The Whites (and Josh) Visit

Nathan, Kelly, and Josh visited from Houston this Weekend. They flew in Friday evening and left Sunday evening. It was short, but we had a great time. Loveland got another 15 inches of fresh powder before Friday, so the snow was great. We left early Saturday morning for Loveland so we could get a full day of skiing and snowboarding in. Kelly and Josh signed up for skiing lessons in the morning and we had to lie about Josh's ability. He had never been skiing before, but we said he was a level two skier (able to get on and off the lift and stop comfortably) so that he could be in Kelly's class. After a quick breakfast, we went out to give Josh a crash course on putting on skis, getting on and off the lift, and stopping so that he wouldn't look like too much of a n00b during the lessons.

Nathan White and I dropped of the 'kids' for their lesson and went off in search of fresh powder. We found tons of it. It was some of the best snow of the season and we had a great morning riding it. We had been ducking under one of the ropes to get fresh tracks down part of the hill and got caught by one of the ski patrollers. She yelled from a distance, "Don't do it!" Then she skied up and informed us that she'd seen us duck it before. After informing us on the purpose of the rope and safety issues involved, she looked around, made sure we were in the clear, then ducked the rope to get fresh tracks with us!

We met back up with Josh and Kelly after their lesson to eat lunch and ski together in the afternoon. It turns out that Josh's n00bness had been apparent to the instructor and Kelly had to speak up to keep him from putting Josh in a more novice class (way to go, Kelly). He learned quickly, though, and was making great turns by the end of the lesson. After lunch, the four of us skied together until the lifts closed. Here's a great picture displaying Josh's n00bness. N White and I watched one of Kelly and Josh's runs part way through the morning with their instructor. When Josh tried to skillfully stop right in front of Kelly, he ended up running into her. Luckily,  N White was there with the camera. Roll over the image to make Josh fall.



We walked to the Plume Saloon for dinner. We shared some great food, had a couple of beers, and played a couple games of pool. We were all tired from the long day of skiing and snowboarding, though, so we didn't last long at the Plume.



We slept in Sunday (til 8.30, anyway) and had a big breakfast of scrambled eggs, pancakes, and toast (wish I'd had some bacon to round it out). Our plans for the day consisted of taking the Coors Brewery tour, eating at Qdoba (they don't have one in  Houston) then going to the airport. We took the scenic route to Golden (where the Coors factory is) and it was the first time I'd driven that stretch of road. It turned out to be a beautiful drive and one of the highlights of the trip (yes, we stopped to take pictures).


The Coors Brewery tour was awesome. It's free and you get to sample three beers at the end of the tour. They have beer on tap there that they don't even have in stores yet. We had to leave before our third beer, though, to have time to pick up Qdoba on the way to the airport.


It was a short trip, but I had a great time and look forward to visiting Houston in the spring. The rest of the pictures from the trip are on flickr. Credit goes to Nathan White and Kelly for taking most of the pictures.