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!