Canyon. The ride was well worth the curves, but beware, there are spots without guard rails next to several hundred feet drops. So if you're afraid of heights, you might want to take the south rim drive instead.

The Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park North Rim is at an odd location. US 92 takes you toward Crawford and you're in the middle of farm lands, then you head on some side roads and all of a sudden you're looking down on 2,700 foot drops. Black Canyon is narrower and deeper than the grand canyon. The canyon drops 95 feet per mile. You don't really notice that when you're riding to the north rim, but on your way back you definitely notice the decent toward Gunnison. You should also beware of animals, as there were a bunch of chipmunks, squirrels and birds darting across the road. Whatever you do, don't try to dodge them or else you could fly off the mountain in a ball of flames. Also beware of rocks that have fallen into the road, as they're usually on the curves when you're least prepared to encounter them.

Make sure you take something to eat and have a full tank of gas before heading out to the Black Canyon. There isn't much around in case you run out of fuel or get really hungry. The Black Canyon North Rim isn't paved, but it's groomed gravel. Just keep this in mind when you're going out there. It's washboarded in some spots, but overall not bad. My SV650 handled it just fine. If you're looking for something less frightful and more tourist oriented, you can go to the South Rim of the Black Canyon where it's more developed.

After visiting the north rim, we ate lunch in Crawford, which is just a couple miles north on US 92. The restaurant we stopped at had a Sunday Brunch that was definitely not a diet menu. Roast beef, gravy, mashed potatoes, corn, bacon, sausage, eggs, etc. The town was really small. it was basically a liquor store, two restaurants, a church and a gas station. We were the first bikers into the restaurant, but soon after a bunch more showed up. After eating lunch there, we fueled up and headed back to the camp ground.

The ride back on 92 to Gunnison seemed to go pretty quick, but the views and curves were amazing. Ryan almost hit a baby hawk at about 65mph, but it shot up at the last second. I saw it fly out of control for about 10 seconds before finally flying off normally. On the way back we also decided to see if we could get down near the river to get some photos of the Blue Mesa dam, but unfortunately the good spot was gated off for dam workers only.

We got back to the camp site around 3:00pm and our tents were completely full of dust, as there are no trees and very little ground cover. Any wind just picks up dirt and dust and blows it around. Even the rainflies put all the way to the ground didn’t keep the dust out. We spent a little time trying to clean our sleeping bags and stuff, then decided to re-build our lake cooled refrigerator and put our liquor back in. We had to move it about 3 feet closer because the water receded a bit during the day. I also had to add a shade attachment to keep the beers from heating up in the sun. We waited about an hour for the liquor to cool and tried getting in the water ourselves, but it was a brisk 65 degrees, so that didn’t work out too well.

After finishing the beers we decided it would be a good idea to give some fish a new home. We weighed down the empty bottles with rocks and sand and threw them in. The only problem is one of mine didn't have enough weight in it to fully sink, so it floated around for a good hour or two. We tried smashing it by throwing rocks at it, but it got too far away for us to do any damage. After the beers we switched our focus to finishing off the vodka and coke. Note: crappy vodka does not taste good when it's not cold or without ice cubes.

We had set up our little cooler near the boat ram and the people camping to the other side of us (not the one with the 2 year old) were bringing their boat in. All the kids were on the front and one of them fell into the cold water and started crying. We saw them throw in a life jacket and one of the adults jumped in after them. It took about 5 minutes for the boat to loop back around and pick them up, meanwhile the kid is crying probably due to the freezing water.

About 7:00pm the booze really started to kick in because we thought it would be a great idea to gather as much driftwood as possible for our fire. We ended up getting a bunch of big logs and a lot of medium sized pieces. We started our fire and waited a bit to eat dinner because we weren't quite hungry yet due to the huge lunch. By now it was about 8:30pm and dark and our fire was huge and blazing. We noticed that everyone else had already gone to bed, which seemed weird because the night before they were all up until 11 or so. We ate dinner around 9 and then kept the fire going for a little longer then went to bed.

Teaser photos:

Black Canyon of the Gunnison
Black Canyon of the Gunnison
Extremely steep and long drop into the canyon
Extremely steep and long drop into the canyon

View Entire Photo Gallery

Tags: motorcycle, labor day 2011

Posted from: United States

2011 Labor Day Motorcycle Ride - Day 1 - Denver to Gunnison

2011 Labor Day Motorcycle Ride - Day 1 - Denver to Gunnison

Saturday, September 3, 2011 @ 7:00 PM in General Travel

This ride report covers a 3 day ride through Colorado over Labor Day weekend 2011. Some of the areas we visited were Gunnison, CO, Black Canyon and Colorado National Monument. The riders were Brandon on his 2004 Suzuki SV650 and Ryan on his 2011 KTM Adventure Dakar. Before the trip started, Brandon rode from Albuquerque to Denver on Friday, then after the trip, he rode back to Albuquerque on Tuesday.

Our first day started off great. We left Denver around 8:45am with temperatures in the 70's. We left by taking US 6 to I-70 out of Denver toward Vail where we would catch US 24. The ride down US 24 toward Leadville was nice. The scenery was beautiful and there were some nice curves.

We stopped for lunch in Leadville at the Golden Burro, which started in 1938 and is one of the oldest continuously operating restaurant in Colorado. The portions were a little smaller than we had expected based on the price we paid, but overall the food was good and the servers were attentive.

From Leadville we continued on US 24 as it merged to US 285 just after Buena Vista. We arrived in Poncha Springs to head west on US 50 toward Gunnison. A lot of these roads are one lane, so long lines of cars stuck behind a camper or truck are very common. Just be prepared for that. We got into Gunnison around 3:00pm and stopped at a liquor store to grab some beers and vodka for the next two nights. We then made our way to the Steven's Creek Campground on the Blue Mesa Reservoir.

The camp site was easy to find, as it was just off of US 50 about 11 miles outside of Gunnison. We setup our tents, unpacked some of the stuff off our bikes and started working on cooling down the beers. The high 80's temperatures had already started to warm them up. We built a small cooler by making a small rocked off area in the water to put the beers and help cool them down. The water was probably around 65 degrees, so it did a good job of keeping the booze chilled.

The campsite host came over as we were setting up our tents and started talking to us about what there is to do around the camping area. He asked us what we were doing tomorrow and we had just planned on riding some curvy roads around the area. He told us about Black Canyon and how there are some great cycling roads on the North Rim on US 92. He gave us a map and we made some notes and figured it sounded like a cool route, so we set the map aside for the morning. The host also told us about a restaurant just outside of Gunnison called the Trough, it’s marked by a pink pig statue outside of the restaurant. They have an adult kids meal for $8.95, which comes with a beer, burger, and fries.

One of the camping spots next to us had two or three families that had all set up camp in the same area. They had a bunch of kids and a boat full of water sport equipment. The camp site to the other side of us was still empty when we had arrived. Steven's Creek allows fires and each camp site has a nice pre-built fire pit. You can purchase firewood or go collect the driftwood that was everywhere. The driftwood burns extremely fast, so you might want to collect a lot of it before it gets dark so you don't run out. The campsite host also let us grab a couple handfuls of wood he had collected from when people left and had extra wood they didn't burn.

The first night started off good. Sunset was really nice because there were some clouds that really picked up the red/orange/pink glows as the sun set. We were tired and went to bed around 9:30 or 10. The neighbors next to us with the kids were up about an hour later than us talking and stuff. It made it a little hard to fall asleep, but we eventually did. Then an hour or so later we were awoken by two barking dogs and a screaming kid. We thought someones dog had got loose and attacked a kid, but weren’t sure. The crying and barking went on the rest of the night. It rained some time between midnight and two in the morning, but when we woke up you couldn't even tell. There weren't even any dust spots on the bikes. It must have been enough rain to make noise on the tents but that's about it.

The temperatures at night dropped into the 30's, so if you're camping in Colorado toward the end of the summer, make sure you bring a nice warm sleeping bag. Ryan got so cold he put on several layers of clothes and used his leather riding jacket to cover his face, and he was still freezing cold. Brandon had a low temperature rated sleeping bag and was comfortable through the night.

Teaser photos:

Loaded and ready to roll
Loaded and ready to roll
Cooling our booze in the reservoir
Cooling our booze in the reservoir
Campsite at sunset
Campsite at sunset

View Entire Photo Gallery

Tags: motorcycle, labor day 2011

Posted from: United States

2010 Labor Day Motorcycle Ride - Day 4 - Great Sand Dunes and Back Home

2010 Labor Day Motorcycle Ride - Day 4 - Great Sand Dunes and Back Home

Monday, September 6, 2010 @ 7:00 PM in General Travel

On our last day out, we decided we had enough freeze dried backpacking meals for breakfast and I had some poptarts I brought. We headed out after that and started riding to the Great Sand Dunes National Park.

About 20 miles outside Pagosa Springs we had to climb a few thousand feet in elevation (the shots from Day 2 when we were overlooking the big valley). The temps dropped dramatically and we started to freeze. Fortunately it warmed up pretty quick after that.

The ride to the Sand Dunes area was nice and scenic. There are a few towns along the way where it goes from 65mph to 25mph in about a half mile, so you really need to watch out.

We got to the sand dunes at around 11am and walked around there. It was like being in the middle of a huge desert. Sand everywhere and the dunes were probably 1,000 feet high off the ground at some spots. We saw people sledding and sandboarding.

Since we still had a long day ahead of us, we didn't climb all the way to the top, but we did get to walk around on them for a bit.

After leaving there, we got stuck in a long line of cars heading back to the interstate. When we hit Walsenburg we split up and Ryan headed back to Denver and I went south to Albuquerque.

I stopped in a little town called Wagon Mound to fuel up, stretch and get a 5 hour energy when all of a sudden some ambulances flew by and a medi-copter landed on the interstate. Apparently there was some huge accident just before I got off the interstate that I wasn't aware of (it was the direction opposite the way I was going).

They had the interstate blocked both directions about 1 mile out each way. Luckily they hadn't closed the onramp and I was able to get on the interstate just fine. The road was my own for about 20 miles before I started coming across any cars again. It was a very strange feeling.

All in all the trip was a blast. My ass hurt beyond belief the last day from riding so much, but I guess that's all part of the experience.

Total miles today: 487

Teaser photos:

Our bikes in front of the Great Sand Dunes
Our bikes in front of the Great Sand Dunes
Cool textures in the sand
Cool textures in the sand

View Entire Photo Gallery

Tags: motorcycle, labor day 2010

Posted from: United States

2010 Labor Day Motorcycle Ride - Day 3 - Pagosa Springs and Mesa Verde

2010 Labor Day Motorcycle Ride - Day 3 - Pagosa Springs and Mesa Verde

Sunday, September 5, 2010 @ 7:00 PM in General Travel

Today we got up early and had breakfast (more freeze-dried backpacking meals). We then hit the road and headed out to Mesa Verde. It was about 100 miles to get to the National Park, and then we had to ride through it.

On the way there, it started to get overcast and we thought it might rain, which i wasn't too excited about since I had left my saddlebags and rain gear at the campsite. Fortunately the clouds broke and the day turned beautiful.

We got to Mesa Verde and rode through the park looking at all the sites. The way the park's set up is pretty much everything is within a 1/2 mile walk from the road, so you just drive/ride around and pull over at designated areas and walk to see things.

We started by going to the visitor center and learning we got there too late to go on the guided tour through the biggest cliff dwelling there (Long house). They had some later tour spots open but we didn't want to wait around there all day or else we'd be riding back to the campsite at night.

We ended up doing the driving tour and got to see Long House from across a valley and got to see some other dwellings up close.

I'd highly recommend this as a place to go see. Just make sure you fuel up first because there's about 50-60 miles of road back through here to drive around.

We stopped for a late lunch in the park then headed back to the campsite.

When we got back to our campsite, we realized the beer we had leftover from the night before was rather warm. Since our campsite was against a river, we decided to ghetto-cool them and just put them in the river for a half hour and then sat there and drank them as they got colder.

We still had one bundle of firewood left but decided we wanted to get more, so before it got too dark we found a huge log we could burn and proceeded to burn it down the middle so we could have free firewood for several hours (vs. paying $5 per bundle). It worked well then we got tired and went to bed.

Total distance today: 240 miles

Teaser photos:

Mesa Verde, Colorado
Mesa Verde, Colorado
Tradition requires us to cool our beers down in a creek
Tradition requires us to cool our beers down in a creek

View Entire Photo Gallery

Tags: motorcycle, labor day 2010

Posted from: United States

2010 Labor Day Motorcycle Ride - Day 2 - Denver to Pagosa Springs

2010 Labor Day Motorcycle Ride - Day 2 - Denver to Pagosa Springs

Saturday, September 4, 2010 @ 7:00 PM in General Travel

We woke up and ate and then started riding around 9:00am. We took 285 to 112 to 160 which lead us right to our campground (about a mile east of Pagosa Springs).

There was quite a bit of traffic the first half of the ride, but the scenery was amazing. We only almost got lost once (almost started heading east on 24 instead of staying on 285/24W).

We started getting really hungry but couldn't find any places that looked good to eat along the way, so we decided just to wait until we got to Pagosa. When we got into town we stopped at the first place we could find and got some burgers. This was about 2:30 and there must have been 2 waitresses working for the entire restaurant. That would have been fine any other day, but it just so happened there was a huge motorcycle rally about 40 miles away in Durango and there were a ton of people looking to eat here. We finally got our food and ate and went to check into our campsite around 3:45.

We got our campsite set up and then decided to go into town and relax in some of the hot springs after being on the bike all day. The hot springs were nice, but smelled like sulfur. The pools ranged from 89-109 degrees. We stayed in the 100 degree pool the whole time.

After drying off, we decided to hunt down a liquor store and buy some beers for the night. After riding back and forth along the main drag 3-4 times looking for a liquor store the iphone said existed, we finally stumbled upon one and bought some beers.

We got back to the campground and started a fire and ate (we just brought the freeze-dried backpacker meals and had those for breakfast and dinner).

After eating an when the fire died down, we decided to call it a night and went to sleep. It got down into the high 30's that night, but luckily our sleeping bags were good for temps well below that.

Total distance today: 275 miles

Teaser photos:

The campsite in Pagosa Springs
The campsite in Pagosa Springs

View Entire Photo Gallery

Tags: motorcycle, labor day 2010

Posted from: United States

2010 Labor Day Motorcycle Ride - Day 1 - Albuquerque to Denver

Friday, September 3, 2010 @ 7:00 PM in General Travel

I purchased some Nelson Rigg CL-950 saddlebags from NewEnough and packed them up the night before. In the morning I attached everything to my bike and headed off.

Since we were camping, I had to pack a sleeping bag and my sleeping pad. Amazingly, I was able to fit everything on the bike without any real issues. I also bought a magnetic tank bag that came in handy for gloves, camera and other misc. stuff.

When I left Albuquerque at 7:30am, there were wind gusts hitting about 50mph. Luckily that died down a few miles out of the city. It got colder and colder and I had to stop and put on my heavy gloves.

I stopped for lunch in Trinidad, CO and then started riding again. By now the temps were warming up and I could switch back to my summer riding gloves.

The ride was pretty uneventful, just normal highway riding, and I made it to my buddy's house around 3pm or so.

That night, we went to REI and bought a new camping stove and I bought a little folding chair (which you'll see below). We ate and had some drinks and then went to sleep.

Total distance today: 440 miles

Teaser photos:

Motorcycle packed and ready to go
Motorcycle packed and ready to go
folding camp chair from REI
folding camp chair from REI

View Entire Photo Gallery

Tags: motorcycle, labor day 2010

Posted from: United States

Cruising through Key West and Cozumel

Cruising through Key West and Cozumel

Tuesday, December 25, 2007 @ 12:00 PM in General Travel

This year my parents decided to book a four-day cruise for the family. The cruise stopped in Key West and Cozumel, Mexico each for a day and then we had a day at sea on the way back to Tampa. The cruise was a lot of fun aside from some of the huge lines we had to wait in to get on and off the ship in the ports. The ship was the Royal Caribbean "Grandeur of the Sea" and was a little smaller than the cruise we went on a few years ago (this one didn't have the putt-putt course on the 9th floor).

In Key West we went on the "Conch Train"... a tour through the island that pointed out different historical facts and showed various aspects of the island. The tour guide was funny and informative and made the tour fun. After that we walked up and down Duvaul street (the main drag in Key West) and went into a lot of the little shops. There were a lot of bums/street performers lining most of Duvaul street. Some of the better ones were the people who dress up like statues and pose. That night was formal night on the cruise, so we had to leave the island a little early to get dressed up and do photos and everything. The food was good and we had some wine with dinner.

The second stop was Cozumel, Mexico. When we got off the boat we took a taxi to Chankanaab State Park where we planned to relax on the beach and snorkel. When we got there, we picked out some seats and rented some snorkeling gear and got into the water. The water was surprisingly clear and warm. We stayed there for a few hours and then got a taxi back into town where we walked through some shops. The shops mostly had the same things over and over... if you saw one store, you saw about 95% of them. Instead of eating on the boat we grabbed dinner at a restaurant overlooking the main street and ocean.

Our last day on the ship was spent at sea. I spent most of this day laying out on the deck or in the hot tub. When not relaxing I was usually eating. All the free food on the ship was definitely cool and I got my fare share of food on the trip.

The trip went by pretty fast but it was still fun. Hopefully next time we won't have to wait in lines like we did this time and we can cruise for a few more days.

I uploaded some of the photos I took from the cruise. Check them out by clicking on the image above or the photo icon below.

Teaser photos:

View Entire Photo Gallery

Tags: old blog

Posted from: United States

Interview in Albuquerque

Interview in Albuquerque

Saturday, November 4, 2006 @ 12:00 PM in General Travel

I just got back from my trip to Albuquerque, NM to interview with Eclipse Aviation for the Webmaster / Graphic Designer position. My old roommate Ramy works out there and let me know about the position opening and got me in contact with Eclipse.

I flew out Thursday afternoon and got into Albuquerque around 3:00 local time. I got to the car rental place and then went and checked into the hotel. After getting settled in, I got a hold of Ramy and met up with him after he got off work. We went downtown and had a few drinks, then met up with one of his friends from work and ate at Gardunos. I had the Flautas which were really good, and a Margarita which was also quite excellent. After eating, I went back to my hotel and went to bed so I could get up early for my interview Friday morning.

On Friday, I woke up, took a shower, ironed my clothes that got all wrinkled from the trip, ate breakfast and then headed over to Eclipse. I got there a few minutes early and checked in. The interviews started at 9 and I was in interviews until 3:00 that afternoon. I talked with several people and they also took me out to lunch at a nice Greek place (which was also part of the interviews). The lunch interview was with the IT guys and we talked about IIS, Apache, ASP, PHP, servers, programming, Vi, Pico and a lot of other awesome stuff :o. I was also shown around the facilities and got to meet a lot of people who work for Eclipse. All in all, I think the interviews went well and will hear back one way or another sometime this week about the position.

On Friday night, Ramy, one of his coworkers and I went to see Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. The movie was awesome and I recommend everyone see it. Ramy and I have known about Borat since our sophomore years of college and have introduced many many people to it. After the movie we went to Frontier (a restaurant on the UNM campus that's open 24/7 and serves a mixed variety of food). I wasn't too hungry so I just had a lemonade. After that I went back to the hotel and went to bed.

I slept in on Saturday and then drove down to Old Town in Albuquerque. Old Town has a bunch of shops and restaurants, plus a lot of museums. I ended up eating breakfast/lunch outside at a sidewalk cafe type place. They had something called "Pizzadillas" on their menu, so I tried that. It's basically a quesadilla with pepperoni inside as well. They served some chips and salsa with the meal and I kinda relaxed there for a while. After walking around some more in Old Town, I went up to the airport. In Albuquerque, they have an "Aircraft Viewing Area" by the airport and I sat there for a while and watched the planes take off and land. It was a great place to relax because you have the view of the mountains in the background. Check out the photo gallery to see some of the pics I took of the area.

After that, I went back to the hotel and relaxed for a bit before Ramy and I met up for dinner. We had a late lunch / early dinner at Kelly's Brew Pub, then went up to the top of the Sandia Crest and got to see the view. From the top, you could see Albuquerque on one side, and off in the distance on the other you could see Santa Fe. It was a really neat place. We got there right at sunset and it was neat seeing the city lit up. After coming down from the mountain, we met up with some of Ramy's friends at an italian place. After that we went bowling and the 7 of us split a few pitchers of beer. We got about 5 rounds of bowling in and the best I got was a 148 I think. There seemed to be a direct correlation between the amount of beer consumed and the improvement of our game... go figure. The first game I only got in the 90s, then the second I broke 100 and it went up. By the last game, we all kinda gave up and were just messing around rolling the balls grandma style or seeing how fast we could launch them down the aisle. I got back to the hotel around midnight and went to bed.

I woke up at 5:30 this morning because my flight left at 8 and I needed to get to the airport early for security and everything. Plus I had to take a shower, check out of the hotel and return the rental car. The flights back were fine. I had a long flight to Ohare, then a short one from Ohare to Indy. I slept most of the way on both flights since I didn't have a book with me.

I have another phone interview with Apple at 8:00am tomorrow which should be cool. That means I should probably wrap this up and head off to bed soon since I'm still a little tired from traveling all day.

Be sure to click the link below to view some of the photos I took while I was there.

Teaser photos:

View Entire Photo Gallery

Tags: old blog

Posted from: United States

WEMF 2006

Monday, July 24, 2006 @ 12:00 AM in General Travel

I just got back from the World Electronic Music Festival up in Tweed, Ontario this weekend. Scott and I drove up from Indy on Friday night. We left his house around 9 at night and drove straight through for the 13 hour trip. We got up there around 10:00 in the morning but couldn't get in until Noon because that was the time they would switch the ticket prices from the 3 day to 2 day price (a savings of 50 bucks). So we ended up just sitting around for a few hours and waited to get in.

Once we got in the gates, we had to find a place to park and set up camp. We drove around for a bit and ended up finding a spot that was in a pretty central location to all the stages. We walked around a bit and realized most of the people were still passed out from the night before and none of the music would really start up again until about 5-6:00 at night. Since we had been running on no sleep and were hungry, we made some sandwiches and then slept in the car for an hour.

After the nap, it was almost time for the music to start up again. I changed into my I <3 Boobs shirt and we started walking around. Almost immediately people started coming up to me and saying stuff like "hell yeah man, me too" or "nice shirt, don't we all!" This lasted the entire night and was pretty funny that so many people came up and talked to me because of the shirt. I ended up running into OTer DittoAlex because he recognized the shirt.

They had a few different stages set up. There was a Hardcore stage, Trance stage, Drum and Bass stage and an Alternative stage. Each one had a different crowd that followed it. It was pretty funny to see the different types of people who like the different types of music. Scott and I basically walked around all of them since all the music was pretty good.

We ended up staying up unitl around 3:00am and then decided we should probably try to get some sleep before heading home. We slept until about 8:00 in the morning and then packed up the car and started our journey home. The way back only took about 11 and a half hours. The drive back was really nice. It was partly cloudy through most of Ontario which made for an easy drive.

Unfortunately I didn't take any photos because it's hard to carry a camera around when there are 5,000+ people jumping around.

Tags: old blog

Posted from: United States

Spring Break Skiing in Colorado

Sunday, March 19, 2006 @ 12:00 PM in General Travel

This year for spring break, instead of doing the whole beach thing, I went out to Colorado with my family to visit my Aunt and to go skiing out at Keystone.

Before I left for break I had to find a bag to put my skis and poles in. I went to Rusted Moon Outfitters in Broadripple but they were already sold out for the season. They recommended that I try Play it Again Sports. Sure enough, I went over there and found a used bag for $15. It wasn't anything fancy but it got my skis out and back. I left Indy around 8:00pm Monday for Denver. I flew on Frontier Airlines where they had the LCD screens on the seat backs and you could watch your progress live. I listened to Armin van Buuren and read Backpacker Magazine. About 2 hours later I arrived at Denver.

My family was already out there (they flew in a few hours earlier and went to my Aunts house). I called my dad when I got in and he came and picked me up. My aunt had made some really good pasta with meatballs and sausage and I warmed some of that up when I got to her place then went to bed.

The next morning we woke up and ate a quick breakfast and headed out towards Keystone. The drive took about 2 hours but it was awesome. The drive started just outside of Denver and took us up into the mountains. We got up to Keystone around 1:00 I believe and stopped at a rental place so my brother and sister could pick up some skis. We had been planning on skiing Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday but the people at the rental place informed us that there would be no Night Skiing on Tuesday. So we just went to the condo early and hung around for a while then ate some dinner. You could see the slopes from our window and we were almost within walking distance to the slopes (it was a tough walk in ski boots). After dinner we went to bed a little early so we could wake up right away and go skiing.

We woke up on Wednesday and it was a little cloudy, but we geared up and headed out to the slopes where we stayed on Peak 1 the whole day getting used to the really long runs (one of them was 3.5 miles long and took a good 15-20 minutes to get down). We skiied until about noon when we went back to the condo for lunch. By that time it had really started to snow hard and we couldn't even see the mountains from our window. We waited around for a little while for the snow to let up a bit. I had a New Castle Brown Ale before I took off for the slopes again to help warm me up a bit. My brother, sister and I skiied for the rest of the day until we came back for dinner. My mom made some Chicken Casserole and broccoli for dinner. After eating my brother and sister were too tired to go skiing at night, so I took off around 6:00 and pretty much had the slopes to myself until 8:00 when I came back in. I had another beer and went off to bed so I could get up and take some pictures because the weather said it was supposed to be great on Thursday.

After waking up the next morning and seeing just how awesome it was outside, I got my snow suit on, got my camera and headed out alone to the mountains. My sister was going to try and get my mom off the bunny slopes and my brother wanted to stick to some of the terrain park areas on peak 1.

I made my way up to the top of Peak 1 and started taking photos. The blue run I took to peak 2 was pretty neat. It was a lot harder (read more fun) than the ones that we were doing the previous day. To get all the way over to peak 3 I had to go up and down peak 1, then up and down peak 2, and finally up peak 3. The sky was an intense blue and I was snapping pics the whole time. It was probably some of the most fun skiing I've ever had. The views were incredible and the runs were challenging, but not too difficult where I couldn't do them.

After I got to peak 3, I headed back to peak 1 where I was going to meet up with my brother and sister again. When I finally got back, it was about 11:30 so we just decided to go back for some lunch. My dad had smoked some pork back home and they brought it with them so we could have pork sandwiches for lunch. They were really good and my brother and sister and I headed back out to the slopes. We went all over peak 1 but stuck mostly to the terrain park areas where we were taking some crazy jumps and having fun. We tried doing some skiing through the trees but my skis were just too long (186cm) and it wasn't working too well.

After getting a few more good hours of skiing in, we went back for some dinner. We went to a place called the Old Dillon Inn that my dad had found out about when he saw the menu in a magazine or something. The food was alright but a little expensive. When we finished eating we put our boots back on for some night skiing. We knew that our ski trip was almost coming to an end because we had to leave for Denver again on Friday afternoon.

The night skiing was awesome on Thursday night. There wasn't any snow blowing and the temperature was at the perfect level. We stuck mostly to a run called the Spring Dipper because it wasn't too crowded and there was a nice mix of steep fast runs as well as relaxing sections. We skiied until about 8:30 that night and then went in so we could get up early and get to ski for a few hours in the morning.

We got up early once again and packed up all of our suitcases and got into our ski gear because we had to be out of the condo by 10:00. We had a good time skiing for a few hours and then met up with our parents to head back to Denver where we were going to have dinner with our Aunt.

When we got back to my Aunt's house we all talked for a while since we didn't really have much time to on Monday when we all arrived. I was able to check teh internets for the first time in almost a week but the only thing in my inbox was spam.

We left for dinner around 5:30 and went to a really nice European restaurant. One of my dads business buddies was there and we all sat at the bar and talked for a good hour or so. When it came time to order, I ended up getting the Veal Parmesean with french onion soup which was really really good. After all was said and done, we ended up leaving the restaurant around 10:30 and made our way back home.

When we got back, we all went to bed because we had to catch our flights back home in the morning. My parents had to drive to an airport that was about an hour and a half away so they left around 10:00 in the morning. My aunt was going to drop me off at the Denver airport so we left her place around 11:00 and had some breakfast. I got to the airport pretty early because my flight didn't leave until 2:55. I sat there and edited some of the photos i took on my laptop until my battery died. About an hour and a half later I boarded the plane and headed back to Indy and then drove back to Purdue.

Overall the whole vacation was awesome. I'm definitely going to try to get back out there this summer for some backpacking. I also decided that one of these days I'm going to move out there. There's just so much to do out there with all the mountains. You can go mountain biking, rock climbing, skiing, rafting, etc, etc.

Tags: old blog

Posted from: United States

Page: 1 2 3 4