bobanddenisewanderlust

Saturday- I woke up early and posted last weeks blog. The temp was 10 degrees with a wind chill of –27. We were snug in the motor home, but the furnace is running all the time! We paid bills and we found another fraudulent charge on Bob’s credit card, so we called that in to the credit union and Bob downloaded the form from their website and mailed it in to them. Craig and Terilu were going skiing today, so I lent her my regular helmet. My Breck one is in the locker. So I have one to use. After lunch, we went to the activity center to play mahjong. There were 6 of us, so we split into 2 tables. Bob was slow at the start, but learned quickly. Lenore played with us and Jeanne played with Kathy and Brian, so we had an experienced player at each table.

We quit at 4:00. Brian and Kathy walked over to our motor home to play with the dogs. Monday we are going to Denver and they are going to walk the dogs for us in the late afternoon. Craig and Terilu called about 5 and asked if we wanted to play Mahjongg this evening, so at 6:30 we met them at the activity center and played. Craig had played in the Air Force, so he remembered pretty quickly and was even able to ‘Mahjongg’.

Sunday- My GSA day. It was 1 degree when we woke up. But it was 20 on the top of Peak 8; obviously we were having an inversion, where it was warmer higher up and cold in the valley. At least the wind had died down!

Bob dropped me off at the bus stop then he went to City Market to pick up ground beef and carrots to cook the dogs food today. My first assignment was on the plaza on Peak 8. Breck has opened a small part of Peak 9, so the crowds were spread out a little more this morning. Since the Thanksgiving holiday is ending, it was a lot less crowded today. I worked with Marjan ( he is from Croatia), and Ted. Kathy and Brian were doing the VIP this morning. They also had a problem finding a family from out of town to elevate to elevate to VIP status. Guest Services is still working out the kinks in this program.

I passed out a lot of granola bars and quite a few trail maps. Kathy had found an adorable little boy down at the base of the gondola, so she told him to ask Denise for a granola bar at the top. So this little guy came up to the cart, he had to stand back to see me since he was much shorter than the edge of the cart, and asked me for a granola bar for himself and his father. Awww! Too cute!

My duty ended at 10:40, so I went into Ski Hill Grill to the restroom. Saw a woman sitting at a table studiously studying the trail map. So I spoke with her for awhile, showing her the very gentle green slopes. At 11, I had duty at the ski check. That was a waste of time, as people were not leaving to go back to Denver. It was sunny, with temps in the 30’s at this point, and very nice out. There were two of the paid employees, and all we were doing were giving a lot of directions. I spotted a little boy who was just standing, looking around. I watched him for a bit, and when he started to walk away, I chased after him. His name was Petey, and he had been separated from his family. I asked him if he was lost. No. Was his family lost. No. So I walked him over to the ski check to wait for his family to show up. We watched up the hill for about 3 minutes, and he saw his father. So that was an easy little episode, but I can’t imagine how people can allow their 6-7 year old kids to get separated from them. I would have been frantic. I guess that people think that child molesters don’t ski!

At noon, I headed up to Vista House for lunch. My usual chicken noodle soup with a roll  and a cup of hot water( I put my own apple cider packet in the water) for $4.68, and that is half price! I skied a couple of runs and headed over to my next assignment helping with waivers at 2PM for the Gold Coast Runner. The Runner is a neat little roller coaster. I had to ski down the 4 O’clock run and through the beginner area. Half way through the beginner area, they had put in a beginner terrain park. Hmmm, that was not there last week! So I had to figure out how to get past it to where I was going, since I needed to stay uphill to enter the Runner park. So I stopped to look around, and I could hear my name on the radio. They were trying to get ahold of me to tell me that I did not have to go to do the waivers, as the Runner was very quiet. I called in to let them know that I had heard them. So I did a couple more runs. We had our 3 PM meeting down in the locker room. We had a short discussion, and Chuck said we could all go home! So I rode home with Brian and Kathy.

We went to the hot tub, then returned to the motor home for leftovers. We were in bed by 9;30!

Monday- Since we were in bed early, I woke up at 5:30. Bob woke up at 6, so we were both early birds trying to catch the frozen worm! For some reason we do not have hot water.We have cold water, but no hot. So Bob was out there early trying to figure out what was wrong. The light bulb under the front of the motor home had burned out. So he replaced the bulb and heated up the frozen hose, and like magic we have hot water again!

We left Tiger Run at about 10:15, heading to Bob’s doctor’s appointment in Denver. The first stop was at the car wash to turn the car back from brown to white. A perpetual battle in snow country! Then off to Walmart to pick up items not available to us in the mountains. We stopped for lunch at Red Lobster for a seafood fix. Bob had the shrimp and I had a lobster pizza.

Many of you know the story of Bob’s ear. He was born without a right ear. When he was 18-19, a plastic surgeon constructed an ear for him. The day we were moving from Santa Fe to ABQ, Bob woke up to the ear being twice the normal size, red, hot, obviously inflamed. After we moved, we went to an Urgent Clinic and the doctor gave him antibiotics.It was a staph infection ( just regular staph, not MRSA). On November 15, he was having his hair cut, and the barber told him “ do you know you have a piece of plastic sticking out of your ear?” So when he arrived home, he had me take a look at it. Sure enough, there was a piece of plastic sticking out. So he hunted around for a plastic surgeon. There is one, in our health plan, who specializes in ears. So he made an appointment. At this time of the year, the doc’s are pretty busy, due to everyone wanting to get things done since they have already met their deductibles. The only appointment we could get was at 3:30. Thank you to Kathy and Brian who walked the dogs for us!

The surgeon was impressed that Bob had gotten almost 40 years out of the plastic prosthetic in the ear. They no longer use plastic, as they have found that this is what happens with the plastic, it tends to migrate. Now they use bone from a rib.  We are not sure how he got the infection. The surgeon thought it might have been some staph floating in the blood stream or his glasses rubbing the area. Anyway, the plastic prosthetic has to come out. So on Dec. 9, he has to have in and out surgery to remove the prosthetic. We figure 3 trips to Denver, one down, 2 to go.

We were out of there by a little past 4, and hot footed it back to Breckenridge. We don’t really want to be traveling over the mountains, on I-70 in the dark. Fortunately, it was a clear, sunny day, with dry pavement. We have our fingers crossed that the weather is nice for our next two trips to Denver.

Tuesday- We were out the door by 8:10. The temp at the motor home was 10, but on the mountain it was 22. Another inversion! We picked up Craig, and went to Breck skiing. What a beautiful day! Bright Colorado blue skies, with no clouds, temps in the 30’s, nicely groomed corduroy, and no one on the mountain! We did over 10,000 feet of vertical, between nine and noon! Awesome…. 

We ran back to the motor home, Bob walked the dogs while I worked on my helmet hair and made lunch. We were out the door by 1:10, picked up Craig and Terilu, and drove to Frisco to play mahjongg. This was Craig and Terilu’s first time at the Senior Center, and they were impressed. We picked up some of the free bread and chose an ornament off the Christmas tree. Each ornament has a toy request on it. This is a program developed by the Summit County police. We donate an unwrapped toy, which the police deliver in a “Christmas Connection” setting, just like we had back in Charles County. We picked a 13 y.o. boy so we will be off to Walmart for a basketball.. 

Back at the motor home, Bob added water to the tank, again. Our heated hose has still not arrived. Bob called yesterday, and it should be here Friday. Think they forgot to send it?

Back home, Bob walked the dogs and I prepared dinner.

Wednesday- Out the door to the Rec center. Temp again, 13 degrees, but 33 in town. another inversion! I picked up Craig and Terilu on the way. They have still not unpacked the back of their car, so they only have room for 2 at this point. We exercised and came back home. I worked on the article for 2 more hours. After lunch we went to the pool and hot tub. At 3:30 we had to drop the dogs off at the groomers.  Bob dropped me off at the hospital for my mammogram at 4:30, then we picked up the “very happy to see us, dogs”.

Thursday- What a difference a day makes in the weather. The temp was 22, the sky is cloudy, and the wind picked up. We were supposed to have snow, but we did not even have a dusting. We picked up Craig and took off for Keystone for  the 50+ skiing. We arrived at Keystone and took the gondola up to the restaurant at the top. We signed the waivers and divided into groups. Bob and Craig skied with the Blue Blazers and I skied with the Blue Cruisers. It was a lot colder today due to the winds. It was snowing on the top of the mountain, although not snowing in the parking lot. The guys skied until 11:30. I quit early since my left knee was bothering me. I had forgotten to do my leg exercises before leaving home. Oh well!

After skiing, we returned to the motor home, ate a quick lunch, got rid of our helmet hair, and picked up Craig and Terilu. We took all our skis and boots up to the locker room, stopped at City Market for some cookies ( more on those tomorrow!) and went to the Senior Center for the first Loosey Goosey après ski. The room became pretty crowded. We had a nice time. We returned to the motor home and I remembered I was supposed to drop off my previous mammogram films at the hospital. So I ran back down to Frisco to the hospital to leave those for the radiologist.

Back home we finished off all the leftovers, since neither of us were really all that hungry. I iced my knee and did my leg exercises  to try to pop my knee cap back in where it belongs.

Friday- A very busy day! I dropped Bob off at the bus for his GSA day. I stopped at City Market for milk, then went to the Rec Center and did my exercise routine. Returned to the motor home and worked on the article for 2 hours, walked the dogs, ate lunch and headed up to Frisco to the library for the book sale. I picked up 12 books, 5 of which were for Bob. He is reading the John Jakes Civil War series so I picked up books 4-8, plus North and South. Of course I also picked up some books for me!

I headed over to the Senior Center for Mahjongg. I only won one game so it was a good thing I was not playing for money! I picked Bob up at the base of the gondola and we headed home.

First, about the cookies. Since Bob had forgotten to turn in his radio last week, Team Leader Tom said he had to bring treats. Treats at our house are dog biscuits, so he put two milk bones in a baggie and gave them to Tom, Tom just said ha ha! He also took the cookies we bought yesterday up for the Friday gang!

Bob said that on Thursday, one of the GSA’s called in to ski patrol that a snowboarder had an injury. At least that was what he meant to say. Instead he said snowmobile. So on the message board in the locker room there was a notice that a snowmobile goes ‘Rmmm, Rmmmm’ and a snowboarder goes ‘dude”.  Then on Friday, one of the GSA’s ( not Bob) called in an injury in the T-bar. ( the bar at the base of Peak 8). Except when he called it in, he said Tiki Bar. So when the ski patrol arrived, and called it all completed they said that it was in the T-bar/Tiki Bar. So everyone on the radios got a good laugh out of that also! 

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