COLORADO

Dec 20, 1994 - Jan 3, 1995

Preface
Lisa and I decided to spend our Christmas break at her house in Colorado Springs skiing. We were later joined by Will and Pieter, two other guys from our hallway in Bursley.
Dec 20
In the morning we went ice skating at Yost Arena. It gave us something to do before we had to go to the airport. Our flight came in this day. The flight was OK. It was a little bumpy, but the dinner was pretty good. We had salad with stripts of chicken in it. Not the best, but it was great for airplane food! We landed on time, and spent the next hour and a half in the car going to Lisa's house in Colorado Springs. It was dark already, so we couldn't see anything. I was excited to see those mountains I had heard so much about.
Dec 21
Lisa pulled me outside and showed me the mountains. They were spectacular! You could see Pike's Peak from her driveway. It was gorgeous! We didn't do much this day. I learned how to play racquetball. That was an experience, but it did hook me! We also bought our lift tickets for the upcoming days of skiing.
Dec 22
Our first day of skiing. Today Lisa and I went to Keystone. The view of the mountains from Keystone was even more spectacular than at Lisa's house. Why? Because all of the ski resorts are on the continental divide, whereas Colorado Springs is east of the entire mountain range. Anyhow, Keystone was pretty good. I found out how much I liked skiing in Colorado. It was nice to spend 15 minutes going down a ski hill instead of 1 minute like in Michigan. It was also interesting to note that we could see Breckinridge from Keystone. It was very warm this day (and everyday). It got up to about 45 degrees in the mountains, but as soon as the sun set at 4pm, it got dark and cold FAST! That evening we decorated the Christmas tree. It was a fun family event. We whipped out the 8-track player and played some good ole fashioned Christmas music.
Dec 23
Today we went skiing at Winter Park. The view of the mountains from Winter Park was even more impressive than at Keystone. I used up practically a whole role of film just taking pictures of the mountains. Winter Park was a great place to ski. Best view, most snow, best runs, least people, fastest lifts... What else would I want? Today I skied my first Colorado black diamond. It was very steep and had LOTS of moguls. I survived it, but stuck to blue runs from that point on. At the end of the day we tried skiing above the timberline. This was at the very peak of one of the mountains where the air is thin enough that trees can't exist. It was a totally different type of skiing having no trees around and being up at 12,060 feet. The view from above the timberline at Winter Park was pretty awesome, I have to admit.
Dec 24
Not much went on today. I slept in until noon since I was up at 5am the previous two days. Lisa and I did some shopping at Walmart and went to the Candlelight service at her church that evening.
Dec 25
The Passmores celebrate Christmas differently that my family ever has. It was lotsa fun. We got up in the morning and first looked at what we got in our stockings. Following that was the Passmore's telling of the Christmas story from the Bible. We then continued with our other presents. Unlike in my family, we each went around one at a time and had to guess what our gift was before we opened it. It took quite awhile! The turkey dinner that followed this was oh so good. That night we were bored, so we went to see The Santa Clause.
Dec 26
Today was spent at the Garden of the Gods, a strange rock formation in Colorado Springs where we went rock climbing. It was lots of fun rock climbing--it was something I'd never done before. The view of Pikes Peak from the Garden of the Gods was rather impressive, too. There's also a very large rock naturally balanced on a point, known (ironically enough) as Balancing Rock.
Dec 27>
Today was devoted to skiing at Breckinridge. It was OK there, however it was SO crowded!!! We often had to wait in line for up to 20 minutes, whereas the other resorts had waits up to 5 minutes at most. Other than that, it was alright, but the lines made an already short day of skiing even shorter.
Dec 28
Today we drove to Boulder to see one of Lisa's friends, and later that day drove to Denver to pick up Will and Pieter from the airport. We played racquetball again that night.
Dec 29
We wanted to show Will and Pieter what Garden of the Gods was like, so we went rock climbing again. We took a lot of GQ pictures (as Will described them). Here's a picture of Will and Lisa, and one of myself. We went shopping again, for gloves, lift tickets, etc. That evening we decided to treat ourselves to some Morrocan food, so we went to a way cool Morrocan restaurant. It was expensive, but well worth the money. We at with our fingers as the Morrocans do, and used an entire towel draped over our left shoulder as a napkin!
Dec 30
Today we were planning on skiing at Copper Mountain, but we got hit with a huge storm that prevented us from getting there. It did do some rather interesting things to the trees - made them quite beautiful, actually. We tried to come up with some things to do, so we decided to drive to Golden, Colorado and tour the Coors brewery. The best part about the tour was that Will, the only one who's old enough to drink the 3 free beers at the end of the tour, forgot his ID, so he was outta luck! Later we drove to Cripple Creek. This was on old Gold Mining town that has been refurbished into lots of casinos. It was a neat place to walk around and we had one of those old Western brown photos taken of us. That night we got a room at the Broadmoor Hotel so we could watch the U of M Holiday Bowl game on ESPN (which Lisa didn't have at home). This was no ordinary hotel. I would say this was probably the fanciest hotel I have EVER seen in person or even on TV.
Dec 31
Today we finally DID get to go to Copper Mountain. It was OK. Very average in every way, although the weather was pretty nasty - foggy, misting, cloudy, cold. However, it was quite an experience skiing on 8 inches of fresh powder. I'm not sure if I liked it or not. It was different, that's for sure! Today Lisa found a couple guys to bow to her at the ski resort.
Jan 1
The event of today was flying. Lisa's dad, who is a former member of the airforce rented a Cesna for a couple hours, so we all took turns flying it. We also experience zero-G, and positive-G's. It was like nothing I have ever done before - LOTS of fun. Lisa's dad told me that I fly like I ski - aggressive.
Jan 2
We went back to Winter Park for our last day of skiing. Our Christmas Break was coming to a close. Sometimes we were a nice happy group of friends, and other times we were hitting each other with our poles.
Jan 3
Today we came home. Our flight back was very nice. It got off the ground late, but landed on time. I had a nice hot turkey and ham sandwich for lunch. Not only was it not bad, it was tasted GREAT!
Other pictures not included above
Some famous quotes from the trip
Note: Most of these were taken out of context, so take them with a grain of salt.