Day #1 of Spring Break!!!!!

Let me start off several months before this Spring Break vacation.  I was coming to the end of the project that I was working on, and it was getting stressful for me, and I was in desperate need of a vacation.  I was trying to figure out where, when and with whom, though.  I was chatting with my friend, Beth, who recently moved to Italy and had just posted pictures from her latest trip to Venice.  We started talking about her Venice trip, then possibly future little trips that her and her husband, John are planning to take.  Then she suggested that I join her on her family trip to Colorado.

I've always wanted to learn how to snowboard, and I never really got to really play in the snow.  So I jumped all over her invitation and started looking at the prices for hotel and airfare and put in my leave at work.  When everything started falling into place, I got really excited about the trip and could not wait!!  Beth told me it was originally going to be a trip with just her, her sister (Bri), and her parents (Chandra and Jr).  But slowly, the group grew bigger and bigger till there was 14 people!!  I guess when Beth invited me, John decided to invite some of his friends, so he invited Don and Chuck.  Don lives in Hawaii, so it was nice to know that I'd have someone to make the journey to Colorado with, instead of flying alone.  Unfortunately, Chuck wasn't able to make it on this trip, which was a dissapointing for us all, I think.

So fast forward to Saturday night, when we were supposed to fly out, getting us to Colorado at noon, where John and Beth were going to pick us up.  Well, Don came over to pick me up (and throw some of his clothes that didn't fit in his suitcase into mine!), and noticed that he had a voicemail, but no missed call.  I didn't think anything of it when he checked his voicemail, until he blurted out that our flight was cancelled!!!  I guess the voicemail told him that our flight was cancelled and to call a certain number to find out more.  I was in shock and didn't know what to do.  He called the number and was on hold for over 10 minutes.  When he finally talked to someone, he found out that our flight was cancelled due to maintenance problems, and they booked us on one of the first flights out in the nexgt mornign to Denver.  This would get us to Denver at 7pm the next day, instead of noon.  We quickly texted John and Beth, and luckily, they were just getting into bed, so we were able to call them and explain the situation.  Beth's family was able to figure out what how we were going to work around the schedule change, and I felt a little better about the situation.

The next morning, we had to get to the airport before the crack of dawn, and made it to our stopover in San Fran almost an hour early!!  So because we had some extra time to spare, I decided before we were even let off the plane that I wanted a chowder bread bowl!! We found a place not too far from our gate that had really good chowder in a sour dough bread bowl!  yum!!

When we finally got to Denver, we found out that there had been a snowstorm that just passed by.  When we called John and Beth to let them know that our plane had landed, they told us that the roads were pretty bad, and that they will take longer to get there.  Since we had just landed and still had to wait for our luggage, I figured they would be there when our luggage got there.  It actually worked out that they got there right when we got our luggage.  Unfortuantely, we had the hardest time finding each other!!!  Don and I grabbed our luggage and went out to the curbside.  There weren't that many people outside, and all these car rental place buses kept swinging by, but no Beth and John!  We were on the phone and we were all utterly confused, because she said that they had just drove around the arrival area and didn't see us.  And I was standing out there the whole time and didn't see them at all!  Finally, some worker at the airport came over and told us that if someone was going to pick us up, we had to go up a floor.  HUH?  That explained how Beth and John circled the arrivals area 3 times and we still couldn't find each other!  It was wierd that you couldn't just walk out and get picked up.  Anyways, we finally found each other, and it was so great to see Beth and John again.  The last time I saw them was at their wedding 7 months ago.

Beth and John filled us in on what was going on ... everyone in the group had gone to the rental place to pick up their rental gear, and in the morning, we'd swing by and Don and I could pick up our gear, since we wouldn't be able to make it to the rental place before it closed tonight.  We were heading over to the 2nd best steakhouse ... Saltgrass!  Chandra, JR, Bri and Bri's friend Lindsey were going to meet us there for dinner.  John said that the roads were getting a little better, but it still looked pretty bad.  John explained that when we looked out of the Tahoe and saw a curtain of white, that it was called a "white out".  I was so greatful that John and Beth had picked us up, because John grew up in Minnesota, and was used to driving in the snow.  I grew up in Hawaii, where I don't have to drive in snow at all, if I choose.  Beth told us about their journey from the hotel to pick us up -  that there were semi's stalled on a hill, and they had to squeeze around all the stalled cars and trucks on the road and how scarey it was.  For some reason, it was hard for us to find the resturant, even with the Garmin.  But we eventually found it, and went in to wait for the rest of the group to show up.  The food was so yummy there!

We were posing like the bobcat on the mantle above us.

After dinner, we headed back to the hotel to check in and call it a night.  Tomorrow would be an early day, and the first day on the slopes!!!