March 14 - 22, 2014 - Spring Break in Steamboat, Colorado

Spring Break 2014

14 – 22 March 2014 – Driving from Des Moines, Iowa to Steamboat Springs, Colorado and Back

Based on this blog, you might assume we would have had enough of driving west and east bound highways this past summer. When we first entered Nebraska again on Friday, March 14, I felt as if we had never left. But, this trip was only 12 hours of driving and we split it up over two days. We also had five good days of winter fun in between the two sets of driving days. So, it did not feel like we spent our whole holiday driving – luckily.

After dropping Alle off at the DSM airport on Friday morning, we packed the boys, two bags of food, a cooler and two bags of clothes each (one bag of ski clothes and one bag of “regular” clothes) into the van and headed west. We drove through Iowa and most of Nebraska and spent the night in Sidney, NE. We braved blowing snow and interesting winter weather along the Continental Divide, all the way through Wyoming. The route from Laramie, WY to Steamboat, CO is a mellow, fairly high, but not very busy highway which takes about two and a half hours. We arrived at Steamboat Springs early Saturday afternoon; here's our first view from the car.  

We stayed at a very close-in condo, right near the Ski School for the boys and near the bottom of the gondola at the base of Steamboat for us to start each day of skiing. 

We had time to unpack Saturday afternoon and I had time to take my old boots to Surefoot to get new ortho-liners.  The last time I went skiing was five years ago. Two years prior to that, I had bought new ski boots. But, since then, I have been pregnant with the boys, had a serious hip injury and have not been skiing. I was wondering if I would ever be able to ski again.

Long story short, my skiing “memory” came back and the skiing was great. The boys did four days of ski school. They skied twice a day for four days and although we would have liked them to ski a bit more, they had fun. They learned how to wedge, stop and turn on a “bunny” slope with other four year olds. Ricardo and I tried out all of the intermediate runs on all sides of the various mountains of Steamboat. Amazingly enough, the weather at Steamboat was warmer, sunnier, and with more snow than in Iowa. On our second night, Steamboat got about seven inches of new powder. We had the nicest skiing conditions we have had in recent memory for our last two days of skiing. We found sunny, warm slopes with lovely powder and skied them all day.

In addition to skiing, we had other adventures in our afternoons and evenings. Steamboat also has natural hot springs. We visited the public hot springs one afternoon to sit in the rejuvenating mineral hot pools, which were about 105F. One of our evenings, we took a two horse sleigh ride to a ranch for a cowboy dinner and music night. Here's one of the sleighs arriving.

The two man band played lots of sing along music, which the boys really enjoyed. The ride back in the sleigh under a clear starlit sky was particularly beautiful.

On our last morning in Steamboat, the four of us went dog sledding with Sara and Kris Hoffman of the Grizzle-T Dog Sled Works. Sara and Kris have about 120 dogs they care for and Kris is working towards another Iditarod race. They drove us to a trail in the Routt National Park near Flattop Mountains. We mushed one of four sleds.

I was the driver for five miles in on the trail and Ricardo was the driver on the way out. The boys rode in the sled. We had a great time. The dogs were super friendly, loved the boys, and were very excited to be running. I have had a chance to drive a dog sled before, but never for such a long time. Once the dogs start running, it is a meditative and relaxing experience; the only challenge is getting them to stop! The scenery with river and mountain views was beautiful.

We left Steamboat for home on Friday and stopped over in Kearny, NE, before arriving back in Des Moines, Iowa on Saturday afternoon.  No snow in Iowa, but it has been more bitterly cold than in Colorado. Spring skiing can feel like a warm Spring Break!

January 4 - 9, 2014 - Stranded on Captiva Island, Florida

“Stranded” on Captiva Island, Florida

January 4 – 9 , 2014

For the second year in a row, right after New Year’s, we have left the Christmas mess in our house behind and flown down for a long weekend in Florida. Ricardo has an annual executive team meeting and he rents a large house on Captiva Island for a week. The team only needs the house for part of the week, so we use it (and pay for part of it) for the long weekend. This year, we wanted also to take our cousin and exchange student, Luisa down to show her some of the warm part of the US before she had to return to Germany. It was also the week before final exams for the girls, so we thought they could have some quiet time to relax and study (which didn't happen until the flights home).

We all left Iowa one freezing cold winter’s day and flew on a non-stop flight to St Pete’s small airport in Florida. We loved arriving and walking off the outside stairs of the airplane into warm air. We ran to the bathrooms in the baggage area and changed into shorts and t-shirts from our carry-on bags. After we picked up our luggage, we walked outside to feel the balmy air. Even Florida’s winter is warmer than any weather we have in January in Iowa.

We rented a car and drove to the Lazy Lobster near Sarasota to meet my father’s sister, my Aunt Em and her husband, Uncle Bill for dinner. We love to see them and visiting in a restaurant on our way south is an easy way for them to see all six of us. Aunt Em has recently had back surgery and seemed like a new person; she was energetic and vibrant. We have a fun meal and even after flying, the boys were in good spirits. We had another hour or two to drive after dinner to pick up groceries and make our way south to Fort Myers and then west to Sanibel and then Captiva Island.

We stayed at a spacious, modern house situated just over the bridge from Sanibel on the narrow part of the island where it is only wide enough for the road and a house with land on either side of the road. We are on the Bay side or east side of the road. Down our long drive and across the main road, there is a path and the lovely Gulf beach.

The Captiva beach is one long stretch of sand and we rarely see more than a handful of other people on it.

It is remote, private and quiet and we love to be there.

It’s also the home of many native shore birds and birds of prey. Our part of the island looks uninhabited when we gaze out to the Bay; 

all we can see are pelicans, hawks, bald eagles, blue herons, and various sea-loving birds.

We were going to stay here Saturday through Tuesday, but on Monday the extremely cold weather hit in Chicago and the east coast and our flights back to Iowa were cancelled. So, we were “stranded” on Captiva Island for two extra days. If one is going to be stranded anywhere, Captiva is a great place to be stranded. We also got the cold weather; it did get down to 45F one night and we had to turn the heat on in the house. But temperatures in the 60s in the tropics are still better than 20 below in Iowa and it was nice to be here.

We visited our favorite ice cream shop on Sanibel almost daily, Poco Loco, which is near Jerry’s Market in a small mall. One afternoon when it was too cold to swim, we hung around a set of restaurants and shops on Captiva at the only four way stop in “town” on the island.

Mostly, we enjoyed our small, heated pool, walked to the Gulf beach to look for seashells on the world’s best seashell beaches (Sanibel and Captiva),

and wandered along the long, empty stretches of sand to watch the waves and sunset.