bobanddenisewanderlust

Saturday- We both woke up between 4-5 when there were some powerful winds rocking the motor home. Both of us were able to go back to sleep until 7. We paid bills and updated the budget, then took off to go grocery shopping. We drove to Dillon and stopped at the thrift store there to donate the carpet sweeper, then drove past the City Market and donated the cans of beans to Colorado Cares/Colorado Shares.

We drove back to Frisco and stopped at Safeway to grocery shop. We arrived back at the motor home to the wonderful smell of fresh chicken noodle soup bubbling away in the crock pot. We had started it before we left and ate some of it for lunch.

Bob took a nap and I finished a book. It snowed off and on all day, with just a light coating on the ground. Some winds, but the brunt of this powerful storm is supposed to be from 6 PM today to 6 PM tomorrow. We’ll see. The weather guru’s are usually wrong!

Sunday- What a night.! The winds picked up and rocked the motor home all night and most of the day. We lost electric at midnight. Bob got up and went outside to take the insulation away from the generator and he ran the generator until the electric came back on at 4 AM. We lost electric for a couple of times before it went out at midnight, but it came back on in a few minutes each time.  The wind was howling with gusts on top of Peak 9 clocked at 115 mph. We also read in the newspaper that 5 miles south of Frisco, which where we are , they clocked winds at 115mph, but we are a little protected, so we don’t think they were quite that high at the motor home! When the wind was really blowing, it was lifting up the insulation that is on top of the slide outs, under the slide out cover, and it made a lot of noise. We were very pleased that our slide out covers did not tear, but the plastic globe that covers the site market light blew away. Bob found it at site 188, which is up the road, then a left turn and way down the road, so it made quite a trip!

We spent a very quiet day at home, since the wind was still blowing. We had snow showers, but with the wind, it did not stay around for long. Most of it blew away. Breck registered 2”, for 4” in 48 hours.

I took a short nap and Bob took a long one.

Monday- The plan was to go skiing today, but we still have the wind, at only 30 mph. but still pretty windy with the gusts that occur occasionally. So I went to the rec center and Bob played on the internet. After I returned and ate breakfast, we went to the hot tub and took showers. After lunch,  I ended up taking a two hour nap, catching up with some missed sleep. We went to dinner at the Senior Center. The menu tonight was hot fresh bread, salad, mixed vegetables, and cheese tortellini in a white sauce. Dessert was a choice of chocolate or carrot cake. Dinner was excellent. We sat with some people we did not know. Turns out one of the guys is a GSA on Mondays. He had not been there last year, due to illness. He spent 4 weeks in ICU and had 3 toes amputated. He has had various things done to his ski boots to allow him to ski. He has not skied yet, so it will be interesting to see how that goes.

Tuesday- We had another bad night. The winds picked up around 2 AM and the motor home was rocking again.  This time the wind pushed the snow shovel under the car. It was 30 degrees when we woke up, but the winds are still fierce, so we did not go skiing again today. At least we did not lose electric last night. Just before lunch, we ran up to the Breck Uniform Store to drop off our pants to have them shortened. Bob’s are 4” too long and mine are a whopping 9”. One of our Team Leaders, Janet ,was there and she said that the announcement that they will be shortening the pants was premature ( they had made the announcement at Bob’s morning meeting last Friday). She said take them home and duck tape them up until we receive an email. I think we can duct tape Bob’s, but mine are just too long. So we are both going to wear our black pants until they make the announcement. Since they have given us red jackets and red pants, we have now been dubbed “ the tomatoes”! I liked the red and black, but the red on red is a bit much!. Plus, most of the mountain now has red uniforms, except for Mountain Safety who have remained in their yellow jackets. Ski Patrol is still in a different red and Ski School is a pretty dark blue. Lift attendants have a nice blue on blue, but everyone else has the red on red, including the big “I”, for information. Janet said that when the new folks start in Guest Services that she is not going to know who our new people are! Oh well, not my decision!

After lunch, we went to Frisco. Bob dropped me off at the Senior Center for Mahjongg and he went to the Post Office to mail my first Lapghan to Soldiers Angles for Blankets of Hope. This is a simple pattern that I made up myself.

The only problem with doing that is I was not sure how much yarn  I needed and I kept running out of yarn. Anyway, then Bob stopped at Walmart to pick me up some more yarn, for my second lapghan,  and then had a haircut at the Barber Shop in Frisco.

After his errands, he came to watch the Mahjong. The gals  started the teaching process, and hopefully when Brian and Kathy arrive next week we can have some teaching games and get him up to speed with playing. I won my first game and my last. I was really excited to win the last game, as it was a closed game, which meant that I could not pick up any tiles. Closed sets are much harder, so I was really happy to win this one!

Wednesday- It was 8 degrees when we woke up, but the wind had died down. So at 8:15 we left to go skiing. Since they have the new uniforms to hand out, the meetings are a zoo, with everyone getting settled. So we wanted to arrive after the morning meeting. We were on the lift by 9:15, heading up to the top of Peak 9, where it was cold and windy. We skied rapidly down into the trees to get out of the wind. I always hate my first day on skis. The first runs are always my worst of the year. I feel like I have strapped 2×4’s on my feet and they are just plain in the way! But I picked up the rhythm pretty quickly. as my new skis are easier to turn in crud. The top of the mountain was icy, but hey, I am from the east coast so I know how to ski on ice! It is the heavy powder that gets me. It was icy at the top because the wind had blown off the snow. Then farther down the hill it was already starting to get junked up from so many skiers, but my new skis glide right through that stuff. They only have 5 slopes open so far, so the place gets very busy,very fast. If you stop and look up the mountain, it looks a lot like a Christmas holiday crowd, since everyone is on only 1 or 2 slopes. They have one beginner slope and one advanced slope open and part of the terrain park, so most everyone is on the one blue/green slope that was open.

They developed lift lines pretty quickly, but the line was only 10 minutes long. We only did 3, pretty long runs, then left at about 11:30. After lunch, I threw chicken into the crockpot, then I went to my monthly chiropractor appointment. Did you know that the definition of a small business is where you can take your dog to work? Dr. Steve’s bishon/poodle mix was there to keep me company, while I was waiting to be seen. When I arrived home,  and after my dogs thoroughly sniffed me, we took naps, since we are going square dancing this evening.

The square dancing was fun. It was a Mainstream workshop, basically a review of the Mainstream moves. We know Mainstream, pretty well ,since our instructor really hammered the moves in!

Thursday- On the ski slope by 9 AM and took 5 long runs before it became too crowded. We returned home, ate lunch, and hit the hot tub. We took a nice nap. That was about it! A quiet day.

Friday- I dropped Bob off at the bus stop for his GSA day, then I went to the Rec. Center to exercise. I returned to the motor home and worked on my article for a few hours and took the dogs for their mid day walk. Then I headed over to the Target in Silverthorne, ran through the MickyD’s for lunch and just about made it to Mahjongg. We played for money today. I had been informed on Tuesday that I was good enough to play for money so bring the dough with me!.  If there are enough people they have a money table and a non-money table. It is a max of $4 so it is not expensive. ( lost about $2). I have now raided our change jar to play, although if there is a non-money table that would be my preference!

I picked Bob up at about 4:15. He said that is was mainly a quiet day. He was chosen to do the VIP program today. That is a new Breck program. The GSA’s are sent down to the base of the gondola with hot chocolate and cookies. They are to choose a family and meet them at their car. They carry their skies, bump them to the front of the gondola ride, and escort them up the gondola. At the top of the gondola they are met by a tour guide and are given express access to the mountain. This is all free to them!

Bob and two of the other GSA’s wandered around down on the gondola plaza looking for someone. There wasn’t anybody! So they called up to the office and asked if they had to choose a family and were told to just choose someone. At that point, a van from one of the fancy hotels arrived and there was a father and two sons. So they chose him. They ended up scaring the father! He had immigrated from Israel a few years ago, and three men walking up to him in bright red uniforms scared him at first. Once they explained what was going on he was okay with it.

Bob also said that it had been pretty quiet all day, then in the afternoon there were three calls all at once. He was closest to a minor leg injury so that was where he headed. One of the calls was for a 20 year old University of Colorado  male student from Connecticut. He had come down one of the intermediate slopes( snowboarder), made it all the way to the bottom, crossed over telephone road and ran into a tree. He was killed instantly. Yes, he was wearing a helmet. A couple were there, the wife stayed with the kid and the husband skied down to the First Aid room. Too bad, there was a telephone right across from the accident, but it would not have made a difference. The slope the kid was on had just opened today.

Evidently it was not a good day for Vail Resorts( Vail owns Breckenridge). Vail Ski Resort  opened today and they had a 64 year old man die on one of their beginner slopes,; he was also wearing a helmet. Good grief! This is really early in the season for this to be happening! Both of these were on the news, although the death of the kid was not confirmed on TV until the 10 PM news. On the 6 Pm news they just said his condition was not yet confirmed. We knew because he was pronounced on the mountain; they held the death notice at the hospital until the family was notified.

Friend Doreen is making bread pudding, so I dropped off some very stale bread from the Senior Center at Steve and Doreen’s motor home.Bob went to the hot tub. We had a dinner of left overs, watched TV and went to bed.

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