April3,2016

Dear Everyone,

I’m starting this letter a bit early to get my paltry thoughts down about the ski trip I took with Jasper and Jacob.  Alison was supposed to join us, but our planned trip dates happened to coincide with the move from San Francisco to Minneapolis.

Jasper and I took a flight to Denver on Friday.  The flight was delayed, and landed about forty minutes late.  Jacob had taken some vacation hours off and had left his school early, so he was waiting for us at the baggage claim.  We took a bus to the remote Hertz car rental terminal, picked up a Toyota Rav 4, and drove back to his apartment downtown to pick up his skis, boots, some groceries, and to briefly meet with Christine and his friend Adam.  Then we drove another couple of hours to Breckenridge, where we were just in time to get to the rental office to pick up keys for a condo we had engaged for a week (it had been too late for Alison to change the reservation for less time).  We ordered some take-out Chinese/Thai food, unpacked, and then the rental service arrived with Jasper’s and my skis and boots.

Saturday morning we took a five minute bus ride to the Beaver Creek lift, picked up our ski passes, and went up to Peaks 9 and 10.  We skied some groomed blues and blacks, and then a few mogul runs, including Spitfire, which was Alison’s favorite last year, as well as a run that went beneath the Mercury lift.  We had lunch, skied some more, and then called it quits.  We stopped early enough to drive into Dillon to see Deadpool (really raunchy), and then had pho in Frisco.

Sunday we packed our car and drove forty minutes to Vail.  Jacob had an all-mountain pass, and our passes gave us 2 days of skiing at Vail and A-basin.  We took a long route along a catwalk to get to lifts that served the China Bowl.  We skied in some powder slopes, and then a slope called Shangri-La that was a mixture of trees, powder, and below lift moguls. We ate lunch at the Two Elk lodge (special peanut butter and jelly sandwiches made with secret techniques taught to Jacob by Tibetean monks), and then skied some front slopes, including Roger’s Run. For dinner we ate Cajun  in Breckenridge, and then Jasper and I tried the hot tubs of the condo - - adequate, but you had to walk outside to get to them. Afterwards we played some Dominion.

Monday we went to Keystone.  We were in the far outback area when Jasper started to complain about ankle pain, and Jacob about toe pain.  We stopped at the  friendly ski patrol lodge and got some duct tape to prevent blisters.  Jasper’s ankle looked pretty bruised.  We went down the mountain and drove back to have lunch at our condo.  Jasper decided to hang back, and Jacob and I did a few runs at Breckenridge.

Tuesday morning we all skied Breckenridge in the morning, until the weather began to turn (by the way, we had excellent skiing weather the whole time - - there had been a couple of big storms just before we arrived, and we had cloudy / sunny weather with relatively mild temperatures).  We had lunch back at the apartment, had our skis/boots picked up, and then drove back to Denver with a quick detour for Jacob to drop his skis off for re-edging.

We went out to an Ethiopian restaurant (with absolutely glacial service - - I think it took them 90 minutes to bring us food) for dinner with Christine, and my old college roommate, Carlos Madrid.  Carlos is a care manager for Kaiser Permanente (and the father of one of Hannah’s Pomona classmates).  We spent some time catching up about old Yalies. Carlos does a lot of outdoors activities, and he was able to give Jacob and Christine some information about good places for hiking and fly fishing in the area.

We had a leisurely breakfast Wednesday morning at the Denver Biscuit Company, and then flew back to Chicago.  Since then Jasper has been going to water polo practice, I stepped in to work for an afternoon, and Cindy met with a landscaper to try to find a fix to the post-rain pond that forms in our back yard.

Love

H.