Our daughter Stephanie lives in Breckenridge, Colorado, so part of the plan involved spending a couple of weekends with her and her family, for a total of 13 nights. We found a reasonably priced RV park right on the edge of Breckenridge to park the RV (Reasonably priced only because this is what the local call “mud season”, the period of time in-between winter ski peak season, and summer-sports peak season).
Double knockout for two reasons:
1- Elevation – Breckenridge is at 9600ft elevation, but Stephanie’s home if further south towards Hoosier pass, and is is at 10,000 elevation. This time, having spent some time earlier during our travels at high elevations wasn’t as bad as our previous visit (no supplementary oxygen needed), but we both felt overly tired and lethargic for the duration of our stay.
2- During our visit, we had not just one, but two major snowstorms (in excess of ten inches each). As a result, we stayed at our daughter’s home, and “visited” the RV twice during the week to ensure that there heating system was still working (check that propane tanks were not empty)
As a result of all that, plans to do a day trip to Rocky Mountain National Park were abandoned. Still there were a lot of positives
- We spent quality time with Stephanie, Luis, Lucas and Logan
- We got to participate in the morning school drop-off and afternoon school pickup trips (unlike big cities, school isn’t canceled because of a snowfall)
- We got to see our grandkids participate in after-school swim lessons and Tae Kwon Do classes.
- We did a “Camp Gramaire – Colorado RV edition” on the Friday night, which involved pizza dinner in the RV, watching the movie “Super Mario Brothers” (a favorite of Lucas and Logan), and a sleepover in the RV
- Stephanie took us out to a fancy restaurant (Radicato) while Luis and the boys were at a hunting show.
- We ate cariboo filet (which we saw Luis prepare – fresh roadkill from a vehicular accident that Luis witnessed and was quick to obtain a state permit to salvage the meat from the dead animal)
- Many games were played, including Yahtzee, Azul and Mystic Market
- The road was dry on the day we arrived through Vail pass (10,662ft elevation)
- The road was dry on the day we left and traveled through the Eisenhower tunnel at 11,112 ft elevation (Loveland Pass)
