Posted by Curtis Fong on Mar 7, 2019
Road Trip to Rehab Chapter lll Thursday, February 7, 2019 – Continued: Still being upset about losing my credit card, Dan took the steering wheel as we headed out of Gunnison on Hwy 50 east, over Monarch Pass and down to Salida… We have driven over this pass many times and in both directions… It was snowing over the pass and visibility was near white-out at times, but with studded tires and fog lamps, the Subaru pushed through to crest the continental divide, passing the entrance to Monarch Ski Resort and down the east side to Salida where we turned north, heading to the front range. Our destination was Eagle, Colorado, west of Vail and Beaver Creek. We drove through Leadville and took the turn, passing Ski Cooper and down to Minturn where we hit westbound I-70… And, finally arriving and checking in to the Eagle River Lodge (formerly a Holiday Inn Express). We would stay here for a total of four nights. I did not get a return call from Garlic Mike’s, so I called them again and got a live person. They confirmed that they had my credit card and I was so relieved… I asked them to mail it back and they agreed to do so… Thankful that I did not have to cancel the card and wait for another from the bank. We ended up heading to Restaurante Casa Mexico for dinner and this place was definitely authentic… They featured a 22 oz. Margarita to which several other patrons were enjoying, and I had a huge Mexican style Carne Asada burrito… It was grandioso! Friday, February 8, 2019: After a meager breakfast offering at the Eagle River Inn, we headed out east on 1-70 past Beaver Creek, Vail and all the other resorts to Frisco and onward to Arapahoe Basin… This was one resort that remained on my bucket list as in all the years traveling to Colorado and the resorts on the front range, I had never skied here… Traffic was backed up coming through Frisco as there was some kind of accident near the Keystone Resort turn off… By time we got up the hill to A-Basin, we got one of their last parking spots in their upper lot… Thank goodness they did operate a shuttle to the base lodge. Interestingly, their lower parking lot was for early...
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Posted by Curtis Fong on Mar 2, 2019
Road Trip to Rehab Chapter II Saturday, February 2, 2019 We departed Moab, continuing the drive to Durango… Clouds were surrounding the red rocks and a sun beam protruded down to the valley floor with the La Salle’s in the background… Awesome site and awesome drive… Dan and I road-tripped to Durango about 6 years ago, when they hosted our NASJA Western Winter Summit. We both agreed that this was a fun resort with lots of diversity and Durango was great community with expanding mountain culture, great music, beautiful art and year- round outdoor recreation… fishing, paddle sports and great mountain & road biking They even host an annual bike event, The Iron Horse Bicycle Classic, that races the infamous Durango & Silverton Train, 50 miles up the canyon from Durango to Silverton. For more information on Durango, Colorado visit: https://www.durango.org/discover-durango/ We arrived in Durango about 12:30pm and drove directly to Purgatory… This was a Saturday and they had a good crowd and we found one of the last parking spaces in their mid-level lot. Actually, it was on their tennis court… This was a long walk to the shuttle pick up, but thankfully, Dan offered to carry my skis and negotiated the walk carrying two sets of poles… took me a while to get there, but we eventually got shuttled to the village base area… Greg Ralph, Marketing Manager and his lovely wife, April, both old friends, greeted us and he set us up with ski passes… We rode up the Village Express to the top and skied down to Chair 3, rode back up and skied down to Chair 5… Rode back up and Greg & April had to depart, so Dan and I continued moving across the mountain to ski Chair 8 “Legends Express”. This lift was recently replaced with a high speed detachable quad and made riding up super-fast… I really like the layout of this mountain and how the runs have been designed through the trees with rolling bumps and tree islands… A great area to ski on flat lite days… We eventually made our way to Dante’s on the mid mountain to take a break and grab a bite… We skied a few more runs and made our way back to the Village, where I checked out for the day and Dan continued to make a few...
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