So Tuesday found me driving to the airport, parking in remote, shuttling to the terminal and boarding a morning flight for Denver. Yea - I was on United (as they've just bought or merged or something with Continental and I've gotten on too many of those flights lately - they're not my favorite) as Denver is one of United's hubs. As I was on a United flight I got bumped up to first and actually got to relax and do a little work in comfort on the way in. It always makes my day when they bump me, I feel like I've earned it :)
Once I landed in Denver, I once again hopped on another shuttle and this time headed for the car rental lot where I threw my bag into a rather large SUV with all wheel drive and headed out over the hills to Aspen. I had actually reserved a little midsize car but then was told by my rep that Aspen was expecting snow and I needed to make sure I had a good car just in case. It turned out that it wasn't that bad with snow, but on the way up, the wind almost blew my SUV off the road several times. It was horrible!
Heading out of Denver, it was a beautiful sunny, but windy, day and it was about 60 or so degrees. Just too wonderful for words! I had on my short sleeved shirt and I had the window partially open and was enjoying the lovely drive up into the moutains.
Unfortunately, the higher I climbed, the more I saw the outdoor temperature reading on my dashboard dip downward until it was below 30. All of a sudden, I reached the peaks and there was a snowstorm that I had to wade through for about 10 minutes.
After the 10 minutes, though, back to beautiful on the other side! I passed through Breckenridge and saw the sun, snow and skiers....
Vail was beautiful as well and I envied all the happy families as they swooshed down the hill. I could see their rosy, delighted faces as I passed the slopes and I gritted my teeth as I trudged on to our evening client dinner.
I got into Carbondale, CO, just below Aspen, around 5:30, just in time to meet up with four others at a little place called Russets. There were two "co-workers" and then two customers from the hospital we were working at the next day. I was really exhausted and so the chatter was a little much. I just sat there smiling and nodding and taking all kinds of ribbing over the fact that I wasn't also drinking red wine or gin and tonic or whatever and had her refilling my coke and coffee glasses/cups. I knew I had to drive about 30 mintues to my hotel and I was exhausted to begin with so I stuck with my caffinated drinks. I find it very amusing that, if you don't drink when everyone else is, they all have to "gang up" on you and tease you and torment you over the fact that you aren't drinking. They guesstimated on everything from the fact that I was a goody goody (those are my words, their insinuations) to the possiblity that I was pregnant. Crazy ... never mind the fact that I HAD TO DRIVE after dinner. Funny - they did too but it didn't seem to stop them :)
Anyways - my 30 minute drive back was fine and dandy and I fell into bed about 11:30 and then had to get up again the next day around 6 to make it up the mountain to Aspen for our 7:30 appt. We got in and did some work for a while and then took a little break. We popped into the cafeteria for a coffee and I grabbed a yogurt but started to freak a little as I though the yogurt might be bad - and then I realized that the reason the top of the yogurt was puffed up so much was because of our elevation!.... duh!
So, I have an admission. I've been up a lot of mountains before - really high ones. I've done all kinds of physical activity at all kinds of heights and have never had any problems. So much, in fact, that people marvel at me being midwest and they can't believe I'm not have problems with the altitude. This time, however, I found myself in the morning yawning continually to get deep breaths in. I couldn't believe that I was actually struggling to breath a little. Ahhh! I know that my schedule has kept me from running as much, but it scared me that I might be getting all wimpy so, now I'm determined to kick my butt in gear and start ramping up those lungs again so I can go back out and not feel anything in that high altitudes. I'll keep you posted if I go back what my lungs are like.... :)
Incidentally - this was the view in the hospital parking lot. Beautiful!
This is on the way out of town - yes, I said way out.... We worked in the Aspen account for about 2 or 3 hours and then got back on the road to go back down to Glenwood Springs. When I got back to Denver and when people asked where I had been and I said Aspen, they were all ready with their comments of envy. However, I must point out, I was in Aspen, yes -- I was at the hospital. I never went downtown Aspen. I never hit the slopes. I never ate a meal there. I never did anything during this trip except work. SO -- if you ever feel the need to tell me that I'm "lucky" for getting to go somewhere --- consider the very likely possiblity that I went there, but I never did anything except work.
Anyways - on the way out of town we passed the Aspen airport. The lot went on for quite a while and had all these coverings where 100s of private jets were lined up along the side of the road just sitting there waiting for someone to take them off to some other glorious location. So hoitey toitey. But - I did meet a very nice lady in the hospital who was an "Aspen-ite" and she was perfectly lovely. Actually, everyone that I met who lived in Aspen was very nice. Wealthy, but very nice.
There are all kinds of hot springs in the mountains. This is the most famous one in Glenwood Springs. This is actually the pool the feeds over to the major pool in the next picture.
The hotel and the hot springs pool at the Glenwood Spring Hotel -- fed from the pool above.
Driving back down to Denver. Its crazy to be driving on a road that running above tree line - that means you're dog gone high up!
If you can zoom in on this picture - do it. The hill going down is like a 7% grade for about 5 or 6 miles. There are all these signs telling truckers to gear down and all. They're all those road signs that are put the by the state - all professional and all... and then they have this one.... In case you can't read it, it says "Truckers - don't be fooled!" and then proceeds to say how they're not down the hill yet. I just love the "don't be fooled!"
I got back down to Denver Tuesday night. As I was boarding my plane for Denver, one of my past youth group girls who had just gotten married, texted me to me that her husband had just gotten back from overseas and they were just moved to Colorado Springs. How funny - I told her I was just boarding a flight for Denver and we immediately planned to meet for dinner on Wednesday night.
Sonya was actually in Kazakhstan with me and she was one of the girls that I loved in youth group. We used to hang out and then her family actually moved to Ohio so I hardly ever got to see her anymore. It was such a treat to be able to get together!
This is Sonya and her husband Johnathan.
After dinner, I headed out to Fort Collins to stay with a friend of mine, Laura. She's actually a friend from college and if you look at the toolbar on the side of my blog, you'll see a picture of her and me at the Taj Mahal. She and her family are missionaries in India and are home for a year sabbatical. I had gotten to see her one other time at the end of last year when they had first come so it was another great treat to spend a whole night at their house and then do breakfast with her.
This shot was a run that I took up into the foothills by Laura's place. I had gotten up in the morning and just was going to run in the neighborhood but then I saw the foothills and just started running for them until I found a path up. It was acutally a mountain bike trail but it served my purposes as well.
Thursday night, I watched a basketball game with Asha and Isaiah, Laura's kids, and then I booked over to another set of friends from college back in Lakewood by Denver. I hung out with Jason and Naomi and their daughter for a few hours and laughed and shared and had some good times, and then I went over to the airport to stay the night and then fly out the next morning.
When I got up in the morning, I had to chuckle at all the tumbleweeds that had lodged themselves under and between cars.
Back home by late Friday afternoon and it felt good!
Next week -- its off to a whirlwind tour of Texas! Stay tuned!
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