Keeping up with the Manssons: Colorado Snowy Spring Break

Silly Kids

This year Andrew talked me into going to Colorado for Spring Break to let the kids have a true Snow Vacation Experience. Well, we definitely got it.

The weather was not super cooperative and we had a long drive to Leadville. About 12 hours driving door to door. We also took a longer stop mid-day in Farmingham, NM at a mall with a bounce house place. This was to let the kids get out and run around a bit. It worked out very nice and the kids did awesome in the car. Thanks mostly to the new tablets they got for Christmas. Jillian mostly watched My Little Pony. And Henry pretty much played Minecraft. We were fortunate enough that it didn't start snowing until we were only about 90 miles from Leadville. Unfortunately, it was very slow going from that point, being that we were in the mountains and my car does not have 4 wheel drive. So it took us about 13.5 hours to get there. The kids didn't get antsy until the end of the ride, so it was a win for us!

Beautiful Colorado Mountains

Since Leadville is at altitude, it is actually the highest incorporated town in the USA, I wanted to be sure that we had a few days to acclimate before we started doing anything too strenuous. The kids and Andrew Spent the first day building a snow fort in the back yard. The weather was warm and they were not predicting any snow for the week. Then we ventured farther towards Denver and caught a showing of the movie Zootopia. Which is always an experience with my kids. They love the theory of going to the movie theater, nice big screen, popcorn...but the actuality of it is that neither of my kids like movies. So, Henry didn't like the movie (or so he says), and Jillian was very VERY nervous and kept asking "What's going to happen?" and she wanted to leave a few times...but we actually made it though without leaving the theater, although the other movie goers probably would not have been sad to see us go. I thought the movie was well done, but not necessarily a great kids movie. It was a good lazy day.

Tubing

The next day, still trying to take it easy we went over to Copper Mountain and went tubing on their tubing hill. I have never been tubing before and I don't really like sledding (too much jarring and compression on my body) so I had to pep talk myself up that it was going to be a good time. Much to my surprise, it was a lot of fun. We could all go down together. Which meant that Andrew and I had to hold on with all our might as the force encountered on the way down was quite intense. The tubes helped cushion the bumps and the conveyor belt up to the top is the ONLY way to tube. After a couple of times down, we were brave enough to send the kids down by themselves. The LOVED it. I don't think you can go faster (since you have more mass when you have 4 people together), but they got to do it all by themselves. Which is always more fun! Plus, the weather was sunny for most of the morning. Only towards the end of our tubing day did the clouds start to roll in. This also meant that they changed the weather forecast and they said they were expecting a dusting to an inch of snow by morning. Which would be perfect because it was going to be the kids first day of snowboarding.

Waiting for Lesson

Unfortunately, depending on your viewpoint, as the day progressed they kept changing the amount of snow we were going to get by morning. We already paid for the snowboard lessons, so we were going up the mountain, snow or not. By morning we had about 6 inches of snow. Our house was situated at the bottom of a fairly steep hill, and the main road was at the top of the hill. Since we were on a 'side street' the road was plowed, but no sand was put down. This made for a very interesting attempt to try to get up the hill. We eventually went all the way down to the bottom and cut over on a side street to a more heavily traveled road (one with a light!) and we were on our way. The storm was just ending but the snow was blowing everywhere. This made our 15 minute drive to the ski resort about an hour long. We were planning on about 45 minutes to drive and get the kids to their lesson...so we just barely made it. I think most of the other people were also slightly delayed so it didn't seem like the kids missed anything. While to kids had their lesson, Andrew and I donned our gear and tried to remember how to ski/snowboard. Andrew rented skis and I had my snowboard (which is going to need some repairs if we continue our snowy breaks). There was SO much powder on the mountain. Like enough that you could not see your feet when you were going down the hill. This means that my quad was on fire because I had to lean so far back in order to keep my tip up. But it was nice because the couple of times I did catch an edge, the falls didn't hurt. The kids like snowboarding, but I could tell that falling was not their favorite thing. Plus I am not sure if the guy teaching the lesson really did that great of a job.

Hot Springs

The next day, we woke up to another 3 inches of snow. The kids really wanted to just stay and play in the back yard, but I made them go to a hot springs. My sore legs needed some rejuvenation if we were going to have another day of the slopes. The kids ended up loving the hot springs (they are my kids!) and Andrew...not so much. It would have been way more pleasant if there was not a freezing cold wind that kept blowing. We spent a few hours here and it was a natural spring, but didn't smell like sulfa. Plus we ended in the Sauna, which may have been my AZ kids favorite. Nothing like sitting in burning hot dry air to make you feel like home :-)

Top of the mountain

The next day, he had about 3 more inches of snow and we left super early for the kids ski lessons. But since the storm had passed and it was only 3 inches, the roads were in much better condition. We got there with plenty of time to spare. The kids did an all day lesson and Andrew and I did the $30 Thursday ticket and we had a great time. Except for the wind, yet again. The front side of the mountain had a steady frigid wind (almost enough to stop you from going down the mountain...although that could have been aided by the fact that I need to wax my board). The back side was lovely. So we stayed pretty much to the back side of Ski Cooper, which I still believe is one of Colorado's best kept secret. There were no lines for the lifts, the cafeteria was quick, the people you encounter are in good spirits...just a great place to ski. And the fact that their lessons are about 1/3 what it would cost at Cooper mountain (which is not an expensive resort), probably will always be one of our favorites.

Snowmobiling

The last day there, we decided to spend the money and go snowmobiling. I had never been and it seemed to be 'the thing to do' when in Leadville. They have a snowmobile/zipline company right on the edge of town. It was, by far, the most expensive thing we did (I think it was as much as all the previous activities together), but it was a lot of fun. And they had a little section where the kids got to dive their own mini-snomobiles. The only problem was that it was cold. So Jillian slightly turned into a popsicle and her goggles slid down her face at the very end. Henry definitely loved it and wanted to go again. Not sure we will every do this again since it was so expensive, but we thought it was worth the experience. Afterwards, the sun came out and we were able to have an epic snowball fight in the backyard. Andrew stayed out much longer than me because I had to pack to head home.

Our Little House. Thanks VRBO!

This was also our first vacation where we rented an actual house. This was definitely a plus as we each had a bedroom and a kitchen. We brought most of our food from home and I cooked all week. Breakfast and Lunch was always at home, and we had pizza one night for dinner and we took the kids out to a restaurant twice. We all loved the food (and the kids loved eating out).

The drive back went really well. All sunny skies, the stop at the bouncy house to let the kids get their wiggles out (although they were so tired from our busy and active week, they only wanted to stay about 30 minutes), lunch on the road and not too much traffic. It was a great Vacation, although I think I still prefer the beach!