Just Like That: Hut Trip Day 1 (Project Pretty Week 7)

(Project pretty is a personal commitment to share my weekly journey of keeping my non-New-Year's-Resolution: staying fit to improve quality of life while inspiring others to do the same. Let's all jump on the endorphin wagon!) Monday morning came bright and early, and just the simple view from our Rodeway Inn was enough to get me excited. I had no idea what to expect from the upcoming hours and Patrick had been a nervous wreck about the unknown all week, asking me too many questions I didn't have direct answers to.  We...

Minimalist Packing, My Nemesis

Glenwood Springs is about 3 hours from our friends' couch, but I seriously don't mind following up a little driving with a bit more driving when the scenery looks like this!........Dear Texas, please oh pretty please, grow some damn mountains.  We'd be leaving ol' blacky (the almighty faithful 4Runner) at the trail head in Aspen for our Hut Trip, so we planned on using Greg and Lindsey's place as a storage unit and taking only the bare necessities. Let me just say that minimalist packing isn't one of my strong points......I've acquired quite...

Blue and Bamboozled

Saturday morning we woke up before sunrise and hit the road to Monarch Mountain, where the sky was so blue everything had a cobalt hue.  It was a lengthy drive, but a beautiful one, and the lift tickets were half the price of most places. We'd heard we were headed to a fairly isolated place, and all of us were excited to explore new grounds. What we didn't expect was to find ourselves in "throw back the decades land", amongst 80's style onsie ski suits, paper sticker lift tickets, and tiny old school lifts.   The...