Snowboarding at Winter Park and Casa Bonita,

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On Friday night, the 18th, I flew into Denver where I met up with Montserrat. Montse had never been skiing before, but was willing to go. One of the few who were willing to, even with a free condo thrown in, what is wrong with people? Montse is a friend from Mexico, who now lives in San Francisco. She is adventurous and a ton of fun, and made a great addition to the trip. We waited for, what seemed like hours, for my board to come around and met Steve outside of the airport. After we loaded up we made the 45 minute or so drive to Steve and Erin’s place. (Steve and Erin are friends from Omaha. Steve used to work with me and I met Erin through Steve. They both attended Creighton and got married two years ago in June. Great people, I have missed them since they moved to Denver, which was about the same time they got married.) I had to suffer through Steve and Montse talk about the TV show Modern Family, which was a reoccurring theme on the trip. Mercifully we made it to Steve and Erin’s place. The two had bought a house this past summer and this was my first time seeing it. It is a huge three story house that they are in the process of remodeling. I man most excited for the basement to be finished; Steve has big plans to turn it into an extremely legitimate man-cave. Their place is a bit of a drive from the city. I wouldn’t really call it the country, but not too far off. It offers a gorgeous view of the mountains and there was a deer just chilling in the back yard the night we arrived.

After we received a tour of the house from our gracious hosts we headed out to Casa Bonita, the Disney Land of Mexican Restaurants. Luckily for us it was not too busy on this Friday night. The Disney Land-esque queue line was nearly nonexistent. The place is tucked away in an unobtrusive strip mall with décor that is amazingly cheesy Mexico themed circa 1970. The food is overpriced and subpar at best. But no one goes there for the food, save the sopapillas, which brings me to another reoccurring theme of this trip, the honey. The margaritas were garbage as well. The reason people go is for the cliff divers, Black Bart’s cave, Mariachi, and the gorilla sketch. Yes, they have cliff divers inside of this restaurant. And food is the only cost for admission. South Park does a great job with their depiction on the place: http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/collections/action/176600.

After we had the chance to experience Casa Bonita we drove back to the house and tore up some Rock Band. If you know me, you understand this to be one of my favorite pastimes. Yes, I am a loser. After jamming out for a few songs we made our way to the living room, lit a fire and continued to hang out well passed the one o’clock hour.

I woke up pretty early the next morning and decided to do some reading and play some Christmas music. It was pretty relaxing. We packed four of us and all of our stuff into one vehicle and headed out. We had gone maybe four houses when we came upon five or six deer just chilling out in one of the neighbor’s front yard. Crazy. After we picked up some provisions we were heading up the mountains.

Our party stopped in Idaho Springs to have some “Colorado Style” pizza at a place called Beau Jo’s. There was a bag piper playing Christmas music on the street as we walked up, I really wanted to get a photo, but we were all hungry from a combination of crappy Mexican food the night before and skipping breakfast. So we sit down and order a couple of pitchers and this honey/cheese bread appetizer. Don’t judge, the stuff is amazing. Evidently Colorado Style pizza means a ton of crust but comes with a honey bear to turn the crust into dessert. Pretty stellar concept. After lunch we squeezed back into the RAV and take off for Winter Park.

The condo is amazing. Two bedrooms, two bath, fire place, fantastic appliances, and the kicker, a private hot tub. After unloading and settling in we had a few beers and relaxed for a bit. We stayed in and made dinner that night before heading over to Buckets. Buckets is an awesome bar that is in the basement of a Conoco station, but it is so much more than that. It is a movie theatre, a laundry mat, and an arcade as well. The place is great… problem is, the place wasn’t Buckets anymore. It was some crappy, trying to be fancy, stupid ass frat bar called Ulrrs. The place had been remodeled, they added pool tables and a second bar, but had taken out the arcade. It was tough to even recognize it as the same place. There was some hippy DJ playing some crappy techno music that made me want to shoot myself in the face. As soon two white guys got up on stage and started rapping to Blister in the Sun we were ready to get the eff out of there. Back at the condo we broke out Uno Stack’em, which is a cross between Uno and Jenga. Pretty fun game, we had been drinking so things got a bit ridiculous, but turned into a fun night. Snowboarding tomorrow!

We kind of had a late start to the morning, made it to the mountain and Montse rented herself some snow-blades, short skis that are easy to learn on. Once we were done we hit the mountain. I love snowboarding and it was a great day out. It didn’t take Montse very long to get the hang of it and Steve and Erin were definitely good to go. It was a great day; we made a run on the Winter Park side and then headed up to Mary Jane. After a trip down we took a break, watched part of the Broncos game and had a Mary Jane ale, only served on the mountain. We made two more runs and called it a day.
Once back at the condo we had ourselves a little hot tub party, we took some beers out with us and hopped in. No one really brought swimsuits so they were modest at first, with a little liquid courage underwear worked out just fine. After a shower, and for some of us, a quick nap, we had dinner and decided to check out some place different. We headed across the street to a place called The Pub. Much closer to what we were looking for. The Pub is kind of a dive, everybody in the place was wasted, they had crazy shit on the TV’s, there were two girls having an argument, one of them was crying. More what one would expect from a ski town. Erin is convinced that I almost got her into a girl fight with some of my snide remarks about a couple of the other patrons, but I have my doubts. ;-) We headed home pretty early where we proceeded to have our own little dance party, and perform physical challenges. We also discovered Steve’s affinity for Riverdance. It ended up being a really fun night.

Second day on the slopes started out a bit rocky. We drove straight to the base of Mary Jane and headed up. The group was complaining a bit about some minor soreness from the day before. Up we went and down we started without any incident, but Erin ended up taking a spill and hitting her head. I thought that was going to be the end of her day. We decided to take and early break and hung out at the base, I had some hot chocolate and Frangelico and Steve had a couple more of the Mary Jane ales. After a little reprieve we decided to head up again. The weather was gorgeous and I am glad we went back up, it was so clear that one could see for miles. The mountains were beautiful and the sun was shining, it was a great day to be out. Erin made two more runs, Steve, Montse and I made three. It was one of my best days out ever.

Back at the condo, we followed the same basic routine, hot tub and drinks, Montse didn’t join us this time, shower and changed, but this was our last night we decided to head over to Hernando’s for pizza. There was 45 minute wait and it was just across the street so we headed back to the condo and continued to drink. I had bought a bottle of Tequila, just a little one, so I had everyone doing shots. Something called a tequila popper. They are good… real good. We got fairly inebriated and headed back over to Hernando’s and once again partook in some Colorado Style pizza. Steve has this thing where he is convinced that I look like Val Kilmer, aka Iceman. So we had that discussion at dinner even pulling up pictures and showing the waitress, who funnily enough is from the same neighborhood that Steve and Erin just moved to. Dinner was a lot of fun. After we finished we decided that we wanted more booze, so we started our walk which was about three quarters of a mile away, we walked past a gas station because they only served 3.2 beer. We arrived at the liquor store at 9:58, they closed at 10:00 but the doors were locked and the guy inside said that he couldn’t help us because he had already shut down and needed to catch a bus. B-U-Z-Z K-I-L-L. So we made our way back to the Conoco station, which had also closed in the mean time. Ughhh!!!

We happened upon a sports bar that was right in front of our condo where I tried to purchase off-sale. Turns out no one in Colorado knows what off-sale is. What Steve found, being a little more inquisitive than myself, is that they had $1.00 PBRs. Sold. So we drank, put some money in the juke box, ran into Mrs. Clause, aka Cathy. I met a girl from Lima, Peru who I told that I wanted to see Machu Picchu and Cusco; she said that she could help me out. Pretty excited about that. We made our own little dance party in the bar, playing songs that we had been singing the entire trip like Mrs. Officer by Lil Wayne, Last Christmas by Wham, and various others. It was another successful bar night that ended with more dance party at Uno Stack’em at the condo.

The next day we cleaned up from the night before, the place was a bit of a disaster. I felt like complete garbage, but we somehow managed to get out of there on time. The ride back was pretty uneventful and much quieter with everyone hung over. Steve and Erin dropped us off at the airport. I flew home to a blizzard in Omaha and Montse flew on to San Antonio to see her family. I had a great long weekend. I always love seeing Steve and Erin. Can’t wait for next time.

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Photos

Erin, Steve and I
Behind the waterfall at Casa Bonita

Mariachi
The Mariachi at Casa Bonita. The only song I heard them sing was happy birthday.

Steve
and his moustache

Honey Bear
The honey bear at Beau Jo's. I think Montse wanted to steal it. ; )

Beau Jo's
Colorado Style Pizza at Beau Jo's

Top of Mary Jane
Erin, Montserrat

King of the Mountain
Heading down the mountain

View from the top
It was a gorgeous day

Mrs. Clause
From Freestyles

Comments

[Sara G]

ahh home =)
I had no idea you were still writing in your blog..I will have to check it out here and there...Glad you had a good time in CO. Beau Jo's is one of my favorites...I can't say I like Casa though..The next winter I am in town you will have to come to winter park, my friend has an amazing condo eh!!