Colorado Vacation

Shannon's company has two conferences every year. The first one, in the spring, is all business & is always held at the company's corporate office in Omaha. The fall conference is usually more relaxed & is held somewhere fun & spouses get to come! This year, the conference was in Keystone, CO, a resort near Dillon, CO. Shannon & I had a really fun time while my Mom stayed with the girls. It was nice to have an entire week with no responsibilities & no kids! Below are some of the pictures from the trip (you always think you take more pictures than you really do).



This was the view from our hotel in Denver.

If you have never been to Casa Bonita in Denver, I really recommend it! It is cheese heaven!! It is a mexican restaurant & so much more! There are cliff divers, a gift shop, an arcade, a characturist and a lot of other stuff! It is absolutely huge inside! When I was a kid and we went here, it was the only thing around for miles. When I took Shannon and Liv here for the first time (in 2003) I discovered it is now in the middle of a strip mall! Urban sprall!! Whenever we visit Denver (or just drive through) we always make a point of stopping at Casa Bonita.

While Shannon was at conference, I took a road trip. I saw some really beautiful country. Too bad there was no one to share it with :(

This was outside of Leadville, Colorado.

I set the timer on my camera. I had never used the timer before & wasn't even sure I knew how! I'm kinda hunched over because I had to put the camera on a rock. The picture didn't turn out too bad??

These are the mountains that are over my shoulder in the last picture. I tried to zoom in to show how pretty it is, but the camera does not do it justice!

This was the resort where we stayed in Keystone, Colorado. Our room was in the pinkish building, the window right above the green sloping roof on the left side.

This was the view from our balcony.

This was another view from our balcony. The resort catered mostly to the winter crowd. They freeze this lake during the winter months and you can ice skate or play hockey.

We took our free day and went shopping in Breckenridge. It was about a 20 minute drive from our resort. Breckenridge is a BEAUTIFUL community with great shops! I would go back in a heartbeat!



We ate at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. They had this bench outside that had Forrest's nike shoes (that you can put your feet into), his suitcase & a box of chocolates. Forrest Gump is one of my ALL-TIME favorite movies, so eating here was a real hoot.



Shannon and Andy getting ready to enjoy shrimp anyway you can imagine - boiled shrimp, fried shrimp, shrimp k-bob, shrimp 'n potaters, shrimp cocktail....:)

Karen, James, Fay, Andy, Me and Shannon on the Continental Divide. This was only about 7 miles from our resort. However, the road was extremely twisty & there was a sheer drop off on my side of the car! (I had a minor panic attack!!! - Who knew I was so afraid of heights!!)

It was FREEZING!! I was NOT prepared - as you can see - so we took these few pictures & got back to the car with the heat on full blast!



On Wednesday, the whole gang went to the Country Boy Mine outside of Breckenridge. We got to tour the mine and have a barbeque. It was really fascinating!!



You can see Breckenridge's ski runs on the mountain behind Shannon. I'll bet its gorgeous in the winter!

Getting ready to head into the mine...
This was our guide, Larry. He was awesome - really knew how to tell a story! We went 1,100 ft into the mine with 900 ft of mountain over our heads! Larry let us feel how it was to be a miner (cold, damp), hear how it was to be a miner (he turned on the jackhammer & boy it was LOUD!) and see what it was like to be a miner (he shut the lights out - it was pitch BLACK!) After hearing Larry's story, I really don't know how anyone ever survived being a miner back in the day!! After the mine tour we got to pan for gold. One lady in the group actually got a fleck of gold in her pan!!

Fashonista!


James, Shannon and Andy - being goofs!



One of the ways to get back to your car, at the end of the night, was to go down this 500 ft. slide. It was like a water slide, without the water - oh, and it was pitch black!! The only thing you could see were the sparks coming off your clothes (from the static electricity) as you slid down the tube. It was a blast!

The only bad part was before you actually got to the end of the slide, you came to an abrupt stop. I guess that is better that flying out the end of the tube!

You had to wiggle down to the end of the slide & if you didn't move fast enough, the guys were there to pull you out by your feet!! I haven't laughed so hard in a long time!!!

Our last night at the resort....


and this is what we woke up to! Didn't we just get rid of the white stuff??

The driving conditions were a little hazardous! I think they got a total of 6 inches of snow in the area that we stayed.
Later in the afternoon, the sun came back out & most of the snow stayed above the 10,000 ft elevations.

We went home through Estes Park. This was just one of the many breathtaking views. Unfortunately the camera does not do the scenery justice!


When we got to Estes Park, we decided to stay at the famous (or infamous) Stanley Hotel. It is a beautiful, old hotel that is haunted. This hotel was Stephen King's inspiration for his novel "The Shining". Not only did they film the tv version of "The Shining" at this hotel, but also one of our all time favorite tv programs - Ghost Hunters - did a show here! We were very excited to stay the night & we were hoping we would have our own ghostly experience!!



This is the view from the front lawn of the hotel - WOW!!

This is the grand staircase in the main lobby.

I guess I'm not really dressed for this type of elegance!!


The stairway & architecture of this hotel is fabulous!!


This is the room that Stephen King stayed in (not to mention a whole host of other famous people) when he got the idea to write "The Shining".

Legend has it that ghost-children roam the halls on the 4th floor. As luck would have it, our room was number 410!! I tried to provoke the children into showing themselves, but I had no luck!


There was a 52" flat screen tv mounted in our room and on one of the channels, they play the movie of "The Shining" 24 hrs a day.
Another view of our room. It was not very big, but what it lacked in size it made up in atmosphere!!


Our bathroom.
I thought I would try and scare Shannon....it didn't work!

This was the view from our room. I don't think you would ever get tired of looking out your window!!

Gorgeous!!

I hated to leave this beautiful view, but it was back to the real world

:(