Steamboat - Monday, March 22, 2010

Monday morning began with meetings. Cornbread had to attend a meeting hosted by the wholesaler that was on the trip. I stayed in the room and bought some Lady Gaga tickets for work. I joined him at 10:00 for the combined FA and Spouses meeting, which lasted until about 11:30.

Cornbread, Mark and I got out to the mountain around 1:00 after having lunch in our rooms. Cornbread and I took a step outside of the resort and immediately turned around and went back in to remove some of our under layers - it was beautiful out! The day was gorgeous. Warm and sunny, which made for some slushy snow.

The skiing was beautiful and we did the same part of the mountain as we had on Sunday, but finished up the runs that we had missed the day before. We also attempted some moguls and with the slower snow and lots of tries we were getting through them without crying.

With a half day of skiing we weren't quite as tired as the day before. We had been told that we should visit the hot springs while we were out there. The only hitch was that if we drove ourselves, we had to make sure it wasn't snowing at all as there is 2 miles of unpaved road right before the springs and if you get stuck there is a $500 fine. Otherwise, if we went with a tour group is was $30 more per person than if we drove by ourselves. We knew that snow was in the forecast for Tuesday, so we decided to try the hot springs that night. We showered up and went on our way.

The drive was beautiful and the springs were gorgeous.

There were two moose eating off of the trees about 100 yards up the mountain. We watched them for a while and then decided they were pretty boring. Cornbread asked me if he should throw some snowballs at them... not such a good idea in my opinion:)

There are 3 hot pools and one pool that mixes with the mountain stream that is cold. Some little girls (probably 10 years old) were being dared by their father to swim in the cold pool. They did. Cornbread, of course, had to try it, too. He said he could barely breathe because it was so cold. I opted not to go in!

We didn't stay at the springs for very long. It was beginning to snow and while it was absolutely beautiful, it wasn't worth $500 to get stuck on our way back. In addition, clothing is optional after dark - and there are no lights. I wanted to avoid whatever came along with that situation as much as possible:)

We grabbed some dinner at The Steamboat Smokehouse, which was fine. The food was alright and it was rather inexpensive. Out of all of our meals out there (with the exception of lunches on the mountain) it was probably our least favorite. The atmosphere was very casual - peanut shells on the floor, most locals were in cowboy hats, etc. It was here that I was convinced that we were vacationing in the land of

Spicoli's:)

While we were waiting to be seated, I watched the host do his job. I mentioned to Cornbread that one thing that I was beginning to understand about Steamboat is that all of the guys are cool. They dress cool, their hair is cool, they're good looking. This host was no exception to that. He had on the perfect pair of jeans, was built just right, had the perfectly fitting tshirt on, hair was cool and he kept putting his dish towel in the back pocket of his jeans - making him even cooler. He was probably 20ish. I was admiring him as he did his job. Then he brought us to our table. I sat down and asked him, "So, what do you like here?" And then he opened his mouth... and ruined everything;)

[insert Spicoli laugh here] "Uh, you like meat, right?" [another Spicoli laugh here].

That was enough... Cornbread and I then decided that the guys in Steamboat are cool as long as they don't open their mouths;) We heard the Spicoli laugh everywhere all week and wondered: Do people turn out that way from smoking weed OR are people who are like that naturally drawn to smoking weed? What comes first - the chicken or the egg? I told the guys (who were cool) at the ski storage place that they were a bunch of Spicoli's and they thought it was hysterical.

Seriously, dude - all about the Spicoli's.