Brilliant Breck
Breckenridge is such a beautiful place! For such a small town there is so much to do here – in summer and winter! Today we discovered a whole new town exists up the mountain.
With an extra bounce in our step and renewed energy thanks to our fully sprouted organic cereal for breakfast, we bounded down to the gondola station ready to see what was going on up the hill. It was a bit like Jack climbing the beanstalk and discovering a completely new world existed up in the clouds when we disembarked our gondola carriage at the top of the mountain. There was a hive of activity going on up there with mini golf, zip lines, chair lifts, toboggans, trampolines …you name it! There were mountain bikes zipping all over the slopes and restaurants and bars. We decided to get amongst it ourselves and bought some tickets for some of the activities on offer.
Sam signed up for the ten mile zip line (though it didn’t really run for ten miles) and while he enjoyed it, said it wasn’t quite the g-force generator he was hoping it’d be. He said “mum, even you would’ve been fine on that!” I doubt it.
We both loved the Gold Runner Coaster, which was a bit like a toboggan ride but was on an actual rollercoaster track. It had some pretty speedy twists and hairpin bends but the best part about it was that you controlled how fast you went with your own brake and accelerator. It was awesome! Best rollercoaster I’ve ever been on! There was also a really long toboggan ride (about 3 times the size of the one at the Big Banana) called the Alpine Super Slide. It wound around down the mountain for about 800m and was really fun! Some of the sections were a bit dodgy (as in, nearly falling apart!) but we got up some serious speed and had the wind In our hair! The sign at the top of the slide that said “people get hurt on this ride” was slightly off- putting but the fact that each toboggan had a brake installed, instilled such confidence, I wasn’t even worried. Poor Sam had Captain Cautious in front of him and had to come to a complete halt in the middle of the ride just so he didn’t drive straight into the back of him!
The little girl in front of us had dutifully measured herself up against the wooden cut out that specified how tall you needed to be to ride the Coaster and her sister had mistakenly given her the thumbs up even though she was a good couple of inches short of the mark. When it was time for her to go on, she was deemed too short and was suitably disappointed. One of the guys working on the ride had heard what was going on and immediately leapt down to come to her aid, shouting “I’ll go on with her!” He was grinning from ear to ear and said “that is, if you’re OK to ride with a professional?” The little girl seemed relieved at least that she didn’t have to miss out. Later, when I was on the ride just behind them, I saw them leaning into a corner at break-neck speed, the worker whistling and yahooing and a look of sheer terror on the face of the little girl!
We had some lunch at the Ski Hill Grill, a big restaurant at the top of the mountain. There was quite a good crowd there but we were imagining just how packed it would be in winter. There was a café advertising espresso coffee but unfortunately I got the apprentice barrister and the coffee wasn’t too crash hot. After a quick sip and evaluation of the state of the taste, I thought I’d grab the chocolate powder and shake a bit of that on top to mask the lack of flavour. My next sip revealed that the shaker had not actually contained chocolate, but cinnamon instead – with NO sugar! Let’s just say the bad coffee became appalling coffee!
The view from the top of the gondola was fantastic and there were big lumps of snow all over the top of the mountain where kids were playing and building snowmen. Toby and Maisy would’ve loved it! The weather has been significantly chillier in Breckenridge, raining on and off. Sam and I decided to get back to the condo and give the hot tubs a whirl. The place we’re staying has a “Club House” with 2 indoor hot tubs and an outdoor hot tub. We donned our cossies, grabbed our towels and headed for the indoor hot tubs, only to find that they’d both been emptied for the summer! Bummer! There was still the outdoor hot tub and it was HOT; so nice and deep too. Sitting on one seat, the water came up to my nose! I guess if you were warming up out there completely exposed to the elements in winter, you’d want it to be as deep as possible.
The condo is also equipped with board games and puzzles and Sam and I thought we’d crack out the 500 piece “horses-running-through-the-snow” puzzle. We’ll just say there was a lot of snow in that picture and it’s probably the hardest puzzle either of us had ever done! Uncharacteristically (for both of us) we pulled the pin and decided we were never going to get it out.
We walked down to the gorgeous Main Street and had a browse in all the shops (browsing being the operative word!). My favourite shop was the three storey one with the wall-to-wall cowboy boots, in every possible colour and size you could imagine – starting with the cutest little baby sized pairs! They were works of art! The cheapest pair I spotted was $400 so unfortunately there’ll be no boot-scootin’ for this cowgirl. With its big hanging flower baskets and its old-fashioned street lights, it really is the cutest little town. A sign that said ‘Live Music Tonite’ (is that how you spell it in the USA?) at the cute little establishment, The Warming Hut, lured us in for dinner. It was like an old house with a labyrinth of rooms and due to our lack of booking, we were sat out the back of the restaurant facing the live music, which was curiously playing out the back in the garden. No-one else in the restaurant could really hear it! We were sitting by a couple of goose-bump-inducing open windows which meant that the Warming Hut wasn’t really keeping its end of the bargain.
The ‘band’ was a married couple in their 60s who both played guitar but, without sounding harsh, both had pretty bad voices. The guy sounded like Neil Young but a lot worse and the girl, well…she had her own sound going on. There were a couple of awkward moments when they said, “you all know this one so sing along!” and we, (along with everyone else in earshot of the musical couple, it seems) had never heard the song in our entire lives! When it started raining, they packed up and called it a night. Hope they were just having an off night.
The torrential rain had made us second guess our decision to walk down to the Main Street but we sheltered in the icecream shop and had a hot chocolate, waiting for it to ease a little, before walking briskly up the hill, arriving home a little wetter than we’d been when we’d set off!
