Day #7 of Spring Break was the day after the snowstorm. Because of the amount of snow that fell the day before, the rest of our group decided to stay an extra day in Evergreen, so instead of being just John, Beth, Don and me, we still had everyone in the group hanging with us, which was just awesome! It snowed so much the day before, that it burried all the vehicles in the snow again ... the boys went out and dug out the vehicles, scrapped off the ice from the windows, and started to warm up the vehicles so they wouldn't be ice cold when the rest of us piled in. They actually did all of this every day (at a minimum, warm up the vehicles), which I really appreciated!! Thanks boys!!
Here's John digging out the Tahoe:
The roads weren't as bad as it was yesterday ... the plows were going constantly and salting the roads, so it wasn't as scarey as yesterday, and there were definately more people out today. There was a little traffic at one point, though. And when we finally got through, we saw what the traffic was all about. Some van had somehow managed to drive into the median area and get stuck hood deep in the snow!! We all couldn't figure out how that happened, since the roads weren't close to being in a bad condition.
Now anyone who knows me, knows that I love Olive Garden ... I think probabbly because we don't have one back in Hawaii, so it's a treat to go to an Olive Garden whenever I visit the mainland. I had asked the day before if we could make a trip there, so I was thrilled to be able to go!!!
When we got to the Olive Garden, there were geese just chillin on the side of the road ... it was so wierd to see a gaggle of geese on the side of a busy road, with no real pond in sight! I had to run over and take a picture of them.
On the way back to the hotel, we made a pit stop to see the bison along the side of the freeway. The city of Devner takes care of the bison, and during the winter months, they lay out hay so the bison would have food to eat. This allows anyone to pull up to the bison viewing area and see the huge group of them from a safe distance, but pretty close up. (I got my bison lessons from Beth!) One of the bison came up to visit us real close, and stayed for a good 20 minutes checking us out and posing for pictures. The funniest thing was right before we were going to leave, Chandra told us to turn around to take a group picture, and the bison, as if on cue, turned around and walked away! But we got some great pictures, especially of "Thunder 49!" Well, I don't think that's his real name, but why not? Jaide kept calling them all "Thunder" because the name of the buffalo mascot for Texas was "Thunder 10".
Keisha decided that she wanted to coax Thunder closer ... I guess she didn't read the sign...
Well, I read the sign, but I didn't care, I still stood next to the fence to take pictures. What I didn't know (and the boys noticed but didn't say anything to us) was that right near where I was standing, the fence was bent and streatched like a bison had charged it. Oh well, I guess we were all lucky that this Thunder was being nice that day.
The water lines in our Tahoe got frozen up and the boys spent some time trying to fix it so we could use the windshield fluid to wash our windows. To pass the time, Jaide was being a goof and making faces and posing for pictures in the vehicle next to me.
The view on the way back, the snow-lined mountains with the trees covered with snow was so beautiful!
After that, we went back to the hotel to grab some clothes and head back to the town of Winter Park to go snowtubing again!! The last time we went snowtubing, everyone who participated had so much fun, that we had no trouble convincing everyone in the group that we had to go back and do it again! So this time, all 16 of us signed up to do it. Unfortunately, it was alot colder up in Winter Park - alot colder than any other day we've been up there, and I wasn't even dressed warm this time, since last time I got pretty hot. John told me that he figured with the wind chill and everything, it was probabbly 0 degrees out, maybe colder. It was so cold that the clock on the top of the hill froze! The hills were iced over, though, and it made the rides alot slicker and faster! We learned from the last time that going down in groups is a lot more fun than going down alone...and the bigger the group, the better!!! We must have been having so much fun, that other people were noticing. Random people started asking us if they could join our group going down the hills! Slowly, one by one, the people from our group started dropping out because it was so cold! Even Skout, who is usually up for anything decided it was too cold for him to stay out there.
The rest of us kept going for an hour and a half! (We we only supposed to go for hour increments!!) Chandra lost her glove during one of the runs, but we found out when we got to the bottom of the hill that it was still stuck onto the tube that she was supposed to be holding on to. Jaide also lost her glove when she let go of a tube's rope, but it was near the top of the hill. John had to go down the hill on a tube and grab her glove ... it sounds a lot easier than it actually was, but he got it on his first try! Here's the group before our last run.
After snowtubing, we went back to the town of Winter Park again so John and Beth could buy their own set of skis and the rest of us could pick up last minute souveniors. I found a really good fudge place in the town and got some cute t-shirts to bring home. Here I am hanging on an elk ... or a deer? I don't know my animals!! lol.
When I went to check in with Beth and John, Beth was trying to pick out her ski boots so she was wearing 2 different boots. I don't think she even got either one of these. Hahaha.
Day #8 was our last day in Colorado. It was so sad to leave, partly because that ment we had to go home and back to reality, but mostly because we had to say good bye to everyone. So our last day consisted of last minute packing and saying our goodbyes as the rest of our group loaded up for their drive back to New Mexico and John and Beth drove Don and I to the airport. Thankfully, our flights back home were mostly uneventful.
Overall, this Spring Break trip was full of all kinds of new adventures for me - almost everything that the Sanchez's had planned for us were things I've never done before. It was definately an adventure for me, and I loved every minute of it! I cannot wait till next year to do this all over again!!!!
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