Colorado is a must-see destination on any world tour – so we recently bought cheap Southwest flights from California to enjoy 10 days freeloading off our pals Jim and Venitha in their swanky guestroom. Highlights include a) 3 days and 3 nights of super premium fun at Jim and Venitha’s ski condo, b) cleaning out the basement pantry by eating all winter supplies, and c) the requisite Ft. Collins experiences such as…
1. A New Belgian Brewery tour (home of Fat Tire), which combined many of our favorite activities – asking questions about queuing delays and yield loss, beer tasting, writing postcards to hard working friends who have “more important” things to do than visit a brewery on a Wednesday afternoon, and of course the time-honored art of the hula hoop.
2. Visits to the HP site to hang out with colleagues Miles Thorland and Tom Phelps, and of course to over-utilize the free HP fitness center.
3. Lap swims punctuated by competitive cannonball sessions at the local community pool, followed by a quick visit to a sporting goods store to replace Brian’s swimsuit (you do the math).
4. Connecting with Kitsie, one of Brian’s former Club Med aerobics instructor colleagues who currently lives in Denver. Our favorite quote from Kitsie: “Man…life is sure a lot more fun since I started drinking.”
5. Perfecting our culinary skills – especially noteworthy was Brian’s interpretation of the American “egg in a frame” classic, and the 10 seconds he waited before swiping the portion most people thought was reserved for Zoe, the family two-year-old.
6. The surprise discovery that the sport watch we bought in Singapore does not automatically synchronize via radio waves with the Ft. Collins time keeping station, despite web assurances to the contrary – shocking!
7. A hike to the top of Horsetooth Mountain overlooking Ft. Collins. That’s Venitha in the center of the three-person self portrait. Notice that Jim isn’t in this photo – sad, but unfortunately J couldn’t join us. Well, I guess somebody has to work around here…
We’re currently at J&V’s ski condo in Winter Park. Yes, Jim was somehow able to break away from work for the weekend. So far our time has been well spent – activities include Nordic ski, skate ski, tubing, snowshoeing, hot tubbing, and of course the terrifying horror of driving a ginormous 4WD vehicle in Colorado snowstorms.
