Bikes, Hikes And Hummingbirds
The sun rises so early here in Colorado (5:50am this morning) so I’m always up with the birds. Sam, on the other hand, is fond of a bit of a sleep in (we are on holidays after all). This morning he had a wake up call with a difference though! At 8am he was shaken from his dreams by a fully-kilted Scotsman blowing away on his bagpipes, right outside our window! The hotel had obviously hired him to play but you do have to wonder if his musical skills would be most appreciated by the patrons at that hour on a Saturday morning?
We have to walk past a gorgeous hotel on our way into Vail Village, the Four Seasons. We decided we’d have brunch there today at their all you can eat buffet and then not have to worry about lunch. It was fantastic! Such good value and the food was delicious. We ate like kings and they even gave me a coffee to go!
The gondolas run all through the summer (we’ve noticed Americans say THE summer, not just ‘in’ summer) and we were told it would be nice to catch the Vail gondola up the mountain and walk across the “Fireweed Trail” to the Lionshead gondola ready to catch that back down. So that’s what we did! It was a beautiful hot day and the visibility from the top of the mountain was amazing. The trail across was nice and flat (not like the Booth Trail!) and a pretty easy hike through the shade of the pines. The word “hike” always conjures up for me lots of sweating, climbing and exertion while lugging a big backpack around, swigging on water as you need it. If that’s the case, this was hardly a hike; more like a stroll! We were lucky enough to see a humming bird sipping some nectar from a mountain wild flower. It was so tiny and perfect and its wings were beating a hundred miles an hour. At first glance it looked like an insect. So cute! We also saw a few squirrels and chipmunks darting around. I love the way they hop on all four legs at once!
I know I’ve said this before but the fresh flowers ALL over town are just so beautiful! There are flowers literally everywhere! I asked Sam to sum Vail up in a couple of words and one of them was “flowers”. They are hanging in pots, baskets, in window boxes, in gardens. Lovely!
Vail is definitely an active place. Being Saturday today even more people were out and about. Everyone rides around on mountain bikes- both down in Vail and also up the mountain – and there are joggers and power walkers galore. There are also walking and cycle paths EVERYWHERE and so many dog walkers out enjoying the pretty Gore Creek and taking advantage of the sunshine. Wherever you walk you can hear the rushing of the creek, splashing its way around the town. The great thing about Vail also is that all of the village areas are paved and closed off to traffic (except for the free buses) and it’s a perfect set up for pedestrians. I doubt there’d be a big market for tv dinners here! Everyone is fit and healthy and we just haven’t seen the “big” kids (or “big” families for that matter) we’ve seen in other parts of America.
After our gargantuan breakfast (well on our way to being “big” ourselves!) we weren’t too hungry by mid-afternoon but thought we’d get a quick snack at the grill at the top of the Lionshead gondola. They were advertising nachos in one size and Sam asked especially for a small serve. Well if that was the small serve, the larger one could surely have fed a small village in a 3rd world country. It was HUGE! I asked for a slider but it came with two so we ended up saving the leftovers and having them for dinner!
Walking around town today wore us out and we were feeling the heat so we decided to have a dip in the hotel pool. We were joined by a couple of kids from Utah – an 8 year old girl and her 4 year old brother. I asked the little girl what her name was and she said Molly. I was just about to tell her about my Molly when she said “you know, as in Bob Molly?” Ohhhh. Marley. Her little brother was Noah and Noah had a little bit of difficulty with the beginnings of his words. Every word started with a ‘W’ so when we first arrived he asked us if we were “wumming for a wim?” Wess we were! He looked like he had something really important to say to us but we were struggling to get it. “Where’s a wedwhip wuk in the wool”. Huh? He was getting anxious to tell us but it was no good. Then Marley came to his rescue and revealed there had been a dead chipmunk in the pool just before we’d arrived, that her dad had kindly scooped out. Great. It had been in the “weep wend”. Needless to say we stuck to the “wallow wend” and didn’t linger too long!
After our wim, er, swim, we came back to our room and watched a little American tv. So many channels but so little to watch. We had a good laugh watching re-runs of the Cosby Show and laughed even harder when we were reminded again how hilarious the American medical ads are! Honestly, why would you ever set foot into a chemist shop here? The risks are just overwhelming! We saw an ad for a dermatological cream that had the slogan: “Make the most of every moment!” but then went on to list the horrific side effects that just may befall you if you were to take the plunge and actually choose to apply this cream, even sparingly! The warnings actually take up more of the ad than the endorsement of the product. The ad encouraged you to buy the cream but then warned the prospective user: “it can lower the body’s ability to fight infections such as tuberculosis….serious, sometimes fatal events such as lymphoma or other types of cancer have happened. Blood, liver and other nervous system problems can occur as well as serious allergic reactions and new or worsening heart failure.” Wow. Make the most of every moment indeed. Don’t buy it! Another ad that gave us a chuckle was the Pepsi ad “made with REAL sugar!”
We had a lovely chat to the rest of the family on Face Time and it was great to see their smiling faces. We are missing them dearly. We’ve come across quite a few Aussies in Vail too, making us a tad homesick.
Tonight we wanted to see the sunset again from the top of the mountain so without forgetting our cameras this time, we ventured up to the summit and waited for the big red ball in the sky to fall behind the mountains. We, along with the 30 other people that were joining us in our pursuit of beauty, were certainly not disappointed. It was gorgeous!
