We're looking for the trash fence...

We spent Christmas Ever through New Year's Eve at Winter Park Resort in Colorado. We chose Winter Park because the ski-able terrain resort looked immense (it is) and it had no blackout days with our Ikon Base Pass.

The whole West was suffering some from lack of snow so I didn't get to ski all the things, especially the side-country areas in Vasquez. So it was a lot of groomers which was fun and good to work the legs into shape. I put in 23K vertical feet one day.

They do a great job grooming the mountain. And because of that every lift has a Green and Blue run and most also have Diamond and Double Diamonds, so from one lift your whole group can ski what they like and then regroup at the bottom. I definitely recommend Winter Park for families and groups where everyone is not the same skill level.

Dawn took a full-day lesson one day and she really loved the instructor and the lesson. The class was focused on improving your parallel skiing. She feels like she got a lot out of it. I can also say, her skiing improved as well. (Solid skills are the foundation of a lifelong love of skiing!) The instructor was soo friendly. I ran into the class on the mountain and he took our picture. He didn't need to do that, it was very nice of him.

Ikon Pass Experience

Winter Park is a fully digital lift experience, which let's you walk up, scan your Ikon Pass trough your parka and use the lift. No need to stop by the ticket booth lines or barcode scanners. In addition, on-mountain you can pay with your Ikon Pass and get discounts on food and other purchases (t-shirts, stickers, gloves, etc.) the Ikon Pass was a great experience at Winter Park.

Travel

We flew Alaska Airlines to Denver and then took Home James Shuttle to the hotel. Flight was great, and Alaska is used to handling Skis so he whole experience was seamless.

You meet Home James Shuttle at the airport and they drop you off at your Hotel. Shuttles are High Roof passenger vans, very comfy. Easy Peasy! On your way back to the airport, the shuttles can get off schedule. I would plan to take the shuttle that is the one before the one you think you need to take. Give yourself extra time. You may think you'll have 1.5 hours when you get to the airport, but you'll end up with 50 minutes and no time to eat or whatever else you need to do. Just pad your schedule, their website will let you cut it too close.

Lodging

We stayed at the Viking Lodge. Its a very affordable lodge which at the time of our visit was also being remolded. This place is very cute and the people are super nice. I am sure once the remodel done prices will go up. Beds were comfy mail-order type memory foam mattresses. I had never slept on one of these, and was worried, but it was comfy. They offer pod-coffee in the lobby where you can also sit on coaches by the gas fireplace and read a book by the Christmas tree. It was a place to relax.

The hotel also has outdoor lockers to hold your skis. They will hold up-to 2 pairs. It was nice to have and right on your way in. I've stayed at other places where you had to go down into the basement to locker your skis which was less preferred.

Overall, I would definitely recommend the Viking to travelers who don't like to spend their whole budget on hotel rooms and when the remodel is done, I think the charm will grow exponentially!

Dining

!! FOOD DESSERT WARNING !!

If you are arriving to Winter Park after 8pm on any day, depending on your dietary needs, you may have limited or NO options to get food. We arrived on Christmas Eve and NOTHING was open. McDonald's was closed. We ate some bars we brought with us and some chips from the vending machine at the Best Western. We could have grabbed some food at the airport before we got on the Shuttle. I wish Home James or the Viking had mentioned this.

On-Mountain and In-Village

Snoasis

This place needs to be remodeled. I guess its the cheap place to eat on the mountain. I thought it was dirty and not up to the standards of the rest of the resort and the food was not interesting or good. I wish we had not gone in.

They were playing a Jazz Station from Denver on the PA outside the DJ was straight outta the Beatnik playbook. Very funny and great music!

Sunspot Mountain Top Lodge & Provisioner

I had the chicken noodle soup, solid soup soo good when its 10F outside. It was PACKED.

We had a drink one afternoon at the bar. They cannot make a Manhattan. Order a beer or something on their cocktail list.

Lunch Rock

OMG the Chicken Confit Pot Pie is soo good. Seriously. Just go and eat it. The Green Chili is also good. But order the pot pie again the next day too. ;-) It was PACKED.

Doc's Roadhouse Food good, the sausage appetizer is 3/4s of a pig I think. So plan accordingly. We sat the bar and the service was horrible, waiting for drinks, waiting to order food. It was not busy and the bartender was chatting up everyone else working instead of waiting on customers. (Bad service is a thing in Winter Park... there were lots of help wanted signs in town.)

Mary Jane Ale House

Solid Beer. Not more to say other than again... crappy service. Sitting at the bar and no they will not ask if you want anything... ever. You have to interrupt the straightening of coasters.

Vertical

Vertical has hands down the best pork chop I have ever eaten. Go there. Eat things. Be Happy. The baked Avocado was also soo good. I'm going to have to try that at home.

We again sat the the bar and it was busy but I thought this bartender did a good job keeping up. the food though was soooo good!

In Town Dining

Deno's

We prebooked (weeks ahead) a reservation for 7pm for Christmas dinner. We were given a crappy table under the stairs. Staff could NOT deal with the traffic at all. What I wanted to order (the special for tonight) was unavailable. Fine, I guess... mind you its 7pm not 10pm. So, I had to then wait 20 minutes for the waiter to come back and take our order. They do have an extensive wine list if you can afford it. I've had 1975 Mouton its not worth $800.

The food we finally did get was good but not great. My thought on Deno's is order a steak. If you don't eat steak don't go to Deno's. It seems to be what they do, it was my fault for thinking I could eat something else. (I don't usually eat steak.)

Paella's

Really good. Great Service. Staff super friendly. Best place we ate in Winter Park.

Casa Mexico

Solid Mexican. I had the Pollo Mole which was great. I'm picky about my mole. The bartender was super friendly and funny.

If you're really nice they'll give you a shot from the hoof!

The Peak Bistro and Brewery

We went on Sunday. Last Day of the Regular Season Sunday. The staff was SLAMMED although the place had just turned over 1/2 the tables (1/2 empty). Sitting at the bar did not yield faster service. I don't blame the staff on this one, clearly they lacked the people to deal with the size of this venue. The bartender was also busing tables.. The staff was nice though and I could tell they were also frustrated. Beer... very good. Food... good quality bar food. Solid. Nothing you've never had, but a solid brew-pub.

Ciao Monte

I had the lasagna, REALLY good. Also order a salad though, its not huge. It is the right serving you should eat. You just might also want a salad.

Dawn had a salad that looked nothing like the photo and it was extremely boring and meh. I think all their photos are from stock photos and not of their actual food. Read the descriptions carefully.

The Perk

Great coffee comfy seating. All you need. They share space with a high-end outdoor retail shop so you can look at that too.

Other Places

Green Spaces Co-Working

We need to put in a day of work so we hit up the Green Spaces co-working. The place is super functional, the guy working the desk was very nice. Everyone was wearing their Everest expedition down jackets because it was cold. The exposed concrete in the couch alcoves and the exposed metals beams were the s ame temperature as outside (it was 6F or maybe 12F that day). I think the place is new, I'm sure they'll fix that.

Otherwise, we were very happy with the network and the coffee. Dawn had phone meetings the phone booths were great. They had these suction cup desks on the window so you could also stand up if you wanted. I liked the space, it just needs a couple tweaks.

The Foundry (Movies and Bowling)

We just walked through here and it was adorable inside. Newly renovated the place is done very well and it was very busy\popular. I wish we had time to bowl, it looked fun!

We're trying to balance the bags and keep them under the weight limits. 15 hours till take-off!

I am really far behind on blog posts due to the lack of good internet. So here is Flagstaff's blog post...but we are currently in Nashville, TN.

We were happy to get the hell outta Phoenix after record 113 degree temps sent us quickly heading north to Flagstaff. We were even more excited that it gave us an opportunity to spend some time with our friend Karin. After climbing from 1,500 feet in elevation to over 7,500 feet we enjoyed the greener more lush landscape and much lower temps that Flagstaff had to offer. We decided to stay at another KOA, KOA Flagstaff, which makes our third KOA on this trip so far. It was clean and beautiful with the added feature of being just feet away from some of the best hiking in the world. Karin was very gracious and took us on a little tour of downtown Flagstaff. I have never been so I thoroughly enjoyed it. Flagstaff is my kinda town. Karin warned that it has very strong gravitational pull and I totally agree. There are tons of people out and about on bikes and walking around just enjoying the outdoors. It has some awesome paved trails that lead in and out of downtown and follow the historical Route 66! It was so great to spend some QT with Karin and meet her roommate and doggies. Karin is a huge outdoor enthusiast and she graciously gave me a list of recommended trails to try for my morning run. So the next morning, it was bright and sunny and I was rearing to hit the trails. The KOA backs right up to the Elden Lookout trail and the Fatman’s Loop Trail. The trail climbs 2,500 feet in about 3 miles and ends right on top of Mount Elden at the Peaks Ranger station. I started out running and scampering up the many many switchbacks. The views were spectacular and so breath-taking that I had to stop and take a few pictures. I ran up the trail until it got so steep that I had to climb over big rocks and up stairs. I made it up there in one hour and ten minutes! So for those friends back in Seattle, Mt. Elden is about the same elevation as Camp Muir on Mount Rainier. I took in the amazing views of downtown Flagstaff and could even see Meteor Crater in the distance. After some rest and pics I descended the trail quickly and made it back to the trail head in one hour. But man, were my quads screamin’! And I loved every minute of it!  After we spent some time with Karin we decided to visit the Lowell Observatory.  If you don't know what the Lowell Observatory is, it is the place where Pluto was discovered back in 1930!  Man it was so cool.  Pea and I spent several hours there walking around from lecture to lecture and movie to movie.  The volunteers that work there are absolutely wonderful and engaging.  My favorite part of the tour was seeing the Clark Refracting telescope, built in 1896 for \$20,000!  Today it is still used for education purposes.  We also got to see the telescope that Clyde Tombaugh used to discover Pluto in 1930.  After we spent hours walking around the campus we were told that we could stick around until after dark and look through some of the telescopes!  Once they set everything up we were able to look through the Clark telescope to view the M11 Wild Duck Cluster, which is an open cluster formation of over 2,900 stars which are about 220 MILLION YEARS old!  Amazing...then we got to look through another telescope to see the globular cluster M13 in the Hercules constellation and Vega, the brightest star in the Lyrae cluster.  But the best part was seeing Saturn's rings and it's moon, Titan!  I can't even describe to you how breath-taking it was to see the rings so vividly.  Pea asked the volunteer if he had any newspaper for me to stand upon (insinuating that I would pee the floor from my excitement...very funny Pea).  As Karin mentioned, Flagstaff has a very strong gravitational pull…and she is right. We are going to stop back in Flagstaff after we leave the Grand Canyon.

Pea and I were looking forward to going to the Grand Canyon, it wasn’t originally on our planned route but since it is only an hour’s drive outside of Flagstaff it was the perfect opportunity to visit it.  Pea was very much looking forward to seeing one of the biggest holes in the ground in the world. As he so eloquently put it, “You know how I love me some huge hole!”

[] You know he is wondering how long it is going to take him to fill it.

[] There is nothing like the awesome size of the Grand Canyon.

We left Calistoga and decided to skip Hearst Castle as I was antsy to start heading East. So, we headed for Phoenix, AZ to see the Chitwoods. I've known Matt AKA T.O.M. AKA The Original Matt since I was in 3rd grade and lived at 865 Lafayette Drive, Mt. Laurel, NJ. Without a doubt Chitwood is the person who I've known the longest. His parents also live in Phoenix and I really wanted to see his mom as well.

It took two days to get to Phoenix which let us have our first ONP experience (Overnight Parking) at a WalMart in San Bernadino. It was definitely not glamorous, but it was convenient and just what we needed. Sleep. No fees. The next day we drove on to Phoenix and with every passing desert mile it was clear we were approaching the center of the sun. It ended up being a record 115F in Phoenix that day!!! Did I mention the engine based AC in our motorhome doesn't work?!?! We tried to run the overhead AC, which means running the generator as we drive, but it couldn't even put a dent in the heat.

Matt and his wife Anne were kind enough to put us up for the night in their air conditioned guest room. Anne made an awesome pasta dinner, we met their kids Allison, Ryan and Jacob who I'd never met. Mom made a stop in, which was awesome. And even Matt's little sister Susie was ther with her two kids and one on the way were in attendance. It was great to catch up with old friends and see how well they were doing.

With the heat-wave in the SW going to continue until the rapture, we bailed on our plans to go to Roswell, NM. The RV just can't deal with the heat and neither can we! It was so friggin' hot the referigerator couldn't keep up either and we lost all of the food. Luckily the refrigerator isn't that big and the freezer did ok. So, after a great healthy mediteranean lunch at Pita Jungle (horrible name) with Matt, we immediately headed North to the cooler highter de of Flagstaff AZ.

Thanks again to Matt and Anne for a great visit!

Matty is the CWO, Chief Wine Officer, aboard Deep Playa and planned out an entire day and a half trip in wine country California. He had already planned to be in town on a Wednesday for work so he drove up to Sonoma where we met him and visited our first winery, Hanzell. The next day we had a full itinerary:

• Chateau Montelena
• Inglenook
• Charles Krug
• Keever Vineyards

Hanzell is absolutely gorgeous and our host Zakk, who happened to be a Burner, was very funny and gracious in answering Dawn and my rudimentary questions. The tour of the property was amazing. We happened to visit while estate workers were 'netting' the vines to keep the birds from stealing the precious crop. It is always nice to witness the wine making process first-hand so we can learn. In particular, Zakk happily geeked out and educated us on soil composition, how the age of the vines changes the characteristics of the wine and how the vines are trimmed and shaped to protect and encourage the grapes to yield their best. Of the wines we tasted, I really liked the Chardonnay. It had a very big mouth feel for a white, something I like in my reds. I'm probably not explaining this correctly, but I believe this is due to the controlled secondary fermentation process used at Hanzell, which produces a very viscous and creamy mouth feel. This controlled fermentation was invented at Hanzell in the 1960s. If I got that right, Zakk gets the credit, if I got it wrong, blame me.

At Chateua Montelena, the vineyard famous for producing the Chardonnay that took first price at the 1976 Paris Tasting. Which put Californian wines on the map and raised its reputation around the world. We were lucky enough to meet with Jeff Adams, the director of marketing at Montelena. He gave a beautiful tour of the vineyard and private residence and we able to taste their Estate wines. Along the tour, we even bumped into and were introduced to Bo Barret!! He was quick with a funny quip about the movie featuring him and his wines (Bottle Shock). It was very nice of him to stop and take a second to say hello. The Chardonnay at Montelena was interesting because they do not intervene during the fermenation process as they do at Hanzell. They allow the natural fermentation to occur and let nature take care of the rest. It was very delicious, but so much different. I could feel my wine education beginning! The Chateau Montelena Chardonnay and Henzell Chard would be great to taste side by side, but unfortunately, we downed the bottle we bought the night before. Our favorite red we tried was the 2005 Estate Cabernet Sauvignon. It was a very big wine and had a nice smooth mellow finish on the pallete. This wine also has opportunity to mature even further as it ages. I hope Matty has some of these in his cellar!

We had some time before our appointment at Charles Krug, so we ran down the road to Inglenook. Inglenook is both famous for its history, its wines and its owner, Francis Ford Copolla. The property is straight out of the movies. It was stunning with lots of old world charm and sweeping views of the valley. We went here principally to look around the grounds, but we also drank a bottle of Edzionne Zinfadel, a wine we were familiar with. We enjoyed the film exihibits in the Chateau with a glass of wine... heaven!

The next in the massive lineup was Charles Krug. It is a special vineyard for me because Matty has been kind enough to share some of his older bottles when we went to dinner for my bachelor party. I was very excited to visit the tasting room. We did a very thorough tasting and in all honesty, I had to stop and dine on some water crackers and water several times because I was getting pallet fatigue and wasn't getting the same signals everyone else was getting. Throughout the day I learned that my pallet may not be ready for tanins and I definitely was learning that at Krug as well. Our host was even nice enough to warn me at one point about a wine she referred to as ole' Tannin-bomb. ;-) We did buy a bottle of the Zinfandel Port. We do like ports, and this was so unique we had to have on for our RoadTrip this summer.

Finally we visited Keever Vineyards, our host Ashley was the nicest person and I felt more like we were getting a tour of her family's passion and being invited into their home than a place of business. The tasting and tour at Keever were combined and we we able to linger more with each glass as we toured the production facility, the cave and the property. Much like Zakk and Jeff, Ashley indulged our questions and rolled with out jokes. At the end we all sat in the entrance lounge for a while as she and Dawn discussed different health topics and Matty and I plotted how many bottles of Keever's Inspirado we would buy! Many of the wines we tasted throughout the day were really glimpses into the wine making process and were meant to be stored for several years. Keever's Inspirado was ready to drink now, but could be cellered for some time as well. I wish we could have bought a case and watched it evolve over time. Since we'll be keeping ours in the barely temperature controlled Land Yacht we'll be enjoying our bottle much sooner than that!

Thank you so much to Matty, and the friends he hit up for favors, for making our first wine tasting in California so magical. We will definitely be back and we can't wait!

We spent a couple of days enjoying the Redwoods. That allowed Dawn to go on a run through the trees and for us to take what amounted to a 20 mile round trip bike ride on the Avenue of the Giants with three pretty steep climbs on the way back. I would have been happy on my old race bike from college, on these beach cruisers we have it was pretty much a death march. I was VERY happy to see the RV Park come into view because I was dead and I actually thought we had another climb to go. I did survive and Dawn was happy to go on a bike ride.

Next we made a quick stop in Santa Rosa, CA home of the Russian River Brewery. They don't have a tour but they have our favorite beer, Pliny the Elder! They also have an amazing sampler tray of 22 different beers! Dawn and I split that and Pliny was still our favorite. For our Settle Pliny brethren, Pliny is \$4.50 a bottle in CA not the \$8.50 I remember paying in Seattle!

We visited with Zander and Gwen in Sausalito and met their beautiful daughter Decima. We'd never been able to stop in Sausalito on the way down in Deep Playa, so a Land Yacht visit was a nice consolation. Now I really wish we'd stopped by, the anchorage along Sausalito would have been very cozy! We spent a day seeing the sites in SF. Coit Tower, Long Now Foundation, Fisherman's Wharf, Aquatic Park Museum all on foot! It was a good day of walking. We then walked back to SOMA and met up with Brady and Mollie at Brady's new loft. Absolutely amazing space Brady is well setup!

Next Stop Oakland to see Paul and Erin originally hailing from Seattle, but Paul is now a shipwright in Oakland working on wooden boats. We met at Heinold's First and Last Chance Saloon home to Jack London and sailors of all kinds. Paul and Erin are doing great and it was good to catch-up with old sailor\drinking buddies.

While in Oakland, I also made a stop at Ham Radio Outlet and got the rest of the gear for the radio in the Land Yacht. I'll save that for the W7PEA Blog.

The Bay Area was great and we were lucky to meet so many friends, next stop Wine Country.

LandYacht KOA Kent, WA

We finally made it out of Seattle!! We were recovering all morning from last nights bon voyage party and ran more errands this afternoon, including another stop at Matty's house to use the shower and drop off a few things.

Thanks to everyone who cam down to Golden Gardens for the send off, it was a great spot and Dawn and I were happy to see everyone! We can't wait to see you all soon, maybe on the road, maybe in Mexico, or some other exotic location! We miss you all already!

After running errands including get a bike rack and some more tools from Harbor Freight it was almost 8pm so we decided to head to the Seattle\Tacoma KOA Campground 12 miles away in Kent. We just got back from taking a walk through the place, and while the setup is very compact, there are a lot of amenities, including a heated pool, showers, large chess and checker boards, dog park. Its pretty nice. The place is packed too.

Of course no blog entry from me would be complete without a project or two. Two days we used the shower for the first time and immediately after we noticed water dripping out from under the coach. After a little online research and digging around under the shower floor, i figured out the shower pan sags enough with an adult in it that the p-trap bears all the weight. This lead to the p-trap becoming cracked and thus the leaks. We bought a new p-trap and I installed it shortly after we arrived here in Kent. When it dries out under there, I'll cut two pieces of 3/4" plywood to add additional bracing.

It feels good to finally be on the road. Road Trip 2012 is underway!!

First off let me say we have no immediate plans or dates or tickets or destinations or anything yet, but I can tell you we will be touring the US this summer.

Dawn and I both had not been looking forward to going back to the Sea of Cortez for the summer and we were both not looking forward to the oppressive heat anywhere in Mexico. I was not excited about leaving the Pacific Coast of Mexico to go to the waveless and surfless Sea of Cortez. I’m not that into snorkeling and haven’t been very impressed with it anywhere (in the world) so I wasn’t excited about that as a trade-off. Dawn was probably more into that, but she (and I) were also a bit homesick for the US. Neither of us were very excited about making more overnight passages just to get North to avoid storm season. That’s kind of the why’s behind all this…

SO…. we decided we’re going to put the boat in Marina Riviera Nayarit (AKA Marina La Cruz) at some point this summer, fly somewhere in the US, buy a crappy RV or a Bus and do some visiting, see some places we might want to live, etc.. The official Storm Season is 1 June – 31 Oct, but we probably won’t leave Mexico till closer to July. Weather is still pretty benign, not yet oppressively hot or humid surf is still good and we will have some to-do’s to do to decommission the boat.

Anyway, just wanted to let y’all know that and when we know when and where we’re headed we will let you know!