Weekend in Vail

Amanda visited us for the second time this summer because she just can't get enough of this wonderful state! Who can blame her? This time, she was looking to head west to Aspen or Vail. Conveniently, Veronique and Alan have a friend in Vail who owns a condo and offered to let us stay for free. In Vail!  So as soon as Amanda arrived on Friday we grabbed dinner and headed into the mountains for another weekend adventure.

Said adventure greeted us before even arriving in Vail as we narrowly escaped death in what can only be described as my death-trap of a vehicle. (This is a good reminder for me to take the dang thing in to be fixed!) Then, after arriving safely in Vail and locating the condo unit, we heard a man's voice calling out from the bedroom wondering what the hell we were doing in the condo. Oops! Turns out more than one family member offered the condo up for use this weekend. After a lot of confusion and a few phone calls we managed to clear things up and find a place for everyone to sleep that night.

From then on things weren't quite that adventurous -- more the level of adventure we were looking for. Saturday began with breakfast at a quaint little diner (The Little Diner, ha!) in Vail Village. They have limited seating at a counter encircling their kitchen and offer delicious home-made comfort food. I thought I'd give the pannekoeken a try having never tasted one. Boy, was I in for a surprise! The Dutch version of a pancake is much larger than the American pancake. In my opinion, it's much tastier, too!

V and Alan tried the Apple Pie a la Mode Crepe after breakfast. They had to call in the reserves (Amanda and me) to help finish the delicious treat.

After gorging ourselves, we decided a hike was in order to stave off the inevitable sugar crash. We hiked up and through an Aspen forest before coming to a valley blanketed in wildflowers and surrounded by peaks. To our surprise, we also found wild raspberries! We ate as many of them as we could find. The tart taste brought me right back to childhood days spent walking down the old dirt roads near my cabin hunting for wild raspberries and blackberries. In Colorado, it's not so easy to find really fresh-tasting fruits and veggies like you'll find in the Midwest. Discovering the berries made me downright giddy with pleasure.

Stunning views all around.

In the evening we ventured out to a bowling alley/night club/restaurant in downtown Vail called Bol.  This hip spot was owned by a friend of a friend and we were treated to free drinks and great service. I love the idea of an upscale bowling alley in Vail!

On Sunday, Ben brought the pups to Vail for our second hike of the weekend. This time, we headed up to a sixty-foot waterfall. Again, an abundance of wildflowers offered more than a little eye candy along the way. The waterfall was larger than any falls I've seen in person, but unfortunately I didn't get a very good picture of them.

After the hike, Ben took my death trap home (the way I figured, less weight in the car meant less chance of crashing) and we took his jeep back to Boulder a little later. Aside from the heavy traffic coming out of the mountains, we had a really fun time up there!